Twelve years. That was how long it had been since I last visited China. After twelve years, I finally saw my cousin Joe again.
The day started slowly. I was exhausted from the week and probably still a bit jet lagged, so I slept in. I woke up around noon and finally decided to head out and find Canon’s repair center here in Shanghai. Luckily for me, it was easy to find. There was an entrance to the Yalong International Plaza, where it was located, from the Metro station. My wish came true when I found out almost everyone there working for Canon speaks English. Canon couldn’t tell me what was wrong with my camera without having their engineers look at it, so I left my camera with them. At the very least, the repair will cost 420 RMB if they don’t have to replace any parts. Unfortunately, I read that the type of error I got was likely a main board failure, which means I will need a replacement part of some sort. Bummer.
Since I spent only half an hour at Canon, I had more than three hours to kill before meeting up with my cousin. I decided to eat lunch at McDonald’s. Like KFC the day before, I just wanted to try it. I had a double cheeseburger meal. It doesn’t necessarily taste better here in China. In fact, it tasted more bland, but I guess that’s what happens when there’s less grease. The cheese kind of tasted like nothing though.
After I ate, I just walked around the area. It’s a good thing I did because I found an HSBC! I finally found one after it eluded me for an entire week. The area is pretty new and modern looking and later I found out it was near Xintiandi, so that explains why. It was a warm day, so I didn’t feel like walking around too much. I sat down at a local park and was there until a bee started chasing me. Naturally, I ran off.
I did a bit more walking until I had to meet my cousin at People’s Square. Even though I hadn’t seen her for a dozen years, I still recognized her immediately as I was going up the escalator (I saw her in the reflection of the glass wall). Being the awkward person I am, I expected the meeting to be completely awkward, but it wasn’t at all. Even with my shaky Cantonese, I was able to converse pretty well with her. It probably helped that she knew English.
Our first stop was the aforementioned Xintiandi. I probably saw more non-Asians here than I had the entire week I’d been here (excluding NYU students, of course). The decor is really nice, but it screams pricey. After walking around for a bit, Joe brought me to this restaurant called Din Tai Fung, which is apparently very famous. While waiting for seats, I finally found out what my cousin’s job was. She’s a regional manager at Wings Logistics, which actually has an office in NYC.
For the actual meal, we had xiao long bao, noodles, and some other stuff I can’t recall too clearly. What I was most excited for was real orange juice. A week removed from Tropicana Orange Juice and being stuck with orangeade, having a glass of actual orange juice was a relief. It was not cheap, though, costing 30 RMB a glass. Ouch! The food was pretty good and the line after we sat down was insane.
During the meal, we chatted about a lot of things. We called mom and called my uncle who’s in Hong Kong. Talked about my eventual visit to Guangzhou. I’m really looking forward to that. It’ll be nice to see grandma and visit grandpa’s grave after so many years.
After dinner, Joe brought me to the Old Shanghai and Dragon Gate Mall area. This place has a much more traditional feeling to it, with the older looking buildings. I think we walked through here on the way to the Yu Gardens during the scavenger hunt. I remember wanting to come back here and shop around. We took a brief walk and she showed me some of the more noteworthy things, like this xiao long bao place with this incredible line. I’ll have to try it some day.
That was pretty much it for the day. We hopped on a cab back to People’s Square, where I got off and took the Metro back to Jinduyuan and called it a night.