Shanghai Surprise

Good evening fellow Americans!!! This is the last China Bear blog.

We started a very early morning with a delicious American breakfast and headed to the Xian Airport to catch our flight to Shanghai. Shanghai has the second largest airport in China and will soon surpass Beijing. Shanghai is expanding because they will host the 2010 World Expo.

Shanghai translates to “above sea” in Chinese and “kidnap” in English, but thankfully we are all accounted for… After a two hour flight we met our new tour guides, David and Helen. We were shocked to learn that Shanghai’s land area was half that of Beijing’s, but the population is larger with a total of 18 million permanent residents and 4-6 million commuters resulting in a grand total of about 23 million daily! We enjoyed a mouthwatering KFC sandwich on the way to an agricultural development zone. We were captivated by a short video depicting the advances in Chinese agriculture. We then toured the greenhouses complete with herbal mushrooms and hydroponics. Following our tour, we visited the city kennel where we saw various breeds of dogs and even witnessed Chinese police/military dogs in training!

We hopped on the buses and began a three hour (but only about 100 km) trek to a dairy farm in Suzhou. To say the least, we experienced the daily traffic of Shanghai! Along the way, we passed a technical/industrial park that supplies 1/5 of the world’s electronics. As we continued our journey we were amazed by on the largest manmade lakes in China. The lake is home to small crabs which are a Chinese delicacy; unfortunately, they are only available during the month of November. The dairy farm milked over 200 cows three times a day and is planning to expand another 100 head. The cows are fed a mixture of turnips and corn and are cared for by 14 employees who live on the farm. We found it interesting that the farm inseminates with American and Canadian semen and practices embryo transfers. In four months the farm will be fully equipped with a bio-digester which will provide fuel for the farm and nearby villages.

We arrived at our hotel and enjoyed one of our favorite Chinese meals thus far; hopefully the trend will continue! We are looking forward to our canal ride tomorrow! We miss you and our American food too!

Keep the comments coming! We love hearing from home!

Over and out,
The CHINA BEARS
Blake Becker, Nebraska
Adrienne Boyette, Florida
Matt Dybedahl, South Dakota
Katie Mosman, Idaho
Kris Newsom, Tennessee
Anna Savelle, Georgia
Shasta Sowers, Virgnia
Ray Scott Spence, North Carolina
Katie Zenk, Minnesota
Clay Zwilling, Illinois