Week 13: Goodbyes
And that’s a wrap! Aside from some soul-crushing finals scattered throughout the week, I had a pretty eventful last week going out and wandering downtown with friends, getting the last bit of shopping done, checking a couple more boxes off, and more. So, without further ado, welcome to my last blog entry (before my final reflection).
As I’ve mentioned before, I always need a quick pick me up sometime in between my studying for finals, and in Shanghai it’s incredibly easy to do so since there are food places everywhere and fun activities within biking distance. On Monday evening before my Wednesday morning final, several friends and I went to go get all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue for only 88 RMB. This restaurant can be found in the plaza near our dorm. We ate here for the full two hours of our time, and by the end of it, I was so full I thought I couldn’t bike back to the dorms! At least I got my money’s worth, as cheap as it was.
After my final on Wednesday morning, I met up with and spent the day with an old high school friend who happened to be visiting Shanghai over the summer. We got Yun Jiao wontons for lunch on the food street across from the SJTU Siyuan Gate to campus, and then biked to what I had thought was a mall called Paradise Walk… I think I ultimately misinterpreted the directions or input the wrong location on AMap, because we ended up biking through some weird construction and traffic, landing in a mostly abandoned mall with a kids’ daycare and a few eating spots. That’s okay though, because our goal was to find the HeyTea at Paradise Walk, and there was a HeyTea in this mall as well. Afterwards, we biked back to campus, which was only a 10 minute bike ride, and then did a small tour through campus. However, the heat was getting pretty unbearable, and upon walking around the classroom building and discovering that all AC systems were shut down for the summer, we decided to just stay in the library nearby to catch up on our freshman year in college. We ended the day with some dinner at Canteen no. 2, Bibimbap!
Thursday and Friday were dedicated to shopping for more clothes and gifts for my friends back home, and this was in addition to the 20+ Taobao orders I’d placed online. On Thursday, I got my ears pierced downtown, because I’d been wanting to get double piercings since I was about 11 years old. It was so affordable and so professional at the same time, only about 194 RMB for the earrings, piercings, and the cleaning kit. For anyone wondering, it was Super Uncle Tattoo and we found the place on Xiaohongshu/rednote, and they use piercing needles for any piercings instead of the guns that places like Claire’s tend to use. I will warn you though, make sure that you dye or treat your hair at least a week before or after getting your piercings done, or you won’t be able to, as they don’t want to risk infection.
After getting my piercings done, we went back to Changle Road (for the nth time), mostly to go shopping at Basement FG, a pretty affordable clothing store that sells clothes from basic tees to intricate tops and flowy skirts. There’s a pretty nice variety of styles, and I ended up getting quite a few items on sale. There’s a nice gelato place across the street from Basement FG, so we also got some cones that were Disney themed and decorated; the flavors were also really interesting (i.e. milk tea, salt and sugar, Yuzu, and rose).
That evening, I got a late dinner with my cousin again, and we went to a local roasted kebab shop for skewers of all kinds of meat. They were all spiced to medium and were actually pretty filling even though the portions seem small. By this point in the week, I was beginning to worry that the one checked luggage I brought to China wasn’t able to hold all my shopping anymore, and so my cousin helped me order a small carry-on luggage using JingDong’s same day shipping.
On Friday, my friends and I went to Joy City for gift shopping, and wow, was this a gift haven! There were small trinket shops everywhere, and the further up you went, the more fandom-based things were. There were K-Pop stores, anime and donghua merchandise shops, and even a whole JoJo's Bizarre Adventure pop-up! Everyone was very spirited and there were shoppers in cosplay left and right. On the upper floors, there were also a few themed photobooths.
My last days were mostly packing heavy as I tried to figure out what to bring home and what to leave at the dorms. However, that didn’t stop me from going downtown one last time to walk down Nanjing Road and see the Bund one last time (we didn’t make it to the riverfront this time, it was too crowded), and go to KTV for some late night karaoke. This was an incredible end of my time abroad in China, and I’m going to cherish these moments forever.
Sunday was filled with bittersweet goodbyes and promises to see each other again in Ann Arbor. Every now and then, we’d gather at the front gates of Nanyang Beiyuan, our dorm, to send people off, until it was our turn to leave for the airport. Thanks for following me on this trip and all the chaotic moments within it!
Casey Feng
Computer Science
IPE: Engineering in Shanghai, China at U-M SJTU-JI












