Laowai photo op

They're a Taiwanese girl group! No, they're not. 

Yesterday was Tomb Sweeping Day in China and while we were supposed to go to Hangzhou, there was a massive planning failure on our part. Who knew that on a national holiday where every other person in Shanghai is trying to leave the city you’d actually have to book a hostel and make train reservations in advance?

Instead, we spent a good chunk of our day in Qibao sitting and having our photos taken with tourists.

This never really happens to me in Shanghai probably because there’s such a large population of expats living in the city. But I didn’t really expect it to happen in Qibao just because it’s so close to Shanghai (or is still in Shanghai, I’m not sure). Although, it was probably our fault. It didn’t really help matters that we were sitting in the middle of a giant tourist attraction.

There were the ones who stealthily took photos like the guy with the giant telephoto lens who took National Geographic-style pictures of us from a distance and there were creepers like the man who took photos of our knees (actually, he was the only creeper).

Mostly, they were teens or college kids including a giant group of 13 or 14 teenagers who ran over to us asking for photos. The boys hung back, but the girls climbed up next to us either doing a peace sign or a thumbs up. They were apparently from Taiwan (in my mind, they were a Taiwanese pop group).

All in all, the whole experience was probably way more entertaining than Hangzhou.

It was either the peace sign or the thumbs up