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June 12, 2011
*Throughout the journal comments made in real time, while on the ground in China, are designated in italics. Everything else was written after returning. Side notes are random thoughts I had that do now particularly fit in anywhere.
I am sitting in a restaurant called Real Flavors with many of the people from the trip. From the pictures on the menu, for our convenience, the food looks delicious. I personally ordered the Duck Spring Rolls and Spicy Sauce Dumplings. The Duck Spring Rolls were good, but could have been anything, The dumplings were really good though. They served us beer in frozen mugs, which tasted delicious. After finishing the waitress brought us our check, which was all in one, so we asked that it be split. The poor girl then spent the next 20 minutes trying to split the bill. Which then we ran late to get to the meeting spot. We should have probably just split the damn bill; it would go a lot quicker.
When the girl handed me my change I accepted with one hand… oops. I have to be better about that.
Even before lunch I had a full day. We started with the Jade Buddha Temple in the heart of Shanghai. As many tourists as there were, I am always self conscious of going into active religious areas. Although I personally do not actively participate in any religious affiliation I greatly respect those that do and always feel like I am intruding when entering something like the temple while there are people there to pray. That said, I enjoyed walking around the temple and the Jade Buddha itself was gorgeous.
I found the buying of candle oil funny. We were not allowed to take photos of the Jade Buddha so that tourists are forced to buy their post cards. Then the devout are able to purchase lamp oil from the worker in the room and then donate it back to the temple to keep the fire lit. What a scam. If the temple already has the oil in their position than they can already afford to buy it. I don’t know it just bugged me (This kind of thing was something I saw time and time again in China). The temple itself was only 150 years old, which I was hoping for something with more age. I live in a building that dates back that to the same time. With such an ancient civilization I was hoping to find something with more history.
On the way out of the temple we were inundated with beggars and merchants. Generally if I ignore them they tend not to bother me too much, but several latched themselves to our group and you could tell that some of our folks were frightened, or at least uncomfortable.
I did see some of the disparity I was waiting for. In Lost on Planet China the author talks about seeing people in bad shape begging in the streets. Sure enough there were people wheeling themselves around on carts with infected stumps of severed limbs begging for change. I still didn’t give them anything. I guess living around Baltimore City has made me cold to their “plight.” There’s only so much a person can take.
The market later in the morning was a good start. I believe the history for the whole thing was that it was originally build as a home for the governor (?) but the Emperor became jealous and the home was then given as a gift. It’s now a market with a Dairy Queen. Dairy Queen! I didn’t the Chinese could handle lactose, but judging by the popularity of Haagen Dazs around here that no longer seems to be an issue.
In all honesty the Gardens we walked through I found unimpressive. Again, I think I was looking for something a little more “ancient” and a reconstructed garden just wasn’t “blowing my skirt up.” It was pretty though and I enjoyed some the intricacies in the details; like the zig-zag bridges to ward off demons and evil spirits. Does that mean that evil spirits and demons are only able to walk in straight lines? I won’t think on this too much.
On our way out of the garden I saw a wonderful little moment. As we walked down the major path on the outskirts of the vegetation I saw people walking through the paths in-between the bamboo. There was an old couple, probably in their 80′s walking in the opposite direction (coming toward us). The husband was walking several feet in front of his wife. He arms were out slapping the leaves on either side of the path which his wife walked behind him starring at him in absolute disgust. The look on her face was “My husband is an idiot.” They have probably been together for 60 years and she still gives him the same look my girlfriend gives me. She was probably thinking, “I should have married the other guy.” It was an honest and quiet moment.
We finished for the morning after seeing the temple, the gardens, and the market with the rest of the day to ourselves before having the welcome dinner at 7pm. People weren’t sure what they were going to do, but Prof. Yu said he would take some time and head over to Nanjing Rd. We were going to have to take the subway. I figured that would be good, because I didn’t know where in the hell I was going in Shanghai. The only exposure to Shanghai I had ever had was what I saw in the film Mission Impossible 3…
We came back to the hotel and quickly left for Nanjing Rd. I was also curious to head over there because I knew the Bund was close, although I didn’t exactly know what the Bund was, I knew I wanted to see it.
Nanjing Rd was an experience. It was crowded. I’m glad we had a Chinese speaker with us at all times in Dr. Yu, it made things a bit easier. On the ride over on the Subway James was accidentally left at the station. Luckily we were able to tell him that we were only going two stops before getting off… he showed back up after 3 minutes. All was well. Walking out of the station there was the largest poster of George Clooney I have ever seen. It was on the side of the building advertising some watch brand I will never be able to afford. Chris M. looked up and just said, “Wow. He really is one good looking bastard, isn’t he?” I can’t disagree. The advert was on the side of European style building which seemed to be the general style of Nanjing Rd. From there we walked the length of the road, which dead ended right into the Bund, which come to find out, is the section of the city that is in the European Style. There is an observation walkway along the shore of the river, where Nanjing Rd. ends, that overlooks the new section of Shanghai. We stood, marveled at the monument to the last 20 years of Chinese Progress that is the other side of the river, took a ton of pictures and turned back to head back up the street.
The Professor went ahead to get a massage, others had already split off before, and the rest of us took our time walking up. Half way up the street there were some outdoor cafe’s offering beer and coffee. Chris M., Chris D., Jose, James, Tyler, and myself all sat and had a few beers. Our meet time was 5 pm near the station and time was about up. The other guys decided to stay and find their way back, but I left. I wanted to get back to the hotel and get a shower before dinner. I walked back up to find Lacey and Tamara sitting, waiting on everyone else. On my way back I started to notice the local’s reactions to me. Through mirrored glasses I watch their eyes scan me up and down, ignore me, chuckle, whatever… At one point a group of women walked by and said “Hello,” an English hello. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but I knew something didn’t seem right. I’m in China, no one should be saying “hello.” I turned to look and sure enough they were walking passed but turned and starring at me. Score one for Bill!
We sat and I noticed a few things. First, if you are not into crowds… Do not visit China. There are too many people for someone who can’t handle large groups of people. Second, generally speaking you have to keep moving in China. Tourists who stand still are perfect prey for shop-less merchants and beggars. The three of us were hounded non-stop while sitting and waiting.
At one point I had to pee while waiting on the Professor to finish his foot massage. There was a Starbucks in the mall directly behind us and so I figured I could find a bathroom in there. I did, but it took awhile. I noticed something about Malls in China, they do not have the same sense of stall space as the States. What I mean is that I walked into Starbucks, which had no bathroom, but was able to immediately enter a makeup store. There was almost no division, that makeup store lead into another store which had an escalator that let you out into another store at the top, which had the bathroom inside. It was very surreal.
Even though I had my eye out for the Professor and the rest of the crew I somehow missed them walking by, so at some point I turned around and saw the professor standing there with everyone else. We then set off back to the hotel. When we got back into the subway I was very confused. NY, DC, anytime I have been on the subway I always have a hard getting my bearings, so I generally leave subway direction to some else more informed. Prof. Yu seemed to know where he was going, but several other folks weren’t so confident.
We navigated the subway alright, but once above ground we wandered around for about 30 minutes trying to find the hotel. At one point we had wandered into a dead end, there was no one else around, there were high concrete walls with barbed wire the entrance to an unmarked (military?) installation blocked with a traffic booth and bar. Even though there wasn’t a single person in sight I felt like we were being watched bb unseen eyes, it felt like we didn’t belong. Eventually we kept walking and found our way back to the hotel… Apparently we should have come out of the other subway exit… who knew?
Side note 6/12/13: I find it interesting that as I sit somewhere a restaurant or bar, whatever. I get comfortable and forget where I am. Then I get up to head to the bathroom and am immediately confronted with fact that I am six thousand miles away. This was a thought I had in Shanghai, “Asian New York.” I did not feel the same way in Beijing.
Part of the reason for heading back at the time was so that we could meet Lina who had brought in a tailor for us to get custom fitted suits. And so begins the saga of the tailor in Shanghai.
So once the fitting was done I went back up stairs to get ready for our “Farewell Dinner.” Earlier that day Lina had accidentally said that the dinner that night was our “Farewell Dinner.” This is what we referred to it as for the rest of the trip.
Dinner at “South Beauty” was excellent, well my table and I thought so, apparently not everyone agreed. I was sitting most of the guys from the trip and we ate just about everything that came to the table. Highlights for me were the prawns on a stick and the beef cooked in the oil. They took away the beef early to make room for the soup. No one wanted to soup, it was too hot. There was chicken, shrimp, and fish, all of which was decent. I know Chris M. and I thoroughly enjoyed dinner. We enjoyed it so much that other tables started sending over dishes they no longer wanted, which was fine by us.
Side note: What is the deal with all the soup served in China? Seriously, everywhere we went had soup. Soup! It was 80Degrees with 90% humidity and they wanted to serves us hot soup? I was barely holding it together as is, let alone introducing hot, scolding, liquid into my stomach…
Once dinner was over, we hit the bathroom, which smelled funny, and headed back to the bus. Because we would all be out and dressed up, there was a plan in place to go out for some Shanghai night life. The bus was kind enough to drop us off around Xin Tian Di. Originally almost everyone said they were coming out, but when the time came, only a handful got off the bus. From my understanding there was a considerable amount of jet lag going around. I was later told that the conversation at another table had become pretty heavy and much of the “life of the party” had been sucked from the room, so no one felt like going out. But several of us did, and how interesting it was.
One our way to Xin Tian Di the professor got up to speak to us about the next day. Somehow he shifted his attention to me, essentially calling me out on not having Lina’s tip for the day. “I’ll take care of it… Don’t worry about it!” I had it covered and handed it to Lina on my way out of the bus.
The bus dropped us off several blocks away from the French Concession, which took us a moment to find, but we eventually did. As we wandered around we doubled back once, and eventually found an entrance through a small alley. From the street the sign pointed to, what I assumed, were restaurant names, so I followed it. As we wandered through the brick hallway I could tell some folks were getting a little tense, but we eventually made a turn and wandered into a courtyard with nothing but bars and restaurants around a beautiful water fountain.
We looked around for awhile trying to figure out where we should go, when I darted into the first place I saw that had room at the bar. The place was called TMSK, I have no idea what the letters stood for. The bar was empty, but we got funny looks from the several locals sitting inside as we stormed in. The bartenders didn’t speak much English, but they tried. After several beers we decided to head out.
The next place we hit was a German beer house called Paulner Munchen. There was a place across the street called Luna-something-or-other, there was a band covering American hits in Chinese. You could barely hear yourself think outside of that place, so we decided on the German beer house. As several of us walked in waitresses tried to stop us, I thought we’d be able to stand at the bar, but apparently everyone inside was seated by the staff. The hostess found an out of the way table upstairs, away from the other customers. Our first waitress took our orders and brought the beers, but then she sent over another woman who spoke English. She was very nice. Half way through our liter beers no one at the table was “feeling any pain.”
When we came in the band had taken a break, so the stage was left empty. I don’t remember the first person to bring it up, but we got on the subject of karaoke. Then the idea of jumping on stage to sing came up. From there Olachi and Tyler agreed that they would sing “All the Single Ladies” by Beyonce. After talking them down from storming the stage in the German beer house, we paid the tab and set out to find ourselves a karaoke bar. The English speaking waitress pointed us in the right direction.
We wandered outside the bar and restaurant area to a dark street in the direction the waitress had told us. We rounded a corner and low and behold there was an enormous karaoke bar. We walked into the lobby to much confusion amoungst the staff and ourselves. We walked up some stairs into an area that had private sound proof rooms that were filled with laughing teens. The staff had followed us up the stairs and were trying, with little luck, to corral us out of the place. On our way out we realized that the place was BYOB and you had to rent the rooms. Oh all that, AND all the music was in Chinese. Olachi and Tyler eventually left China without ever having performing their drunken duet.
We went back to the bar area and eventually settled on a small place called The Rendezvous. There was a four piece band covering American hits in English and the bartenders were western. The place was crowded, the beer was cold, and the atmosphere was fun. I could see myself making that a regular haunt if I ever found myself living in Shanghai.
After several songs and a couple more beers we headed out and decided to call it a night. It was only 12:30am. We call caught cabs back to the hotel. There was a bit of confusion with the cabs. Jose, being in a bit of a stupor, tried getting into our full cab. As he closed the door our driver took off and rounded a corner, so we couldn’t see if Jose made it or not. Obviously he did. In fact he made it home before our cab. Go figure.
Back at the hotel we all waited for everyone to get back. Once we knew everyone was safe and sound I went to bed, while Marlon, Chris M. and Menkara went out to find some food. It was a big night.
