That weekend and Monday was Autumn Festival (I think, I can't actually remember, nor do I know what point of Autumn Festival is other than the obvious). A bunch of people went on short trips, but Denis and I wanted to stay and explore Shanghai a bit. I don't know if you remember the post about the random bus trip where it rained so hard, the bus leaked . . . the day that I denied the existence of the typhoon . . . well, this was the next day : ) and said typhoon was still lurking.
The day started out relatively nice. It was still pretty humid, but at least the temperature had dropped a bit. We met up with two of our Baise Ghetto friends and headed out to Old Shanghai. Brian L (who is almost as compulsive as I am) had this wonderful itinerary that we were going to follow, we got on the correct bus, we made it to South Shanghai Station in high spirits. None of us had metro cards at this point, so we hike over to the ticket lines. Welcome to hell . . . half of China (that's right, 2.15 billion people) were crammed into this relatively small space trying to get tickets. That was not about to happen. We pushed and shoved (like real Chinese people) our way back to the escalators and decided that a taxi might be a better option on a national holiday.
We thought wrong . . .
This was our taxi driver . . . about an our into the trip . . . after our second trip through the tunnel. He forgot where he was taking us, so I guess with a bunch of white people in the back of the cab, where else could you be going but the Bund. We didn't want to go to the Bund. He really did forget because he stopped the meter as we went into the tunnel for the first time. I felt kind of bad for the guy as he drove around for about forty-five minutes without getting paid, but I felt more bad for us as our day slipped away.
When we finally made it to Old Shanghai, it was a bit overwhelming. People STARED. There were white people everywhere. You would think that that would elicit less staring, but it was one of the worst I had experienced. These girls were actually asking Brian to take pictures with them. As Tiffany took this picture for me and Denis, a bunch of Chinese people also snapped a shot (crazy white girl, what she doing with Chinese boy : )But it was cool. It was nice to see some "old" Chinese buildings (I doubt how old these suckers really were . . . especially as they were renovating Yu Gardens to look even older . . . wowzers!) There was some impressive architecture, as well as an impressive number of people in general. At this point, we were starving. We were hungry when we left campus, and by this time, we had been in transit for something like two hours. We almost caved and got McDonald's because we were so beaten down, but I refused. I did not travel for eight hundred hours to each crappy burgers. We ended up at this Asian restaurant that had Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food for REALLY cheap and it was delicious. You have to remember, at this point, Denis and I were still actively pining for Japan (we have now learned to deal with our loss : ) and the ramen I got at this restaurant was legit--mmm . . . so good!
Feeling much better after filling our bellies, we began to wander. We wanted to visit the typical tourist sites, but we couldn't seem to find them, and we were looking really hard. Too hard, apparently; the main one we wanted to see ended up being literally in front of our faces. Needless to say, it wasn't as impressive as we hoped. Again, the picture above cause a flurry of flashes to go off as nearby Chinese people wanted to capture the two blondies being silly.
We (by mistake) went to the Temple of Shanghai, which houses the god of the city. There we tons of tourist there, but there was also people worshipping . . . it was a little weird.
But who cares . . . we found donuts! Actually, I kind of don't care. Donuts aren't really my thing, but everyone else was really excited. When you are immersed in a culture that is so different from the one you have know all your life, the stupidest things begin to excite you (hence the McDonald's . . . I can't remember the last time I had Micky D's at home, but it happens here all too often) So even though I didn't really want to eat donuts, I wholeheartedly joined in the festivities.
I wasn't the only one who was excited . . . at least I wasn't stealing from anyone.
This crazy lady kept propositioning us. We have no clue what she was saying, but it couldn't have been legal judging by how furtive she was. It was weird . . . she kept coming back for more, too. She took like four passes at us throughout the day. I stalked her for this picture. I thought she (or some secret sniper henchmen) might shoot or something. I guess what made the whole situation even stranger was how there were people everywhere hawking stuff . . . DVD, watch, bag . . . you heard it everywhere. I don't think the people who were asking knew any other English, but they were damn persistent. She was just scary.
We finally found what we were looking for (there was about three miles of walking before this point . . . I will not bore you, but some of it was actually pretty funny--we ended up in this crazy ghetto for a while) this tea house in the middle of a "lake" with the nine turns bridge leading to it . . . the lake turned out to be a pond, and the turns were basically a zigzag that you could barely walk through because there we so many people and so little space. The whole thing was located literally in the middle of this busy shopping arcade that completely ruined any ambiance that could have been mustered up . . . oh China . . .The picture above is the only one of the four of us . . . I think we were half dead by this time . . . at least the typhoon was still playing hide and seek. It was about to come out and play hard core.
Nice statue lady in the "lake"
Nice man person doing stuff in the "lake"
So many fish--seriously, there were a plethora and they jumped way out of the water when food was dropped in.
This was as close as we got to Yu Gardens. As I said before, it was being renovated to look older. I was not about to give up my hard earned kuai for something so silly.
Typhoon playtime. Unfortunately there are no subway stops near Old Shanghai. There are a bunch of buses, but so far, none of us have been able to find a bus map in English, so that wasn't a viable option. That left us with taxi. But when it rains in Shanghai the taxis instantly become unavailable. It is the saddest thing. You see all these cabs driving by with warm, dry people in them as you get wetter and wetter and wetter. We were trying to get a cab for over half an hour. I finally jumped into the middle of the street and managed to snag one.
Brian has a great picture of us all in the cab--we look like the most defeated group of people ever. We did get some pretty good noodles when we got back to campus though : )Old Shanghai wasn't really worth our time. I am glad I got to see it, but an hour or two would suffice, while we were there for something like four or five. We did find a fun food court, and the fun food court had amazingly clean western style toilets WITH toilet paper. This is almost unheard of in China.
But one bad thing (other than getting rained on like it was nobody's business) did happen. We went to this one section with a lot of little street stalls--tiny shops. In one store, I saw a dress I liked, and Tiffany saw a coat, so we stopped in while Brian and Denis moved on. Right away, the lady told me I was too fat to try on the dress. Thanks for the confidence boost, China : ) but Tiffany was allowed to try the coat. She liked it, but didn't love it. We talked and I asked her, what price would you be willing to pay for it. She set a price, and we bargained. The lady refused to drop that low, so we left. That was that. We followed the proper procedure for bargaining.
Denis and Brian had a different experience. Brian found a shirt he liked and began bargaining right away. He and the guy agreed on a price, but then Brian tried on the shirt and realized he didn't like it. You can't do that in China. Once you enter bargaining and agree on something, it is as good as sold. You never bargain if you don't intend on buying. Denis ended up being the one to tell the guy that Brian didn't want the shirt anymore. While it wouldn't have been the best situation in any case, this one was made worse by the fact that the guy was drunk. He started screaming at Denis, saying he was going to hit him, and that Denis should by the shirt, and why was he speaking in Cantonese anyway. Then he actually did hit Denis. Denis grabbed his hand and kind of shoved him away. Then he turned around and left. As soon as I saw him I knew something happened, but he didn't really say anything. He was very well behaved : ) I knew something had pissed him off beyond belief, but he didn't turn into psycho Denis.
This story does illuminate how f-ed up China can be sometimes . . . but we are still more than happy to be here.
Oh, I will leave you with this. Jame (the ABC husband of Stephanie) was talking with a cab driver once when he was on his way to meet us all at a restaurant. He told us how the cab driver was complaining that he couldn't drink on the job anymore and how he thought it was really unfair. Mind you, this is a relatively recent law . . .
Today, one of the other teachers was taught a phrase by one of her students. TIC. It means either "This is China" or "That's China." So when you hear something or see something that you just can't comprehend, you say TIC. And you end up saying it a lot : )
That and, "Oh China, you are such a dirty whore." But she is our dirty whore now . . .
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