We're going downtown

So apparently I can access this blog from my school internet, but it is blocked on the internet I actually pay for at home. This is unfortunate.

This weekend Laura visited from Beijing. I had been looking forward to seeing her since I got here. It's really nice to hang out with someone that I've known for a long time. Friday afternoon after work Laura met up with me. I borrowed a bike from the Garretts, and they were so generous to let me use it because as a result Laura and I biked all around the area. We originally didn't have the extra bike, so we walked back to my apartment, which was a bit uncomfortable because of the heat, but after the bike travel was much easier. At night we explored a place called Zhoupo, which is this very Chinese area with lots of street food, shops, fair-type games, and the like. We had dinner at some hole-in-the-wall restaurant. I bought the Harry Potter DVD but unfortunately it was in Chinese so it was very difficult to understand.

Saturday morning we woke up at around 7:30, and had breakfast around 8:15/8:30. We biked down this canal path toward the school, and there was a stand that sold breakfast pancakes. Afterwards we took a cab to the Longyanlu subway stop, where we met one of Laura's mother's friends from Shanghai who wanted to show us around. Her name is Shirley, or Liu jie jie. We first saw Nanjing Road, which is this long pedestrian street that has many stores and glows with neon lights at night. It was still pretty crowded during the day, and of course 10+ different people came up to us trying to sell us bags and watches. Then we went to the YuYuan gardens which was more overpriced touristy shops with swarms of people, and many western food chains. I wasn't very impressed. If we wanted to see the actual garden, the cost would have been 50 yuan, and the entrance to see the temple was 30 yuan. Then we stopped at a smaller random market that was a lot of fun! Following that, Shirley wanted us to go to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, but that was back 4 subway stops and a cab ride from where we were originally, so Laura and I just suggested we stay in the Puxi area and explore instead of back-tracking. So instead of the Technology Museum, we took a cab to go to Wen Miao (Confucius temple). Surrounding this temple was a Chinese book market, and the street was swarmed with little stands that sold silly cute trinkets. The Wen Miao temple was absolutely amazing. There was a main shrine, and outside of it was incense. This picture is an indoor area with an open porch looking at the water. Artists, musicians and the like would perform on the porch, and people would sit at the round table inside (which had optimum breezes passing through). Simply beautiful.

Following that we had a late lunch and went to Sun Yatsen's former residence. His house was huge, and the wallspace that introduced the landmark claimed Sun's "absolute love for the country, and lack of interest in personal wealth." Obviously this was exemplified by his beautiful house. It reminded me a bit of Mount Vernon in Virginia (not as large nor was his house a plantation), but the main museum just had random pieces of paper with people's signatures on it as well as many photographs with captions where the person was almost always revered. Oh, China.

Also of note, when we say something like "So far I haven't gotten sick in Shanghai..>pause>... yet" Then you say "knock on wood" and knock on wood or your head, there are actually two equivalent Chinese phrases. So despite the obvious linguistic and cultural differences, I was surprised that such a similarity existed. Who knew?

We wanted to go to the propaganda museum/poster store, but it was already closed by the time we were done with Sun Yatsen. So we just wandered around some posh central areas of Shanghai that had the Starbucks, "fashionable" clothing, etc. Shirley had told us we were meeting with her boss, Andrew, for dinner. So at 7 we ate at this restaurant called Zen. I tried this chicken wing with rice inside. The dish had a very rich flavor. In China the chicken wings are more expensive and desirable than chicken breast. I tried a tofu dish where the tofu was really like a bag (tied with a piece of noodle) that contained various veggies and the like. I also had grapefruit, some type of special soup where they let meat, carrots, and corn flavor the broth, then they bring the plate of the stuff that was in the soup to the table. But you're not supposed to eat that food because it has already been used. They bring it to you to show that they are not re-using it for something else. I also tried a few new desserts, and really spent a lot of the day speaking Chinese.

When we were done, Shirley went home and Andrew walked with us towards the Bund. The Bund is the part of the Huangpu river that bends quickly, and the riverside is surrounded by Manhattan-like skyscrapers with lots of lights. Walkways are on both sides of the river, with tourists and vendors abound. The Bund (on the West side) is known for some relatively old art deco architecture (of France, I believe), from the 20s and 30s. The east side (Pudong area) hosts the infamous Pearl Tower and the JinMao tower. We were going to take a boat across the river, but we missed the last one. I'll let these few pictures speak for themselves (I took all of these pictures posted in this entry):
We then came home. I'm not really sure if Andrew and Shirley are our friends, or if they just felt obligated to show Laura a good time because her mother helped them get jobs. I'd like to go out and do things with them, but not because they feel obliged to do so. We'll see what happens.

Sunday I went to a local market with Laura and bought veggies, noodles, rice, soy sauce, yogurt, oil, salt pepper, ginger, garlic- all for about 5 dollars US. Afterwards we went back into town and went to the JinMao tower, which is actually taller and cheaper than the Pearl Tower. The Pearl Tower costs 50 yuan per level, so 150 total, whereas at the JinMao tower is only 50 yuan to the 88th floor. Laura and I went to the 87th floor for free, and just went to a nice bar there where we each ordered a fancy (read: expensive) drink. It was so worth it though because we sat there looking at the view for at least an hour or two. Here's an artsy picture from inside:


Following JinMao tower Laura went to the train station, and I met up with my friend Lindi. We went to this market called Qipu (read: Cheap), where there are a lot of products for wholesale. The vendors there were very aggressive, and they'd almost yell at you for not buying their product. But once they said that, there was no way I'd buy from them because I refuse to feel guilty for making a decision about how to spend my own money. Anyway! After we got through the main entrance (and after like 3 or 4 people were following/hackling us), we finally got to look around. I found a beautiful dress (that they told me was silk). They tried to start off at 200 yuan, but then I looked at the tag and saw it was polyester and something else, so I told them that since it wasn't real silk, why pay 200? I ended up not buying the dress because they insisted polyester was a type of man made silk, or something stupid like that, but Lindi bought two nice shirts. We then had dinner at a Hong Kong chain restaurant, where we had duck, some sort of vegetable, Hong Kong style steamed buns, and a friend thing with crab inside. And after that, of course, ice cream.

All in all it was a pretty great weekend.