Day 6
Shanghai Day 2

Not much sleep was had. I woke up to people waiting for the bus outside my room. Good thing I pulled the blinds. That would stop someone from coming in. I bet they have no idea someone is trying to sleep, otherwise they probably would be a lot quieter. At least with this room there is a free breakfast. I take advantage of the Chinese buffet. I have to say that a Chinese breakfast tastes a lot like a Chinese dinner. I grab some weird vegetable dishes and burn a couple pieces of toast. No matter I slather them with butter and jam. The coffee tastes a lot like burnt tea.


My writing has a pretty negative tone, but actually I was in very good spirits. I was so excited to see Shanghai. I decide to run across the street to the local mini-mart and get some canned coffee, I remember rating that one as a 4. While there I notice that there are no hotdogs rolling around or nacho cheese pumps. But they do have some weird bean curd things keeping warm in oil. Maybe I should try one, they look good and the locales are buying them. Wait I remember my hotel bathroom, better stay away. I guess I cannot be Chinese in that way right now.


My friend and I start walking. We are on our way to the Shanghai office, but we really have no idea where it is. We start calling the office and we get directions. Of course we get lost and call back. We talk to another admin and apparently as nice as the first person we talk to was; she has only been in Shanghai for two weeks and she sent us in the wrong direction. We try for 25 minutes to get a taxi, but we keep on getting scooped by the locales. Time to test out the new Shanghai subway. This subway is so much faster than the one in Beijing. You really need to hold on to something because the lurch at the beginning and the stop is pretty hard. I caught one passenger as she fell into me.


When we pop out of the subway after two stops we are again lost. We call and the admin walks us to the office. The meetings go great, the people are very friendly and wow are they smart. Plus their English is great. Man the good 'ol USA is in for some trouble if there are a bunch of people like this in China.

It is decided that we must go to lunch. My friend asks that it not be a traditional Chinese place. Our new found friend says he has just the place. We jump in a taxi and head off to a place called "Tasty" or dianping I am not sure but it was really good. It only cost 98 RMB or about $14 per person, and it was an eight course meal (I think I got 10 things, remember they are on the metric system so everything is different) Just look at the food:


As we eat, it is bugging me why there are so many kids out and about. I ask our guide about it and he says that it is China Children day. The parents take their kid out and spoil them rotten. The kids get to buy toys and eat in fancy restaurants. All of the kids are dressed up and their fancy clothes. It is kind of fun watching them walk/run around. Kids are annoying in any language though. Plus since I look so weird they would run up to our table and stare at me. Man I must look like a freak. It turns out that they love my red beard. Later I am asked how I get my beard to be that color. I laugh and say "get some Irish ancestors". Okay so it sounds lame, but the Chinese women I told it to loved it.

Lunch was awesome and now our guide wants to show us around Shanghai. He especially wants to show us a couple of shopping places. The first stop is another first class mall. This place is huge. Five or six stories and as big as a US mall on every floor. We head to the top and he shows us some expensive Chinese art so that we have an idea of what not to pay the local vendors when we are at a market. Apparently my company also has an office here in this mall, but in the business tower.


Okay so that was cool, but it gets better. Our guide and new best friend then takes us to an electronic mall. Yes a whole mall full of just electronics. None of that clothing or shoes crap, and especially none of those stinky perfume stores. Just good ol' fashioned stuff that takes electricity. I am absolutely blown away. Everything is here. I vow to come back. Unfortunately we do come back later and most of it is closed. But I browsed for awhile and I have some new ideas for my birthday that is coming up.


We have to get back to work, enough of this playing hooky. We go back talk business and then call it a day. My friend and I head back to the hotel to get an upgrade on our room. Sure enough we end up on the 4th floor, with a bigger room by at least two feet (now I can walk on 3 sides of my bed). We put on shorts, even though it has been raining, it is still hot. My friend wants to go to this night street and check it out.

We take the speedy subway. We actually have to push our way into the car. There is no room, but we make room by squishing women, children and old people. Good thing we are only going 5 stops. The street turns out to be pretty cool. We start out walking down the street with some daylight left, but as we check out the stores lights start to come on, on the buildings. We dash into a coffee house called UBC, to wait for nightfall and to get off our weary feet.


The coffee is good. We discuss how cool Shanghai is and then we notice that night has fallen and the town has lit up. As we leave and start walking down the street, I am asked if I want... well everything would be the best way to put it. You name it and I was asked. I declined all offers and spent my time taking pictures of the scenery.



We are starting to get hungry and all of the lost kids are starting to drag on us. We decide to head to the malls we saw earlier. My friend is hungry and he spots a Sushi place. Mmmm good stuff man. We stack our empty plates high, I try some new things and so does he. The conveyor belt-like thing is probably the best marketing gimmick ever. The electronics mall is closed so we decide to head back to the hotel and cry ourselves to sleep. Tomorrow will be a great day. But unfortunately we will also have to leave Shanghai to head back to Beijing.