Managed to spot Annie's train man on my way to the washrooms. I thought she could use the information. So she did.
Train man is the guy not in the CSP polo shirt. Should we crop out Connie and random guy on the right?
So anyway, we arrive at Shanghai station, and the first thing we see as we get off? Buses. Like seriously, how much more VIP can you get? Buses on a train platform. It wasn't more than 10 metres away. The view from the bus.
So that was pretty cool. Also pretty cool was the breakfast we had. It was the closest one we had to a continental breakfast. Not that Chinese breakfasts are bad. But just more used to continental ones in hotels. So after the huge breakfast, we headed downtown. Good story about that word actually. Apparently in America, downtown is a synoym for the CBD. According to Eva, New York City actually has a downtown, a midtown, and an uptown, all depending on the number of the street. Pretty cool.
Snapped a few shots along the way.
Notice how there is a huge difference in height between the buildings? Yea, that's because the older, squatter buildings are 'Old Shanghai' and are being preserved for historical purposes. Not to mention people still live there. But it's still quite interesting how modern Shanghai has just built itself around it. Damn bus emergency sticker.
Have to also mention that I found Shanghai's architecture, in some places, really quite odd.
Check out that building on the left with the cone-top. Wouldn't look out of place as a tower in the Wizard of Oz. The first port of call today was an exhibition for the Shanghai World Expo 2010. Downtown Shanghai really does remind me of Hong Kong, and a bit like Taiwan as well. It's just filled with department stores, huge shopping complexes and even the street furniture is really similar to the stuff you'd see in Hong Kong. I thought it was a bit like Taiwan in the way that streets are reasonably orderly, even if they're not particularly wide. And seriously, good luck trying to get anywhere in Shanghai during the day. It's just ridiculous how many vehicles they have on the roads, in relation to how wide the roads actually are. It took us like 10 minutes to get two blocks.
We rock up to the exhibition and see all the flags of the participating nations. So what is this World Expo? It's essentially a showcase of human progression. They've been holding the World Expos for awhile now, since the 1851 one in London, and usually amazing stuff is constructed just for the World Expo. Like when the World Expo was held in London, they had a huge palace made out of glass. Pretty awesome. At the time of the visit, there was just under two years to go.
The official mascot of the 2010 World Expo is called Mr Blue. He's shaped like the word for person in Chinese, 人. Spot the difference?
The exhibition was pretty cool. Lots of displays about the previous World Expos. Each Expo has had a theme, and the one that Shanghai will be adopting is along the lines of 'better city, better living'. Participating nations in the Expo will tend to construct their own buildings for the Expo. It's a showcase of the nations, and it's really a mechanism for attracting people and investment to their respective countries. Some of the buildings the nations will be constructing are truly amazing. I can't really describe how awesome they look. Suffice it to say Shanghai 2010 sounds like a fantastic time for a CSP reunion.
After this exhibition, it was onto a museum that showcased the history of Shanghai. I never realised the name of Shanghai was so literal. 上海 means to go to sea. Literally. So that's what people did, they followed the river that runs through Shanghai out to sea. Because it was a fishing village before it expanded into something more important. This museum liked to make models.
And apparently this scale model of the city of Shanghai is the largest scale model in the world.
This is just a small part of it, the Pudong district of Shanghai. The detail on these scale models is pretty amazing.
Jacq-zilla is about to terrorise Shanghai! This photo also serves to show how big the scale model actually is.
Our Shanghai hotel room was pretty sweet as well, second only to the Guangzhou one I thought. Unlike the Beijing hotel, they didn't serve us a platter of fruit every day (I thought that was a nice touch actually, and as a result I actually like bananas now), but I can't really complain if the room looks like this.
And the view isn't too bad.
Quick shower and a quick change sees us boarding the bus again, headed for a place called Yu Yuan (豫園). Yu Yuan is pretty damn cool. It used to be a temple area, but has now been converted into a tourist's market.
As with all tourist's markets, there was a lot of stuff that looked really nifty. Jade bracelets (questionable), personalised seals (never figured why these were popular), fans (everywhere, everywhere), qi paos (so cool), switchblades (wouldn't trust these ones to be honest), cool splatty thing (throw it down, it'll splat, and reform into its original shape), and fake Beijng 2008 merchandise (what'd you expect?) were just some of the things on sale. Met up with the others and decided to meet back at the Starbucks in the centre of the garden at around 6pm.
Time to do some shopping. Exploring the place by myself was pretty fun, I always shop faster alone. Figured it was also time to try my hand at some bargaining. Couldn't have Tina or Sophie with me all the time.
First thing I snagged was a stuffed panda. Marked at 150 yuan. Remember that Angelina said you can bargain it down to 30% of it's original price. So a bit under 50 yuan then. Shopkeeper comes up to me and tells me that the little vest that the panda is wearing can be washed separately. Cool. Sees that I'm interested in it. Tells me that he'll give me a good price on it, mates rates. 80 yuan. Good start, and I haven't even said anything yet. Tell him it's still too high. How much would I pay for it? 30 yuan. Won't give it to me for 30 yuan. Says he'll give it to me for 60 yuan. 60 yuan isn't bad. But I still figure that's 10 (AUD/USD, yes, I've realised ever since I've come back from China the Aussie dollar has been slipping, but at the time, they were still near equivalents), and that's still a bit pricey (for Chinese standards). Stay firm, only paying 30 yuan for it. Says he can't do it for 30 yuan. I tell him that I'll go take a look somewhere else, and see if I can get a better price. Tells me that the shops are closing soon, and that I won't have much time to find another seller. Start leaving the store (thanks Tina). He calls me back. 40 yuan. I think about it. 40 yuan isn't too bad. And he's been fun to bargain with. I take it for 40 yuan. Who did I buy the panda for? You'll see later.
Walk around some more, see some CSP people around the area. Find Derek, Xiancheng, Hui Ming, Katherine, and Billy (if I forgot someone, apologies, I can't quite remember everyone who was there). They say they're headed to Nanjing Road (南京路). Tempted to go with them, but remember that I had to meet up with the others at 6pm at Starbucks. Walk around some more and find Walter, Meghan, Carrie, Subrina, Sirui, Amanda and Krissy (see above). Find them in a fan shop. I eye a few fans which look and feel a cut above the ones I'd already bought in Xian. Walter and Meghan are pretty interested in them as well. The vendor wants 30 yuan for them, but surprisingly is not open to bargaining, a rarity in China. We don't buy anything from that store. Check out a few more stores on the outskirts of Yu Yuan. I decide to go solo again. Grab a Viennetta for 3 yuan (sweet...) and I'm on my way. Spot another fan store which have similar fans to the ones I'd just seen. Figure I'd put my bargaining skills to the test. This one was a lot harder than I thought. The vendor was a hard bargainer, started out high at 50 yuan, and after telling her that I could've gotten it for 30 yuan just down the road, tried a new tactic of offering me a box for the fan or an additional cheaper fan for free. Held firm, didn't need a box or another fan. I brought it down to 25 yuan, and I figured if she was that resistant to dropping the price, it can't have been sold for much less than that. So I took two for 25 yuan each. Continued on my merry way.
Decided to head to a few of the stores outside Yu Yuan proper, along the 'fashion' street. The fashion street essentially consists of shops selling ridiculously low priced clothing. Most of which imitated (very poorly) existing brands. Saw a lot of shoes with two or four stripes on them. Saw swooshes with little kinks in them. Saw a Dadias. Didn't buy anything of course, but it's hard to resist checking out 20 yuan (3 AUD/USD) shoes. Also managed to finally snag a corn ice-cream. I'd seen CSPers eating these from time to time throughout the trip but had never taken the opportunity to try one. So when I spotted a cart selling them I hit it. For 1 yuan, it's pretty damn good. I don't have the time to rummage around Facebook for a photo of one at the moment, so I'll try describe it. It's an icecream in the shape of a corn. But the thing is, the 'cone' is actually a mold of the exterior of a corn, with the icecream within that 'cone'. So really you don't need the paddlepop in it to actually eat it. You can just hold it from the outside and bite into it. Pretty cool. The icecream also has a slight taste of corn, but is obviously still icecream flavoured. Cool beans.
It was getting close to meeting time so I headed back, and on the way, passed a tie store. They were 12 yuan (2 AUD/USD) a pop, and so I bought two. Asked if there was a discount on the ties but the assistant said no. Couldn't be bothered attempting to bargain so I just copped it. Have to admit, for two dollars they're decent ties. I expect them to fall apart after a few weeks but still. Met up with the others for a quick show and tell of our loot. Walter and Meghan managed to out bargain me, grabbing the same style of fans I'd gotten for 25 yuan for 20 yuan. Also realised that it was a bad idea to buy things just for the exhilaration of bargaining and getting a good deal on it. So on Krissy's advice we hit the xiao long bao (小龙饱) store. The place looks pretty nice at night.
We had to wait about 20 minutes, because the queue was so long. Finally managed to get my dozen, for 16 yuan. This, was dinner.
And what a dinner. Polished the lot in about five minutes. They were delicious. Lush. Wish I'd bought another dozen. We visited Maccas to meet up with a few others, and then all took taxis back to the hotel.
We decided tonight would be a good night to check out the Shanghai nightlife. So after lots of preparation time (not the guys), we grabbed a few taxis and head out. A little disappointed to find that there wasn't much of a bar scene in Shanghai. Either that, or we were in the wrong district. All the bars around the area were very quiet. We sat down at one, but stayed outside because it was cooler, but also because you had to pay 100 yuan (15 AUD/USD) to get a seat inside.
Drinks weren't exactly cheap either. A Johnnie Black was 50 yuan (8 AUD/USD) and beers were marginally cheaper. Tina and Krissy are now fans of White Russians (guess who?). Sirui...likes ginger beer. And Amandapandawanda loves...something I don't know what is.
Other observations that night - Kristina goes red fast. Like if you thought I was red, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Tina likes to skip at night. Or maybe after a drink. Or maybe a combination of both. Since we'd left at around midnight (haha, warning letter?) we made it back fairly late. I'd wanted to get KFC in Shanghai, since I'd gotten McDonald's in Beijing, but unfortunately that wasn't to be. So Krissy and I decided to hit up the McDonald's right across from our hotel for some McWings. Have to say, they were pretty damn good. It was a 24-hour McDonald's so it was funny to see the poor buggers who'd been given the graveyard shift snoring away in the restaurant. Hot wings finished, we crossed the road and back into the hotel for a well-deserved rest.
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