Shanghai: Saturday
While Beijing is the cultural and political center of China, Shanghai is the economic. Through a friend of my dad's I made contact with a businessman in Shanghai named Jack Cao, and he was willing to show me around for the weekend. I had never traveled by train, which baffled most Chinese I told this. The train left at 7:00 p.m. and arrived at 7:00 a.m. the next morning. Helen helped me buy a "soft sleeper" ticket, which means you sleep on a soft bed for a higher price, rather than a "hard sleeper." I was in a little car with 3 other Chinese people, one of which just kept talking the entire time, in Chinese, and very fast. Eventually I was able to go to sleep--or at least lay there. The train rocked so much I probably ended up with a little over an hour of sleep. When I arrived in Shanghai, after taking a public bus an hour to my hotel, I met Jack in the lobby. He took me to a restaurant and watched me eat--he said he had just eaten "a big hamburger." I thought this was kind of funny, especially when he said this phrase numerous times throughout the day. We then went to a historic shopping district which contained the City of God temple. This old Taoist temple was good, but nowhere near as extravagant as the previous ones I had seen. Back in the shopping district I went to the magazine stand to add money to my cell phone. There is a company called China Mobile, but it seems that most people just do the pay-as-you-go plan. You can buy more minutes at any magazine stand, which are everywhere. This first picture is of me in the shopping area. After this picture, a girl of about 15 asked to have her picture with me. That's probably the 4th or 5th picture I've taken with a random person on the street. There seems to be a novelty about foreigners. Through Jack, who can speak English very well, I learned that this particular girl thought "I was very cute." After haggling for some souvenirs, Jack and I hit this cafeteria which had Chinese food from every different province of China (food differs greatly by region). We bought so much food it probably would have lasted me half a day. Neither I nor Jack finished our meal, as he noted, "I had big hamburger." We then went to the famous Nanjing Road, an upscale shopping area where Jack and I are together in the second picture. It is sort of like a smaller scale of Times Square--same idea though. In this area I got nagged more than ever to buy fake Chinese goods. Because I was a foreigner, they kept coming up to me and saying, "Hello. Watch, DVD?" This became a common theme of my trip to Shanghai. After a desperate search for Gatorade that proved unfruitful, we headed to the Bund, which is a dock that overlooks the opposite side of the river where all the skyscrapers are situated. The third picture is of me in front of the Oriental Pearl radio tower. Also, you can see two buildings with triangular tops, with a building to their right with a flat circular top. Those are the "Tom Cruise Buildings," as Jack and I called them--the buildings he jumped to and from in MI3. Looking over the river took all of 15 minutes, and then Jack said, "I didn't plan to take you hear until tonight to see the lights." He thought for a minute, then continued, "I'm going to be honest, to really don't know what to do." I threw out a few suggestions, most of which required less walking, and then he said, "Want a massage?" I quickly agreed, anything to get of my injured Achilles tendon, which was throbbing with pain. Two ladies gave us an hour-long foot massage, which was incredible, and only $3.50. We then finished off the night at a Korean restaurant. One thing I found unusual was that Korean chopsticks are metal and flat, not round/square and wooden like the Chinese's. The dinner was complete with a good conversation between Jack, I, and the family that owned and worked the restaurant. Back at my hotel room I gave my mom her first phone call of the vacation. Although I used a phone card, it didn't seem to matter with the hotel, which got me for a $60 phone bill. Whoops. Live and learn.