Day 4 -- Suzhou and Shanghai, China

I woke up today at 5:30. Stayed in bed for another 45 minutes before giving up on falling asleep again. Spent the time catching up on emails and whatnot before getting ready to go to Shanghai for the day. My friend Steve sent me a friendly reminder that I should still be job hunting while I am away (I will!!). Had breakfast with Dad before he headed off to work. Also found out that my bag had arrived in Shanghai late the previous night and that we needed to come get it out of customs, despite them previously saying they would deliver it…I just hope the ice packs held and my clothes aren’t all cheesy smelling. Sari (pronounced Shar-ee), an expat wife, met us at the apartment and we met up with some other expats to go shopping and sightseeing in Shanghai. We had some minor confusion as the driver that we hired apparently switched jobs with another driver and failed to give him our itenerary for the day. He spoke no English and the butchered Chinese that several of us were speaking was also doing no good. I debated calling my friend John (Taiwanese – American) for his translating services (Thanks in advance John, because I’m sure it will happen yet!), but Mom finally got through to a friend here locally. After several times of handing the phone back and forth between one of the expats and the driver, we finally got on our way shortly after 8:00am. Our first stop was at the Shanghai Market aka the Fake Market. On the way in we made a quick stop at Starbucks, then braved the vendors. “CD-DVD? Watch? Bag? Prada? Gucci?” They shout. They follow you. They block your way. Far from the ‘no pressure’ shopping that I prefer. Bought a scarf, a sweater, and a North Face parka. I had bought a jacket last time I was here, but I was trying to limit my packing to one bag for the trip over and figured I would leave that one at home to save some room. Bargaining on the price is definitely not my forte. I think I got a good deal on all of my purchases, but not without some help from some more experienced shoppers. Sometimes I just don’t want the hassle—I just want to walk in, see the price, and make my decision. I don’t need someone guilt tripping me, telling me “that is too cheaper!” and that they need the money. I also don’t need someone telling me how great the sweater or coat will look on me. And the fact that they all say “cheaper for you” because I am their ‘first customer’ or their ‘friend’—sometimes its just to much for me. I guess I end up buying less because I don’t want to deal with it, so maybe it’s a good thing for me. Also watched a fight break out in one of the little booths. No one around tried to step in and help, but instantly about 60 people were there as spectators. We decided to avoid the mob and went around the other way to get where we were going. After 2 hours of meandering the market, we were then taken to Old Town for more shopping. We made our way to the pearl market in one of the nearby shopping centers first. This experience can be a bit overwhelming. Imagine a building the size of half a city block or more with each floor dedicated to a different type of item. One floor has gold jewelry, another perhaps crystals, another pearls…it’s just a bit much to take in. So, like I said, an entire floor of pearls as far as the eye can see. And it’s not just one big store, it is probably 30 plus different vendors, all with virtually the same product. How do you even choose which vendor to stop at? I was stating my musings out loud and my mom said “This one just felt right.” I don’t even know the first thing about picking pearls (Same color? Size? Shape? Am I even on the right track here?), so I tended to stay away from those. Instead, I opted for some little glitzy bracelets (much easier to pick—blue goes with this outfit, pink with that one…) and the nifty magnetic bracelets (for those of you that have been here before, the magnetic bracelets have gotten fancier—prettier beading, silver magnets, etc.). I finished my shopping there quickly and browsed the area a bit. I did see a turtle (about 5 inches across) sitting on a table in a bowl not much bigger than him (about 7 inches across) with just a splash of water in it. So sad for the turtle, but a fairly regular thing to see here. After my head stopped spinning from the sea of pearls, we moseyed down the street where my mom found some gorgeous oil paintings from a local artist. His sister was running the booth and, after my mom made an executive decision to redecorate their bedroom at home in Washington and bought five of the paintings, she called him and had him come over to also sign a book of his artwork and pose for a picture. My mom was uber excited about the experience and the great deal she got on the paintings. Running out of time, we then ran into McDonald’s to grab a quick lunch. Fairly normal McD’s experience except that you have to guess what is in the picture you want to order, there are about 20 times more people in there, and an employee that spoke English sought us out in line, took our order on a Palm Pilot, and transmitted it to the cashier…okay, so the only normal thing was the fries. We were finally headed back to meet our driver when Christina (a girl from Florida who just got her degree in International Business and is over here teaching English) decided that she should go back and buy something that she had seen…at the pearl market. We trudged back to the pearl plethora and my mom helped her pick the best quality and bargain the price down before meeting the rest of the group to move on. From there, we went to the Bund on the Huangpu River, known for its varied architecture, from skyscrapers to Gothic, Baroque, and Romanesque buildings. There is more shopping nearby (Nanjing Lu), but we decided to forgo that as were pretty beat from all the shopping at the previous two stops. Instead, Daniel, Mom, Sari, and myself chose to do them semi-touristy thing and take the tram under the river (with a poor excuse for a light show in the tunnel) and visit a few small museums underground in the tunnels. One was a ‘Deep-Sea Creature Exhibition.’ Though mildly interesting, it was a pretty sorry excuse for any kind of exhibition. There were some aquariums with different fish and crabs, but very few. There were also some stuffed/ painted creatures of the water hanging or sitting in mounds of blue tulle to look like water. It took all of ten minutes to thoroughly explore the exhibit. Here I saw yet another turtle in a tank that was too small, but at least this one was about half again as wide as he was. The other museum we visited was the ‘History of Chinese Sex’ where we saw many artifacts, small and large, human and animal. The final piece of the package trip was supposed to be some sort of music and light experience. As we were waiting to enter, however, another westerner (British?) was exiting and strongly suggested we skip the 5 minutes of screeching sounds (on headphones) and flashing lights. We took his advice and emerged from the underground exhibits to find that we were nearly at the foot of the Oriental Pearl Tower (TV Tower). We decided a short walk to see if we could go up the tower would be a good idea. With the cold weather and the mid-week visit, there was no wait at all, so we rode an elevator up 263 meters (862 ft) to a sightseeing deck, then another elevator to sightseeing deck at 350 meters (1148 ft). It was cool to be able to see the city from that vantage point, but visibility was quite limited as the pollution is so thick in the city. Night began to fall while we were on the top deck, so we took the elevator down, had our ears pop about ten times, caught the tram back under the river, and met our group again. Somewhere during this time I discovered that I had somehow ripped a fair-sized hole in the crotch of my pants. Not a huge deal today as I had on long johns, but this was the only pair of jeans I had to wear since my luggage didn’t make it. Also one of just a few pairs I brought with me at all…argh. We did have intentions of seeing the ‘Jade Buddha,’ but there just wasn’t enough time to do it all. We had also talked about driving to the airport to get my bag, but at the last minute we were told it was too far and the traffic would be too bad to go tonight. After a bit of frustration and a phone call, my mom had arranged for a driver to take us into Shanghai the next day to pick up my bag. Guess I get to wear borrowed clothes for one more day. Finally got on the road again and arrived home two hours later at about 8:15pm. We were all too beat to go out for dinner, so we ordered some Papa John’s pizza and stayed in for the rest of the night. Not intentionally, but it seems thus far I have basically avoided traditional Chinese food. I guess it doesn’t help that my mom is allergic to soy and therefore cannot eat tofu (a staple in Chinese food). There are also so many options around here, that we can have a different food every night. I imagine we will be eating plenty of traditional food in Beijing and Changsha in the weeks to come. Anyway, I crashed by 10:30. Think I’ve beat the jetlag this time around.