Shanghai - Part 2 (no more day numbers)

Wow, has time ever flown! There is so much to do, and so little time. Our last 2 days in Shanghai were quite interesting and packed with activities. Here is a small snip-it of what we did (it's not that short, but it is really only a couple of activities).

-- Pictures to come --

Our hostel is located in a kind of sketchier place of town, and is a fair distance from the downtown area, but that means the food is much, much cheaper. We finally found out where the BEST breakfast in the city is (at least based on our experiences) and it is located right on the street as we exit our hostel. We have eaten there for the last 2 days in Shanghai, and they cook up the food right in front of you and there are so many delicacies (but for some of them, we haven't a clue what they are. However they are very tasty). Sweet sticky buns, round pastries rolled in sesame seeds that are filled with random dark sweet filling, and the best of all, a pancake-omelet type thing. It started with a pancake like batter, then some scramble eggs, topped with cilantro (which is on every dish here!), spicy sauce, and a deep fried pastry is then added and the whole thing is rolled up like a taco. It was my favourite dish being served there! Street vendor eating is very tasty and super cheap, and is always fun to try and communicate what you want. The street vendors did not speak English, and we can't speak Chinese , except for the necessary “hello”, “thank-you”, and “No, I don't need” (to ward off the people selling their knock-off Rolexes and Prada hand bags), so the game of telling them what we want and how many is always a game of charades which ends in us holding out our hands with random amounts of change and the vendors picking out the necessary amount. We hope that we don't get ripped off too much, but since it is so cheap to eat there, it wouldn't make that much of a difference. The three of us ate breakfast for 6RMB (= about $0.90).

As you will be able to tell, our China part of the trip revolves around food... and lots of it!

Later that day we walked through the French Concession, and indulged at a French Bakery. Two fancy coffees and a chocolate sponge cake later, and our pockets are 87 RMB (7RMB = about $1) lighter, which is quite expensive for a snack here. But was it ever good! And there are no regrets. This area of town is quite swanky and there are lots of tourists milling about. Right near the French Concession was a small and beautiful park with a large pond. We were enjoying the landscaping from under a tree on beautifully manicured grass, until we heard a whistle coming from across the pond. There stood a man in a grey uniform, with white gloves pointing at us and waving us off the grass. What is a park if you can't sit on the grass? We then found a hard cement bench under a tree to sit on, which was near to the grey uniformed park officer, and during our stay on that bench, the officer whistled at anyone who was on the grass, near the pond (across the yellow line that was painted on the walkway 1 foot from the pond), touching the water in the pond, touching the grass, looking at the grass, and pretty much anything else that condoned having fun in a park. If you have ever seen the Seinfeld episode with the Soup Nazi, this guy was deemed the Park Nazi for his over ambitious attempts to keep the park in pristine condition.

-- Ivy & Julie, we found you the location of the PWC Shanghai office. It was across the street from this park, so if you go on exchange to this office, avoid eating lunch in the park. You will probably be whistled at! --

One of the neatest things that we experienced in Shanghai was the fact that the young Chinese people enjoy speaking English, and they love to practice. I guess three Caucasian people stand out in Shanghai, since whenever we were just relaxing in shade, young Chinese people would come up to us and want to chat. We met very interesting people, and got to learn about where they are from, what they are studying in school and their likes and dislikes. One lady asked us what we studied at university, so we replied “engineering” and she proceeded to inquire about what we would be doing for work and we replied that we would be working in the software business. Her first response to our answer was “So that means that you would all be working at Microsoft?” We chuckled on how accurate his question was... How did she know?? I also found out the three dreams for a Chinese male... 1. Get a Chinese girlfriend 2. Work in America 3. Buy a German car (BMW was his choice). I guess his dreams are very similar to many around the world!

Later, met up with our Austrian friend who was teaching English in Shanghai (we met her at our hostel in Beijing) to have dinner with. She brought along one of her students to have dinner with us, so that we could understand the Chinese menu. We went to have dinner at a Hot Pot restaurant. This Hot Pot restaurant is very popular with the locals, as there was a line up of about 40 people, and usually you have to wait about 45 minutes to get a table (as per the Chinese student's description). However, when we got out of the elevator, the restaurant's hostess asked us to wait on the side. About 3 minutes later, we were sitting at a table for 5. An example of the great hospitality that China shows to guests. We were the only non-Asians in the entire restaurant and that meant that our table got lots of stares throughout the evening. Hot pot is similar to a fondue, but you order many, many dishes of meat (beef, lamb, chicken, sausage), seafood (fish balls, squid, shrimp), veggies (cilantro, lettuce, potato, mushrooms), and many other thins that we didn't know what they were, such as a dish that was called “Kiss the intestines”, “mushroom tribute pill”, “wacke kean noodles”... I guess many things got lost in translation. And many dishes didn't get ordered, as were were very afraid of them (“pig's brain”, 'fish's bamboo ikeel”, “nam intestines”). You then proceed to cook the food in a pot on the table which is filled with boiling broth (spicy side, and not spicy side). The dinner was amazing, and there was so much food! The best part about dinner was that it cost 156 RMB for 5 people (= $23 and that included 4 beer and 3 coconut milk... What a deal!)

Our stay in Shanghai ended too quickly, and it was sad to say good-bye to our newly found friend, Sabrina. However it may not be a good—bye, but only a see you soon... We hopefully will meet up with her in Austria/Germany at the end of our trip. Hopefully see you then Sabrina, and thanks for all your help!!

Our next destination is Hong Kong, and our mode of transportation is train. We have come to love train rides as they provide ever needed rest and relaxation. The train ride is especially comfortable in the soft sleeper class (4 beds to a cabin, which allows a very restful sleep on the long rides... China is HUGE!). The train ride from Shanghai to Hong Kong was 22 hours. This was plenty of time to catch up on some needed R&R. We even had enough time to meet a new friend over dinner on the train ride. This new found friend was a fantastic person to talk to, and had some interesting tales of his travels, experiences, and life in general. We chatted over dinner on the train (which was disgusting... Never order a dish called Fish and Spicy, it will be deeply regretted by all) and found out that he was from Ireland and his first language was not English, but Gaelic (which is wicked), that he's been touring around India, Thailand, Singapore and China. Since I've never spoken to a Gaelic person before, I had a hard time understanding him with his accent. I misunderstood him many of times, the worst being during a conversation about Easter. He asked us a question, and I interpreted it as being “Is it a bacon holiday?”, and me being confused about the question, I sat there with a dazed and confused look on my face. I was about to reply “No, I had ham...”, but Graeme quickly interpreted the question as being “Is it [Easter] a big holiday?” I guess I have to brush up on my ability to understand accents. :) Some interesting things that we learned about him, and interesting conversations we had:

1. He doesn't pronounce “th” sounds, so three comes out as tree (which makes it even harder to understand)

2. He was enthralled about Canadians, and was curious about how we say about & out

3. That he's never been to Disneyland or Ikea but was very excited to learn that Hong Kong had both.

4. That he was fairly gay... and will hence forth will be known as Triple G...Gaelic Gay Guy...(We never actually got his name)