Shanghai Day 2

On our 2^nd day in Shanghai, Jane and I did some shopping on Nanjing Street.  We spent several hours in this underground market where all you do is bargain, bargain, bargain.  The first one or two times we definitely got ripped off, but once we got the hang of it, we were a great team.  When one of us wanted to buy something we would tell the other one who would play along and together we would just walk away until we got the price that we wanted.  It basically became a game and it was a lot of fun. 

I was beginning to get used to the busy streets in China but still trying to observe as much as possible.  I imagine things were a bit different because of the Chinese New Year.  For instance, a lot of places were closed for the holidays and there were fireworks and firecrackers being set off all day and night.  I also observed several other things about the Chinese culture that were completely differently than what I’d seen in Japan.  First, I saw a lot more babies and children in China.  I saw significantly fewer children and babies in Japan, especially in comparison to their older generation, which makes up a big portion of the population due to the fact that Japan’s life expectancy is so high.  I also noticed that people in Japan, particularly Tokyo, looked very put together and were extremely fashionable.  In Shanghai, which is also a major city, people were not nearly as fashion conscious.  A final observation I made was that people in China showed a lot more public affection than I had seen in Japan.  (This does not include my host family in Japan, only what I saw walking around the cities.)  There was also a lot more touching and eye contact in China. 

That night we went to a great restaurant that was recommended to me by my dear friend Mike Sutich, who studied abroad in Shanghai last semester and is a restaurant connoisseur.  There were about 9 of us who went and everyone said they loved it.  (Thanks Mike!)  We sat at a big round table and had a family style dinner with a Lazy Susan on the table.  It was the first time we were given a menu with English translations, which made it easier.  Of course, the translations were not exactly the way we would translate them so we had quite a few laughs reading the menu.  There was also a little performance going on during dinner which was entertaining.

After dinner we went to the rooftop bar at the Captain Hostel.  Despite the fact that we did not like their sleeping accommodations, we had to give them credit for their rooftop bar.  It was designed and decorated like a boat and had indoor and outdoor seating.  It had a really cool atmosphere.  Later that night we went to a club called Muse 2 where we saw some SAS people.  But before that, something very interesting happened to me….

I was standing right outside the Captain hostel at the outdoor ATM when I could sense that someone was behind me.  I got a little freaked out at first but when I turned around I realized it was just a little old man laying out some sort of red ribbon along the sidewalk, probably decorating for the Chinese New Year.  I turned back around to finish making my transaction, when all of a sudden the loudest cracking sound starts piercing my eardrums.  As if that wasn’t enough, tiny little balls that felt like pebbles started hitting me in the back.  This lasts for a good 30 seconds and all I could do was stand there and take it because there was nowhere for me to go, especially since my card was still in the ATM.  As soon as everything stopped, I quickly pulled my card out of the machine and turned to go back into the hostel.  As I’m opening the door to the hostel, out of the corner of my eye, I see the little old man scurrying away down an alley, probably laughing to himself. 

Anyway, it was definitely a bizarre experience and I’m still trying to figure out why this man needed to set a firecracker off 5 feet away from me when he clearly saw me standing there.  Looking back it’s pretty funny, but at the time I thought I was in the middle of a warzone and it took several minutes for the ringing in my ears to stop.  Gotta love China.