Shanghai Diary(1) by Chrissy

August 2009

The train sleep was good for most, but I kept waking up and going back to sleep when I realized it was still dark outside. The train station in Shanghai was a zoo. People are going in every direction and it took us a while to find that the taxis were underground. As we walked all around the train station, I was lugging my laptop backpack, big fan, and my big red suitcase, which had become a receptacle for all the leftovers. In addition to my clothes and toiletries, the suitcase was holding two rolls of paper towels, jam, peanut butter, the communist whisky and cans of beer. Another bag that I created held the prints I bought at 798, leftover fruit from the hotel, leftover anju, and a roll of toilet paper (just in case).

Shanghai soon became a cab adventure. We had to take two cabs to accommodate all the luggage. YK and Dad got into a light teal cab, and Hyun and I told our cab driver where the apartment was. We thought we could do the follow that cab bit because the cab was such an odd color, but we soon realized that there were light teal cabs everywhere. Soon the cab pulled alongside one, and YK and Dad were not inside. However, we found the apartment successfully.

Our new place was a three bedroom apartment that came with an empty kitchen and a daily nonstop jackhammer. Work is being done on one of the floors, but it is so loud it might as well be in the kitchen. Hyun and I each did a small load of laundry, which was very due. It was so nice to have clean clothes once again. I took a small nap as we waited for Jamyung, Euigyoo, and Hyangji to meet us at the apartment. Unfortunately for them, their flight was delayed.

After thinking about how we could fit seven people into this apartment, we soon realized that Jamyung, Euigyoo, and Hyangji would share the additional one bedroom that YK had reserved for two nights. After that, Jamyoung was going back to Korea and Euigyoo and Hyangji were going to join us in our apartment.

We started to walk around the neighborhood, and we noticed many differences right away between Beijing and Shanghai. The major difference was that although Shanghai was a much bigger city, it was a lot denser than Beijing. Most of the streets were closer to Los Angeles streets, but there were so many more bikes, electric bikes, mopeds, and motorcycles. Crossing the street, even with a walk signal could be hazardous to your health.

Also the amount of stares because Dad and I are westerners increased. As we walked, Hyangji and I had fun reading the terrible English translations throughout the city. Soon we reached the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center. Shanghai is going to be home of the 2010 Expo. The whole city is under construction much like Beijing was in 2006 in preparation for the Olympics. This museum was basically predicting the future of the city. It showed a large number of buildings being created for the Expo, and what the city will look like. There was a huge diorama of the city as well as videos that show the city from a bird’s eye view. It was like a giant propaganda museum, but I was buying it. I think the next time I come to Shanghai will have to be in 2011, so I can see the giant red table building and the one that will look like a clam shell.

The theme of the preparation and total construction of the city is Better City, Better Life. They also have an Expo mascot named Haibao. He is a blue happy guy shaped like the Chinese character ren, which means “people”. Not only was he all over the museum, he is all over the city, next to the theme, on billboards, and being sold as stuffed animals all around the city. I think he looks like toothpaste.

Then we walked around the corner to a huge promenade area very similar to the big shopping area with the scorpions. This area was called Nanjinglu, and as we walked down this big street with all its trendy shops, I couldn’t help but think how beautiful it must be at night time.

We continued to walk around the city until we got to a bridge near the river. There we were able to see the famous Shanghai skyline. The tower with the red balls is the TV tower and the one to the right of it that looks like a bottle opener is currently the third largest building in the world. Thursday we went to the building right in front of it, so more about these two buildings later.

Since there were now seven of us, we had to take two cabs to get to an area called “Old Shanghai”. Jamyung, Dad, and YK jumped in one cab, while the other four of us got in the next. For the first time this trip we got lost. The cabs dropped us off in very different areas, and we had no idea how to find each other. I noticed that Jamyung, Dad, and YK were all wearing stripes, while the other four of us were wearing solids. We looked for the stripes, until Hyangji got a text from her mother. The whole time we were looking for them, people kept approaching us and asking us to buy “watch bags”, which were probably watches and bags. We didn’t buy anything. We were reunited a half hour after being dropped off by the cab.

Exhausted we stopped at McDonald’s and had a 2.5 Yuan cone (about 7 Yuan is a dollar). Then we walked around the historic area of Old Shanghai. It was beautiful, but it was packed. I struggled to pick which picture I should share. I chose this one:

The reason for the struggle was the man in the yellow on the left-hand side of the picture has the best comb-over I have ever seen. I found him after this picture was taken and called for my Dad to turn around so I could inconspicuously take this picture:

It was just now during this write up that I noticed that comb-over guy had not only made it into the previous picture of me, but a group picture I took of everyone else. I underestimated his sneakiness.

The walking continued to an area of shops much less preserved than this area. It also had a 2 Yuan shop. I bought chopstick rests to go with the chopsticks I bought myself in Beijing. We somehow managed not to get lost on the cab ride to dinner. We were brought up to the third floor where we shared the room with another party. We had fish, dumplings, seafood soup, pork, noodles, fried chicken and beer. When the bill came, more money was spent on beer than food.

Back at the hotel, I brought out my shot glasses and chopsticks (for the anju) and we finished the communist whiskey.

Diaries(1) (2) (3) (4)

Continuation from Beijing Diaries: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)