Lady lady, you want rolex??? (Marcus)

Well our weekend in Shanghai has come and gone and we had an absolute blast of a time. In fact we had such a good time that by Saturday night we were absolutely stuffed! We had been on the go for exactly 12 hours. By the 12^th hour we both couldn’t get back to the apartment quick enough and fell asleep without even swapping goodnights. In fact I can’t even remember going to bed I was so tired.

We got up early and caught a taxi into Wuxi, our train leaving at around 9:30am. All went smoothly and the station was actually the quietest we had seen it(though China quiet is still people everywhere, don’t worry.) We were separated for the second time on the train, our seat numbers 15 & 16 being on two different sides and against the window in each case – stupid us for thinking they’d put us together (again!). We are going to make sure that when we travel in sleeper trains that we specifically ask for this, as I can just imagine it completely not occurring to them that duh, we might want to sit together – or more so, sleep in the same goddamn carriage. Chinese thinking is sometimes not thinking at all.

Once we arrived in Shanghai it was hot and sunny and considerably better than our first visit – which was arriving in heavy rain with no umbrella and huge crowds due to it being International Women’s day. We caught another taxi to the apartment and checked in. The reception was Frank Hu’s room on the 19^th floor – just an everyday apartment. As we got out of the lift, a corgi ran up to us and absolutely barked it’s ass off. It was only satisfied when Frank had seemingly allowed us to enter the reception office. He allowed us to pick from two apartments, one on floor 19, the other on 21. I decided the one on 21 looked a bit better(and the one on level 19 stunk of cleaning products) – both offered an amazing view. The apartment on floor 19 had a bed which was high up on a platform, whilst the level 21 room had the bed all the way over near the window. We slept with the curtains open so we could go to bed with the view, and wake to the view. In fact I woke up several times during the night as it was quite hot in the room, each time seeing the sky and cityscape in a slightly different hue.

The view itself was amazing. We overlooked the northern end of the Bund and across to the Pearl tower. Below us was a combination of the old and new. At the foot of the building were clear square blocks of original Shanghai architecture. Most were lived in and some were in various states of ruin. Behind them towards the Huangpu river were new, towering skyscrapers. Shanghai is an extremely interesting city with an even more interesting history. One of the best parts about it is you can see evidence of the old Shanghai everywhere. When you explore the older streets, it’s always with the backdrop of the brand new buildings. The contrast is so interesting to witness.

A block of some original Shanghai architecture. It doesn't look like much from above, but when you look closely, they're a hive of activity. The alleyways that eat their way through them are like a dressed movie set. It's a shame to see these being bulldozed and turned into skyrises.

Our building was in a completely different part of the city from our first visit. Here we were actually in what was a very old suburb/area of the city. Around us we had streets that still had that ‘old shanghai’ feel to them. We loved that. If we walked straight north, in about 10-15 minutes we would hit the Bund and all it offered. If we walked 5 minutes west – or rather, immediately around us, was this old neighborhood. Down the middle of it, signs of every fluro description were lit up. A combination of interesting alleys into authentic looking living areas, multi-leveled restaurants, fruit shops, cigarette shops, brothels, you name it, they were there.

We have discovered in the last few weeks that the brothels are actually everywhere and were completely under our noses. Most are under the guise of beauty salons, but they’re everywhere – particularly when the sun goes down. In these shops, the girls are simply standing or sitting in the front windows – often playing on their mobile phones, or playing cards. It would have to be about the easiest thing ever finding one(if you were so inclined!) – which is interesting as it’s actually illegal in China. I have heard some lovely things about foreigners getting busted using their services, and having their passports marked accordingly.

These brothels are interesting. They are not in any way threatening. The girls don’t come up to you and try and push their wares on you, nor do they look like some druggie infested den where you might get beaten and mugged. They look just like any other store. The girls look about as disinterested as possible. And the thing that is the most interesting about them – they’re right there amongst all the other every day shops. This is why we didn’t even notice them despite having walked by a couple many times. They’re just there. You would raise no more interest walking into the fruit shop next door than walking into the knock shop with the 3 bored looking teenage girls looking to make enough money to buy the latest mobile phone model.

Jumping back a few hours, we first went for a walk down to the Bund in the sunshine and took a few photos. Along the Bund as expected it was absolutely packed with tourists. It was here that we discovered another roaring trade of China – street …hmm I don’t even know what I would call them – peddlers? People who either try and trick you into buying something or outright try and show you their wares – whether you are interested or not.

The former actually kind of shit me to tears. I have had a few instances now where I have genuinely been interested in talking with someone, only to see the nature of the conversation suddenly turn towards the – what should have been expected.

My first instance of this was at the far northern end of the Bund where there is a large monument dedicated to the People’s Heroes of China – all very communist. Here(and we actually worked out later that this is where we saw the Amazing Race go, woo Amazing Race!) there was a canal before the monument which was walled off. In the water there was a pontoon on the water that was covered with turtles and…very large frogs. In fact the frogs and turtles were vying for positions on the platform and there was a large amount of jostling going on. The smaller and seemingly more resourceful turtles had actually claimed comfortable and relatively safe positions on the much larger shells of the bigger turtles. I was rooting for the lone Frog that I could see. The poor bastard was completely outnumbered, and one large prick of a turtle(of course with a smaller one on his back) was trying to push him back in the water.

So as I was watching the turtles, a Chinese man asked me if I liked turtles. Courtney had walked away to take some photographs but I stayed around as I was curious as to why they were there. The turtles were present in respect to the monument he told me, then all about the monument itself and the event that took place in I believe 1929 that caused it’s erection. The turtle in China signifies long life, thus here they were. After a bit more chitchat, where are you from, etc etc, he told me there were cave’s below where we were, and that he was an artist and his sculptures were down there. He then asked if I would like to go and have a look – nah. I was actually interested in seeing the caves, but inevitably the conversation had lead to him trying to setup a sale. I bid him farewell and went off to check out the Bund proper.

It seems the most important to the average street seller is getting you IN to their shop. In the Yu Yuan market we went to Sunday afternoon, one woman was saying to me, “Come in! You like, come in!” and I was already about a metre or so IN the shop – which I pointed out to her.

As we walked further along I found another monument which looked classically communist and was a monument to the worker heroes – so told another Chinese man with particularly bad teeth. We spoke about the worker rebellion of the 20’s and this and that when he told me he was an artist. Now call me dumbshit here for not recognizing his pitch, but he then told me he was a paper cutter and proceeded to pull out a piece of paper and start cutting something.

Now this perked my interest for two reasons. The Chinese, while annoying salesmen, are actually highly talented artists with this kind of thing. Some of their paper cutting is simply stunning. On the other hand, I knew Courtney was really into this kind of thing, so I thought there might be something really cool to be gleaned from this to show her(not purchase, mind). So away he goes, cutting something without me asking which soon turns out to be his attempt at my head – an outline, complete with silhouette. Well other than looking like I’m about 20 hears older with a double chin and big nose, it wasn’t too bad…well then and there that is, when I looked at it later it actually looks kinda crap. So he cut it up and I was enjoying the exchange, I really was. I found what he was talking about interesting – his years cutting paper, his family history doing it etc, and then he whips out a little piece of plastic envelope with a white square in the middle which is clearly designed to stick the cutting onto. And then I realized that yeah, I had taken the bait, like any other stupid westerner. So he handed me it and I smiled and said thanks and well, gotta go! And there was an awkward silence. Then he said what I knew he’d say – What about my payment? (or something similar). So I asked how much he wanted for his efforts – expecting the usual completely exorbitant over-pricing, and he wanted 20 yuan. I said no, I didn’t want him to cut it, yadda yada, I’ll give you three. He didn’t look happy with that, wanted 15, I said nup, 3. Luckily I have been here long enough to lose my little bo beep timidness with this kind of thing, so while he’d trapped me, he got no more than 3rmb for his efforts. At that he let me keep it, but NOT the plastic envelope display case – which I found amusing. Just like the guy in the Science and technology market who wanted 540rmb for the pair of shoes I wanted – I got him down to 315 and got the shoes in a plastic bag – not the box. I bet the lack of box was mostly spite, but what the hell, I got a new pair of shoes that 1. I really like and, 2. will fall apart in about 3 weeks. Either way, I am happy.

Oh check me out, it's a dead ringer!!! .......not.

So that was the subtle trapper. What appears to be a friendly face whose keen for a chat(something that poor Marcus is always interested in LL) always turns out to be a pain in the ass. Beyond these guys there’s the locational vendors of absolute shit. If you go to a culturally important garden, or somewhere with amazing views such as the Bund, you’ll find these guys, en masse. They obviously get a dollar or something for every sale they make as they are usually all selling the same thing. In Suzhou when we took a bicycle rickshaw to the Humble Administrators garden, outside it was a canal where they were doing boat tours- sort of like Venice style – cept the water looks and smells like it’s filled with poo. Our driver/rider at the end of the trip heartily recommended this boat trip, showing us(pushing it in our face rather)a few photos on a laminated piece of cardboard. This was our first experience of it. As we politely declined, we were then approached every one metre by what appeared to be migrant workers(will talk more about these people some other time), pushing in our faces the very same laminated boards. If you tell them no they mostly just continue on to the next ‘whitey’, thankfully they don’t hang on you. So all along the Bund we found these guys, trying to sell photographs – or rather, the ability to have your photos taken. On their boards were Chinese posing for photos with the odd foreigner. The foreigner being on there meant it was OK-USA!! It cracks me up that the Chinese(or Asian tourists) are ones who fuel these fires, willing to undergo anything, no matter how tacky.

And there’s still another two types of salesman we encounter all over the place – though considerably moreso in touristy type places such as Shanghai. It seems my little post about Shanghai has been completely side-tracked, but whatever.

Wherever there are tourists there are people enthusiastically trying to sell EVERY CONCIEVABLE GIMICKY PIECE OF CRAP YOU CAN IMAGINE!!! Holy Christ these guys amaze me. 9 times out of 10 they’re migrants(ie people from the middle of China – they look a lot darker than most Chinese and a lot more weathered). They will sit there from dawn till dusk enthusiastically spinning tops that light up and make sounds, winding up toy chickens and setting them off, throwing rubber pigs with full force against a piece of cardboard, showing how well they splatter, tossing little rubber spidermen up onto windows, setting toy army men into action, demonstrating roller-skate wheels that light up and clip onto your shoes and my new favourite, dangling two felt rat things from a cord so it looks like they alive and chasing each other. They do this stuff NON STOP, and actually look into what they’re doing. It’s unbelievable. Some way some how they muster continual energy into trying to make what they’re selling look, hey you beaut you want this it’s great!! They’re in every tourist destination, and in Shanghai, all through the subway tunnels. Wherever there’s people, there’s these sellers and they are always, always always selling new versions of absolute crap. I have to embarrassedly admit that by the end of today I kinda wanted a rubber splat pig L I actually bartered with this guy secretly while Courtney was in a shop and got him down from haha you are fucking kidding 40rmb??!? to 10 rmb for two before Courtney came out and saw me and I walked away while the guy was literally tugging me back by the arm as he knew he had me. Not today sorry chump, my pride has already been trampled on!

Pig seller number 487 - why I bartered with him I do not know. Deep down a little part of me still desires one :(

Bloody yay! Shoe skates! You want to buy? Look, you like?

And last but by no means least, there are the sellers of the mighty 3; 1. Watches. 2. Bags. 3. DVDs. These people are everywhere. They come out of nowhere and in some places are as common as the situational sellers of crap. Every few paces one will thrust a fold out sheet into your stomach with photos of watches, bags and/or dvd’s. They want to take you to their secret stash of fake goodies. They are EVERYWHERE. They approach with, LADY LADY HELLO, want Rolex??? I just can’t believe how much of this crap there is. They don’t hassle you for the most part, they spiel their Watch Bag DVDs?? Pitch and don’t follow in most cases. I give them a wo bu yao(I don’t want) or just ignore them, either does the trick. Today I was tired as hell, and as we walked I started amusing myself by saying to them before they could talk, “Let me guess, Watches bags and dvds?!?!” to which they mistook it as interest then followed me for an extra five metres. Ah well, it’s all fun at the end of the day.

I think of the _350_ odd photos we took over the weekend(yes, weekend), this is my favourite. That smile isn't because of the amazing view, it's because this is practically the first time Courtney has had real white wine since coming to China, in an actual proper wine glass. This stuff is an absolute rarity over here. But anyway, i like the colour, projected down from a massive blue lit neon behind us contrasted with the warm orange of the city.

As for Shanghai, I am sure Courtney will tell you more. I will say one thing though – the highlight of the weekend for me was the nightscape view of the city from the 26^th floor of our apartment building. We were outside, drinking cocktails, beer and wine in the open night air and watched the sun go down and the lights slowly move through dusk to full night. The view as it transformed – amazing. The view when it was full dark? Absolutely unbelievable. I felt speechless. I was so utterly impressed by it. A German couple were up with us, and he said that he had been to all of the major American cities, Dubai and all over Europe and he said it was the best city view he had seen to date. I could believe that. To see the majesty of such a famous city from such a good vantage was worth the trip alone in my opinion. Below is a somewhat low quality video I took of the view – and even that doesn’t include the other sides of the building where it continued. The size and scale of the city just blew me away. And to think, beyond it’s border not ten minutes by train is polluted farmland.