Yesterday was a big day. E and I met up with his friend H, who put us in a cab bound for a crowded shopping complex called Yuyuan, I think. The buildings were tall, built to look like old Chinese temples with carved roofs, and the lower floors were stores and shops. Some of the buildings held tourist markets, and we ended up shopping for some pasalubong. H did most of the bargaining for us; her patience got the prices down. I was a little annoyed when we walked away from a stand, and they would come out and follow her, touching her arm and asking her to name a price. If it was me, and I'm walking away, I don't want anyone touching me. But oh well, part of the game I guess.
There were a lot of people coming up to us, telling us about watches, insisting that we follow them. Some old people were walking around collecting recycling, asking for my bottle before I was finished with my water. It was crowded and hot.
Here's a video of some people stuffing dumplings in a famous dumpling place in the Yuyuan. The line streched out the door and around the building.
The three of us ate in a Noodles Plus restaurant that had individual dishes that seemed very Korean, although it definitely was not a Korean restaurant. After lunch we went to the cab circus and watched a lot of cabs either drive past us or get snatched up by other people who I didn't have the presence of mind to shove out of my way.
Finally, we got a cab and went to the Shanghai Museum of Urban Planning, right in the People's Square. It was 30 kuai to get in, and after taking our stub, we noticed our ticket was a postage paid postcard. Anyone want me to send them a postcard?
So we checked out the museum exhibits, including the old vs. new shanghai photo display, the huge miniature of the whole city of Shanghai, the 360 degree computer animation flying through Shanghai's engineering marvels, urban planning, development and transit displays.... Afterwards we went up to the cafe on the top floor and sat. I ordered a 30 kuai Perrier and we just hung out.
Soggy Wet
Later we decided it was time to cross the river to the see the Pearl Tower, so we got on the subway. H wasn't sure where to get off, and when we got to the surface, we realized we had gone one stop too far. No problem, we'll just walk to the tower.
We stopped to take a picture of a very tall building under construction. A crane that was on top of the building was lifting some materials to the top. At that moment, we started feeling raindrops, and soon the sky opened and we were caught in a rainstorm on the wide streets of the Pudong.
I suggested we duck under the awning of an old building, which looked historically significant, but I don't remember what it was. We stood against the wall, but when the rains started coming down hard, my shoes were getting soaked from the upsplash of the hard, hard rain. I made a dash for the better shelter of the doorway, where other people had gathered to smoke their cigarettes and escape the rain. By the time I got to the doorway, I was soaked.
E and H sprinted to the doorway a little while afterwards, looking like a couple of drowned rats. The lightning was very close to us; the time between the flash and the sharp thunder was only about a second. The Chinese people took a step backwards with every thunder clap.
There were no cabs coming our way; the ones we did see were on the other side of a barrier. After a good half hour, we saw an empty cab coming down the street. E ran out to get it, and when it stopped for us, H and I ran out and hopped in. We were soggy wet.
The cab dropped E and I at the closest subway station, which was all of two blocks away. We never knew we were so close. H took the cab to an appointment, and we went underground and headed back to the hotel.
What's that sound?
Once back at the hotel, I got changed. After using the bathroom, I lit a courtesy match, because I wasn't born in a barn. By this time, it looked like the rain had stopped, and E and I left the room in search of a bottle of water. E's shoes were wet, so he put on the disposable slippers provided by the hotelToo small, way ugly.
We had noticed that there was a Dolar Shop on the 20th floor, so we took the elevator to the 19th and walked up the steps to 20, only to find that Dolar Shop was not a store, but a kind of fancy restaurant. We went back to the room.
Once back, we noticed our curtains were closed, and there were little laminated cards asking us not to smoke in bed. Eh? We went from the 11th floor to the 19th, and back down... had somebody come into our room in that short of a time?
E later figured out that my courtesy match had set off the smoke alarm, which we had heard faintly beeping, in no way sounding like a smoke alarm. I also had to explain to him about courtesy matches, because he had never heard of him. You'd think a student at a fancy east coast college would have heard of a courtesy match....
Sewing Drama
At that point, I went to the front desk to ask for a sewing kit, as my Jesus Christ shorts had a big hole in the pocket. The receptionist directed me to the fuwuyan on the 12th floor, they would fix it for me. I didn't want to do that, because I didn't know how much they would charge me.
So instead I went up to the fifth floor little hotel store, and asked for a mini sewing kit. She promptly got on the phone and asked the fuwuyan to meet me at my room and mend my pocket. So I went back up to the room, and on the way, I was intercepted in the hallway by the curious fuwuyan. She said she'd fix my pocket, so I went into my room and took my shorts off to give to her.
When I went to find her, she was waiting in the hallway for me. I showed her the hole, and her and her friend said the hole was too big, I would cerrtainly need a patch. To confirm the word for patch, I showed them the Jesus Christ patch on the side of my shorts where my mama had concealed another rip. I went back to my room to get a bandana to use as a patch.
Back in the hallway, the ladies decided that the best course of action was not to patch it, but to sew the hole shut, so I went back to the room to wait.
Ten minutes later she was at my door, the pocket mended. She exhorted me not to put heavy things into that pocket, a sentence which I later repeated for E's entertainment.
At this point, I noticed E hadn't changed out of his wet clothes, so I asked him if he was going to change, and he asked me why I was worried about it. I guess it's none of my business. He took a shower and changed, and then we went to go meet H for dinner at Nanjing Dong Lu.
Shanghai Nights
We walked on the strip for a while, and I kept cutting off the aggressive "buy my watch" "eat at my restaurant" people with a quick "Bu yao," which E said was mean sounding. Probably was. Later he told H about the courtesy match incident; she had never heard of the courtesy match either. Odd folk.
Anyway, we narrowed it down to two restaurants: cantonese and hunan. I decided cantonese it is! And we sat and ordered beef with wasabi and vegetables, shredded chicken, singapore fried noodles, chilled vegetables, and some dumpling soup. We talked and told stories, and I talked way too much about work. I told them about the boys who pretend to not have paper.
Later we walked down Nanjing Dong Lu all the way to Waitan, otherwise known as "the Bund." Took pictures, shook of vendors, watched all the lights of the Pudong skyline. Biggest big-screens I've ever seen in my life, three or four of them. Later we found our way to an expensive cafe and asked H our assigned homework questions. Afterwards, we cabbed back to the hotel and said goodbye to H.
Once we got upstairs, we decided to go back out again so E could hit a cash machine. I retraced my walk from the morning and was able to get cash from an international bank with my ATM card. While getting cash, a man walking fast down the sidewalk asked, "hashish?" I ignored him, but my mind raced at the many kinds of trouble we could get dragged into if something "went down." E didn't seem too concerned.
We walked back to the hotel, and on the way, in front of the Jian Temple, I saw the hashish man again, chatting casually with a cop. E said that they might be friends, and I thought about all the bad stuff that could happen if the drug dealer and (bad?) cop wanted to mess with us.
Part of being a dude is sometimes imagining yourself getting into physical altercations with other dudes you see on the street. Besides that, in my family we have a tradition of imagining the worst possible outcome of any given situation. I think it makes conversation more interesting.
E and I stayed up late talking Chinese. I didn't really want to go to sleep, but knew I had to in order to catch the train the next morning, so I got into my bed and turned off the lights. We kept talking, and somewhere there I must have said goodnight and fallen asleep, because the next thing I remember it was 6:30 am and I was getting up to go to the bathroom.
Sunday Morning.
Breakfast at the hotel, and then we packed up and walked down to the subway.
We rode down to the correct train station (for once) and quickly found our way to the waiting room. We even found seats!
Once on the train, we talked about interviewing people for our assignment, but it didn't happen. E tried to sleep against the window of the train, but his head kept slipping. I took the time to write this entry.
Back in Hangzhou
We got off in Hangzhou, and I had pretty much resigned to the fact that we would be cabbing it back to Gong Da. But as some map sellers were shoving their maps in my face, and I was "bu yao"ing them, E had the presence of mind to ask where to catch the bus. The lady told us where we could catch a 3, and we found it waiting for us. No a/c, but plenty of open windows and seats.
We got off near campus and stopped at a bank. Then we walked back to the dorm, I checked my email, changed my sweaty shirt, and got my book bag ready. We found C in the hallway, who had a copy of "War and Peace" in his hand. The three of us went to the corner restaurant and ordered egg-fried beef strips, mala tofu, the first greens that the waitress suggested, and some kind of salty chicken. It was the same waitress that was so embarrassed by our lack of chinese before, and I know she recognized us this time, but this time we ordered with some authority, and got everything we wanted.
Here comes the rain again
Afterwards, the three of us went to Starbucks and got three separate tables; E and I preparing the text, C and his "War and Peace." As we've been sitting here, the skies have opened up and started dumping rain again. Judging from the speed of thunder, the lightning was right above us, but now there's a few seconds between the lightning and the thunder. So now we're at Starbucks.
Just now, C decided to take off; E gave him his umbrella so that a) C wouldn't get wet, and b) so that E and I would be forced to stay here and study. And excellent idea, except for the fact that I'm blogging and not studying. Oh well, I will learn this language regardless of my final grade in this program.
So far I've had a large iced tea and a tiramisu, which in Chinese is called "tilamisu." I had been falling asleep over my textbook, I think I even dreamt a little dream, but now I'm up, and I think the espresso and sugar in the tiramisu has kicked in.
I've read the text, it's a little long, but the font is big and the words are pretty easy. I could try to memorize the new words, but I just might not. When E is done, we'll find someone to interview.
Right now, I just noticed three people in rain ponchos on the plaza in front of us. It is driving rain, and one of them has a broom, one a dust mop, and the third person just walked in with a mop. They are cleaning the plaza in the driving rain. There's two centimeters of standing water.
They just went inside after a nearby lightning flash. The sky is starting to get lighter, so I think this rain is about to stop.
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