New adventures in Shanghai

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Mike's mom took a trip to China while I was there, and Mike and I planned to head to Beijing together for a few days before meeting her at the airport. The extra train traffic from the Expo meant that tickets to and from Beijing were hard to come by, so we had to scrap those plans. Mike went to Beijing by himself and I spent an extra day in Shanghai so I could go to the Expo again and then meet Cory and Lacey when their train got in.

Before heading down to the Expo there was one other thing in Shanghai I wanted to explore. As many of you know, my parents and grandparents own a dairy equipment dealership. Our primary supplier is a company called Bou-Matic, and I discovered there is a dealer in Shanghai so I wanted to go find it. I looked up the address, figured out how to get there on the metro, and even drew myself a little map. I found the neighborhood easily enough, but what I didn't count on was the building not being marked very clearly.

Once I had walked around for a few minutes I figured out what building it had to be, although I apparently went in the back door. I was about to go up in the elevator when I realized I didn't remember if the office was on the 10th or 11th floor. I went to the lobby to look at the directory, but either Bou-Matic wasn't listed or I just didn't recognize the characters for it. The doorman was a bit surprised to see me, this big white guy, appear from nowhere in his lobby. I tried to explain to him in my broken Chinese what I was looking for, and that I remembered it was on the 10th or 11th floor, but he apparently didn't recognize "Bou-Matic," and I didn't know its Chinese name. He had somebody escort me to the 10th floor, not because I wanted to go there, but because he know somebody there that spoke some English. That guy didn't recognize the name either, but I managed to explain to him that they dealt with cows and milk. He sent my escort and me to the 4th floor, where we talked to one more person (in Chinese this time, but now my escort knew what I wanted), and this guy finally knew what I wanted, so up we went to the 11th floor (ha! I was right...sorta), and into the Shanghai office of Bou-Matic.

There I met Molly and Nicey, the girls that were working there. The Shanghai branch is a small operation, just a few rooms with some boxes of replacement parts like claws and pulsators. I wanted to ask about how their dealership operates, but my limited Chinese and their limited English were no match for the complexity that conversation would require. So, we exchanged some simple pleasantries instead. I explained why I had sought out their little office in a non-touristy part of Shanghai, and they invited me to lunch.

We went to a place specializing in Sichuan-style food, which meant it was all very spicy. In particular, the steamed snails were a bit more than my poor American tongue could handle, although they were pretty good. We had some more pleasant conversation, albeit rather simple (note to self: improve Chinese) and parted ways.

By the time I checked in at my hostel and got down to the Expo it was nearly 4pm. I hadn't planned on being this late, but I rushed in and spent 6 hours running around Zone C, containing the pavilions of Europe, the Americas, and Africa. I managed to visit, or at least see, every one before closing time at 10pm. This task was made somewhat simpler by the fact that the Caribbean countries were all in a shared building, and another had much of Central and South America.

I had no interest (or time!) in waiting 5 hours to get into the USA pavilion, so I skipped that in favor of less popular countries like Slovenia and Chile. One of my favorite pavilions was Denmark, which was designed like a double loop and had bikes that people could ride around the loops. In the middle was a pool where they had placed the Little Mermaid, flown in all the way from Copenhagen harbor, the first time she's traveled abroad. I also stopped by the Netherlands pavilion to eat a stroopwafel.

Only a handful of African countries had their own buildings, otherwise the vast majority had a portion of the "Africa Joint Pavilion," which I would have loved to spend more time in but instead had to briskly walk through and try to take in 48 African countries in about an hour.

One thing I enjoyed about that day was that I started out in the Suzhou train station overhearing a conversation in Spanish, spent lunch speaking English and (attempting) Chinese with some locals, and before the day was over a Congolese man asked me if I spoke French (I had to tell him no, ironically using one of the few French phrases I do know). Disney was right. It really is a small world after all.

Most buildings in the Expo close at 10pm, although the grounds are open until midnight. I managed to squeak in runs through the Norway and Finland pavilions at the buzzer, then left to ride the subway back to my hostel, ending what I think was the best (and so far most frantic) day of the trip. Tomorrow morning Cory and Lacey are due to arrive and we'll all go back to Suzhou for a few days while Mike is in Beijing.

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Photos

Train to Shanghai
New trains go over 330km/h, which is about 205mph

Molly and Nicey
The women who were working at the Bou-Matic dealership in Shanghai

Bou-Matic office
2010 is the Year of the Tiger

Little Mermaid
From the original Hans Christian Andersen story, not the Disney movie

Stroopwafel
Delicious and syrupy

Flags of the World
At the south entrance to the Expo