Lets Play the Name Game!

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Wowzers, I’m back in Shanghai! After crazy fun seeing Sun YatSen’s Memorial, Seeing Confucius’s temple, and getting a first hand look at the Rape of Nanjing, I decided that my wallet was too heavy and went back to the super expensive city of Shanghai. You’re welcome Mom and Dad. Alright, so let’s get this party started.

Aug 21st:
I woke up in Shanghai, around 4:15, and after making it back to the hostel around 5, I decided to make today a planning day, and write a bit. I saw Jenny and Megan briefly for what happened to be the last time. I just never saw them again. I assume they made it back to CET ok… Of course chilling at the bar just turned into another bar conversation, this time with a girl from SiChuan Province. She was rather cool, and we talked for a while, and then we went out and got snacks for some of the people there for a mini feast. And then I had duck neck for the first time. Surprisingly good – it’s kinda like ribs, only the bone of a neck isn’t smooth, so you can’t sink your teeth straight to the bone without stabbing yourself or breaking the neck bone, but it was still good. Also had some of my favorite Chinese veggies – golden mushrooms and lotus root. I repayed her by buying her a Corona (my favorite beer in America) – that’s about fair I think. It was a good night, and I finally went to bed around 12.

22nd:
So to make a long story short, I woke up with plans to register for classes today. That didn’t happen, I couldn’t log into the server. But I was told that it was really busy during the first day, so I figured the server was just to flogged with people. However, this did take up a fair amount of my morning – not cool.
However, I would not rue any day (btw – rue is the buzz word of Shanghai – as it was trying its hardest to make it happen). So I gave Rachel (remember her? The girl I met the last weekend in Beijing? Keep up people) a call, and see if she and her amies (drop some French there btw) wanted to have dinner – which they did. However, dinner wasn’t for a few hours, so I went and had lunch with Yue (remember her? Shanghai Matt’s friend? Didn’t think you were going to get quizzed did you? Busted. – I’d also like to note how I’m name dropping like a boss right now). So Yue and I went to Century Ave and grabbed lunch. Later her friend joined us. We had a lot of really good food, and was able to impress Yue with my improved Chinese skills (heck yes!). Furthermore we had this dish, and I’m not exactly sure what it’s called, but it’s like Shanghai got inspired by America and have this dish where it’s an inch of pork, covered with about ½ a centimeter of pork fat – and I guess it’s roasted – because that sucker is delicious. Oh my god, seriously, I’ve gotta figure out how to make this stuff.
Afterward I said my goodbye to Yue and headed off toward the World expo site. Eh. Not great. They tour down a lot of stuff, and what is left is more impressive in the distance. That being said, Yue told me to go to the wrong stop, so I got to go on a nice little walk though non-tourist Shangha. It was nice – and I found a Natatorium. I then used my detective skills to learn that a natatorium is a sports center, or at least this one looked like a sports center. I’m learning English words from Shanghai – go figure. However, this little adventure ate up a bit of time, so I went back to the hostel, figured out a game plan for tomorrow, and got ready to meet Rachel and friends (aka: shave, not wear shoes that smell exactly like my feet).
I got to the People’s square around 7 (when we said we’d meet) and they showed up around 7:30 – and thus started a great tradition of Rachel never showing up on time (Hi Rachel!) So we walked over to the restaurant Jenny, Megan, and I found our first night here, and split two bowls of noodles, as well as 2 soup dumplings. After an excellent display on all of our parts trying to *cough* gracefully *cough* cut noodles, meat, and soup dumplings with chopsticks, we finished our meal and I lead them down East Nanjing street, and did a little fact dropping on the bund (ex: the bridge by the independence memorial). We then went in search of a bar to chill at, and after a while, Rachel’s two friends went back to the hotel.
Rachel and I decided to keep walking, and see what we saw. In the mean time, I got to know Rachel, and (since she could read this – and more specifically is aware of this blog, I can’t give her the satisfaction of a compliment) she’s ok, I guess. She goes to George Washington, is into international studies, policy making, and all that jazz. Half Taiwanese, and honestly a lot of fun to be around (dang it, that’s a compliment isn’t it? Well that was fast) so we wandered and talked, and wandered some more – made fun of her car at some point (don’t ever tell me you own a hatchback, I will rip you to shreds). And then wouldn’t you know it? We randomly found a bar – so we went in.
Despite the fact that it was a Tuesday, the music was good, and we both discovered the other likes dubstep (which very simply put – is heavy electro). We played a few rounds of pool, and failed epically, as we had to face guys who were good enough to the point where they were planning on where the Q ball was going to stop. We then met some other foreigners – one of which was a French guy named Adam. He was a rather fun guy, and after him, and his friends, along with Rachel and myself danced for a bit, Adam and I got into an evil match of never have I ever. To put the rules simply: if you’ve done the thing the other guy hasn’t, you have to drink. If you also haven’t done it, the guy who’s turn it is has to drink. Now this game turned dirty very quickly. Adam started and went with “Never have I ever kissed a girl.” (he’s also gay btw – but that doesn’t really matter) Oh – so that’s how he wanted to play? Game on. “Never have I ever been French.” And you can get a pretty good sense how the rest of the game went. The only reason we stopped was cause Rachel needed someone to dance with. Can’t say no to a lady now can you? Also on a side note, I thought it was really funny that I had a bunch of other Shanghaiese people complement me on my beautiful “girlfriend.” Apparently the thought of two friends going out to have fun never crossed their mind, but whatever – it was just easier to nod yes and move on to having fun. So at like 4:30 Rachel and I decided that it might be a good idea to head back to our respective places. Got back to the hostel around 5 am.
23rd:
So I woke up around 10 – and I’m not going to lie people, I had a pretty bad hangover. This is the second time this has ever happened to me after drinking (the first time being one of my first weekends in college) so I stayed in bed all day and slept it off. PSYCH! I’m Robby freaking Hanckel! You think a hangover is going to stop me? Heck no, I’m in Shanghai to freaking see Shanghai, so the day can rue me. Besides, I saw all of Nanjing with a cold, it was about the same. I got on my lappy to see if I could register for classes, and that failed miserably. Apparently 9am-3pm doesn’t mean 9am-3pm. But then I got a sneaky idea, to be saved for later. So then I decided to see the propaganda museum as well as the first meeting place of the CCP. But not before Rachel gave me a call and see if I wanted to hang out on the 24th. Well, I can’t say no to that now can I? So another meeting was set. She was even kind enough to give me the responsibility to choose where tomorrow night. So kind of her.
But back to today. So I popped in my headphones, played my chill electro mix (thank you Tucker) and went off to find the propaganda museum. This sucker is far away. You have to take the metro, cross over to a different metro (which very cheaply makes you pay for another ticket) and then it’s a good 20 minute walk from the metro station. Oh, and the museum is in the bottom of an apartment building, and there are no signs at all for this place. But I eventually found it after asking for directions a few times – and it was kinda cool. Very interesting that a lot of these posters involved not just the Chinese, but a lot of countries that were going through revolution – ex: a lot of posters with black and Indian people, fighting for freedom and equality along side the Chinese. Go figure. But it was rather cool to see, and interesting some of the posters they saved that should have been burned after Mao’s death. That being said, it was not worth all the hassle to get there, as you could probably find a lot of this stuff on the Internet.
Then I went to the first meeting spot of the CCP (the beginning of the communist party in China). This was actually kind of cool, to step where the beginning of a revolution happened – more or less. It was also interesting because they had the history of all the founding members. A suprising number ended up becoming trators during the war to protect their families/themselves (which you can imagine didn’t end well when China won). Also seeing a young Mao ZeDong was just weird – I’d never piece the old and the new faces together on my own. Also, there was a Dutch and a Russian randomly there as well. The Russian made sense, but I never would have guessed a Dutch guy also had interest in the Chinese communist party – oh well, he did.
I had a little bit of time left, so I tried to see the Shanghai Art Museum. But I got there around 4:15, and they stop letting people in at 4. Grrrr – but then I found the Porsche salesman, and all was ok – because I love Porsche too much. 911 – oh man, what a sexy car. So I walked around a little more and then headed back to the hostel.
I grabbed dinner, and decided to head off toward the shanghai history museum, which is just underneath the pearl tower. It was kind of funny, because there wasn’t a line for the museum, and where the line would be is right next to where the line to go up the tower. So long story short, I got to piss everyone off, as I walked right by them (cause they thought I was skipping them) only to juke out the 25 people in the front of the line (that could still see me) and head downstairs. The museum itself was ok, kind of cool to see the Shanghai that died, and they had some replicas of real stores, and the names of the storeowners and everything. And some people asked me to take their picture with them. (the burden of being a sexy white person).
And then my genius plan worked. So this morning I realized that even though my registration time was from 9-3, the thought occurred that Taiwan U may still think I’m on American time – because no one has realized I’m in freaking China. And I was right. 9pm, I was able to log on and register for classes – we’ll see if I get what I want. And on that happy note, I chilled at the bar for a tad and then slept.

Aug 24th:
So, last day in Shanghai, and I hit that ground running…well around 10 o’clock. Grabbed some grub and headed off to YuYuan, which is Shanghai’s famous gardens. It’s also surrounded by tourist trap shops everywhere. The gardens were suppose to be really crowded but I went on a weekday morning in threatening to rain weather, and there was hardly anyone there. Which means I got a good look at everything. Honestly I thought it was a little overhyped, but it was still a lot of fun to see, and the ponds with the carp and turtles were actually really cool. Just don’t plan on eating around there – really price, good thing I didn’t.
Then I went “rogue” and went to M50, which is Shanghai’s art district. I have mentioned before that I’m not a huge art guy, and admittedly I didn’t go into any of the galleries (they’re all very western, and that’s not why I’m in China) however, the graffiti on the walk way over there is freaking amazing, and I have a very soft spot for graffiti. And I mean everything was graffiti-ed, lap posts, fire hydrants, and even walls (that last one is a shocker right?) But it was fantastic. Then I found maybe the only hole in the wall in Shanghai (oh my god it was hard – thank god I love to wander). And then in an act of stupidity, I forgot the character for Eggplant, and ordered that. So I got to choke that down for a bit. Ewwwww.
Then I still had some extra time, so I went back to the Shanghai Art Museum. It was cool, and they had an exhibit on a Chinese cartoonist, which was kinda cool. But the museum was small. And they only had 2 of the four floors open – good thing it was free.
So then I went back to the hostel, and was about to head out when I did a double take and realized that McKay (remember that girl who I met up with in Beijing on ZiShu’s last day? So who’s failing this pop quiz?) was sitting right at the front entrance, so with both of us shocked, went over and said hi to each other, caught up a bit, and then I went out to dinner with her and her two new British friends. It was really nice to chill with them, and I might see McKay in Taiwan, so don’t forget the name. On top of that, I haven’t chilled with proper Brits since my exchange program in 11th grade, and it was nice to trade stories and what not, and then the two lovely ladies (the Brits were ladies) treated me to a beer. Top notch stuff right there.
Sadly I had to excuse myself so I could go meet up with Rachel around 9:30, and she made it around 10:30 (keeping up that awesome trend of being on time). But it was still fun, and we seriously talked forever – and by forever I mean till 6 in the morning. Just walking around Shanghai, chilling and talking. What a great night/morning. We eventually went our separate ways (stupid time) and I got like 3 hours of sleep (Rachel got 4, lucky duck). And with that, I took a cab to the airport (mistake, it’s a lot farther away than the subway map shows – though with my super luggage, I didn’t really have a choice) and headed out to Hong Kong.

And thus ends my adventures in Shanghai – next stop – Hong Kong, or will I?
While you ponder that mystery, ponder this as well:
Why don’t I like normal art, but I like calligraphy, embroidery, and graffiti?
Is there anything in Shanghai I missed? I think not (or nothing I super cared about)
What are the chances I meet someone in Beijing, and get to know her in Shanghai? Or that I run into McKay again when she wasn’t planning on being in Shanghai so early? Tiss a crazy town this Shanghai is.
--Robby

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