Advertisement
Published: September 7th 2008
The settting: Shanghai, China
Time: Friday and Shabbat.
Dragon Air safetly took us from Hong Kong to Shanghai friday afternoon. I have to admit I dont like flying in things that are named after blood thirsty animals. Keep in mind that I have to Get to Chabad center to make sure we have some kosher food for shabbat. I AM HUNGRY. We landed at Pudong airport at about 13:30, ran for a taxi and assumed we would be at the hotel with in the hour. Dont ever assume such things in China when it's pouring with rain. Two and half hours of driving. Millions of cars driven by crazy drivers. After driving for about an hour all I saw were another million cars all standing still. I let out a huge OY.
---I was warned that most chinese people don't speak english (sounds like Taiwan) but that has never stopped me so I tried talking to our driver while Jeff slept. I tried to ask him, How many kilometers to go? What time is it? you name it - I asked it- but he didnt even realize I was talking to him! He probably just thought that i was
Housing
all of Shanghai is lined with apartment buildings like these.just another wife nudging another poor man while he was trying to sleep. ------
This driver obviously heard my desperation as I burst out an oy after seeing more and more traffic! This driver let out a laugh and yelled OY... for the rest of the ride -every 5 minutes our driver would looked at me, smile and say"OY" ... So if you ever get to china and you hear cab drivers saying "OY" remember I was the one who taught them.
Dont worry. We made it on time. We had an amazing shabbat with many wonderful people at the Chabad center. It is heartwarming to be in a place where so many yidim from all over the world can get together for shabbat, singing , networking and just enjoying the atmoshphere.
NOw I always have three guidelines when I travel.
1. I always go to the Market or supermarket - see how the locals live
2. I always try and do something that i would do at home. for example go to a movie , get a haircut etc
3. I always pay attention to how people behave at the trafic lights.
Those are
The mall
Sushi on a conveyer belt. around and around it goes my three main rules I follow whenever I travel anywhere. These principles always assure a great trip and as my parents would say : A STORY YOU WONT FORGET. The minute we arrived at the hotel I asked the concierge to give me the address to a big supermarket. She told me that there is this place where we can get everything! "nothing like it in china called "carrefour". The minute shabbat was over we went looking for this supermarket and what we found was a mall and a wallmart all in the same building!! If you dont know it The Prawer family loves Wallmart so you can imagine our faces when we walked into a Wallmart where everything made in China is in China!!!
We walked around with a Chinese - American dictionary and asked a million questions to about 4 chinese women on how to use a rice cooker I wanted to buy? How much rice do we need for the cooker? Which rice cooker would be the best? They didnt understand a word! - so we took our chances and pointed at one that looked strong. You have to wonder how strong can it be at 12$.
Wall mart
Jeff enjoying China's wall mart Jeff continued looking around and I went up to buy some food.
This wallmart is a huge store with a huge entrance -but to the right of the entrance there is a small passage way with a big sign over the lane " for people who didn't buy" this lane is surrounded with theft detectors on each side. It is so narrow who notices it! I didnt thats for sure and as I was leaving the store going out of the main entrance I Heard a small man yelling at me ! NONONO- he was a very serious guard. He shook his hand at me telling me somehow "go back into the store and go through the correct isle. "the no buy lane"! So thats what I did. I walked back into the store and went out through the proper lane. They might actually succeed in making me conform..
Getting a haircut in Shanghai or anywhere where you cant communicate with your hairdresser is a true test of your faith in mankind. "Jeff, we are going to get our haircuts - NOW!! We set foot in to the first salon that looked rather clean and modern. They opened
A sud wash
No water here! just squirt some liquid on the hair and make the suds appear the door , looked at us and just smiled... I demonstrated with my fingers a scissor and with in a second we had seven chinese men and women showing us a piece of paper with the different kinds of cuts and prices. The choices were either
"wash, haircut and blowdry= 50 rmb" or "wash, haircut and blowdry= 100 rmb." Jeff and I laughed and asked "whats the difference between the 50 rmb or the 100 rmb?" In almost perfect unison they answered " A better wash , haircut and blowdry".. go figure but I wasnt taking a chance of gettting a 50 rmb. So we ordered the 100 rmb (about 13 dollars) and before I knew it someone was squirting some liquid onto our hair - this liquid became suds or something. Luckily there was a girl who knew English and she said " dont worry - we dont wash hair only use liquid suds." I wasnt quite sure how they were going to get rid of the suds but sure enough they put us both in a hairwash chair and washed it off...
My last guideline is to watch how the locals respond to city trafic lights.
Well in China crossing the street is like being in a dodge ball game (machanayim for my Israeli friends). The cars , just drive , the motorbikers have their own laws that I Havent figured out- they drive on bike lanes in any direction they want, they drive on sidewalks , they drive on the roads. Bikers are a little more civilized but most important Pedestrians are at the bottom of the totem pole. My advice for crossing the street in Shanghai
. . JUST DO IT!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.035s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 20; dbt: 0.0135s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
faith
non-member comment
where are the After" pictures?
Now I'm worried: Maybe you have enought faith in mankind to get your hair cut in China but the fact that you only displayed the "before" without showing us the äfter"pictures, makes me very worried! Will we recognize you when you get back?