Shanghai

Our last stop in China was Shanghai. There's not nearly as many world-famous landmarks to see here, but we were able to keep ourselves busy shopping. The knock-off markets of Shanghai was something I've been looking forward to ever since Steph came back from a work visit here a few years ago. It's a huge 5-story building filled with little stalls selling shoes, handbags, watches, jeans, jackets, and assorted souvenirs. We came armed with a list of souvenirs for friends and family back home and went to work. The fun is all in the negotiations. They use the calculator system here too and will usually show you a "joking price" to start things off. I think some people just take the intial offer and divide it in half for their counter-offer. The merchants have realized this so their intial offer is usually 5-10 times the actual price. Some of the merchants in China can get very animated during the process and it can be quite amusing. Somehow the most quiet merchant in the building somehow convinced me to buy a remote-controlled helicopter. Why in the world would I need a remote-controlled helicopter on an around the world trip? I have no idea, but it is very cool. $10 well spent.

fake North Face jacket anyone?

As I said earlier, Steph has been to Shanghai before on business with Kimberly Clark. One of her friends that she had dealt with in Shanghai is named Jane so we met up with her for dinner one night. She took us to a fairly traditional Chinese restaurant and we got to sample all kinds of foods, though we didn't try anything too crazy. They had a dish that tasted exactly like the Mongolian Beef we get in American Chinese restaurants, but when I asked her if the recipe was from Mongolia she just looked at me funny and said "umm, noooo...".

After dinner we went for a walk with Jane along the Bund. The Bund is the walkway along the Huangpu River, which cuts through the middle of Shanghai. It's a famous walkway and affords some amazing views of the skyline across the river. Maybe China has cleaned up it's act a little or we just got really lucky because we had a beautiful clear night.

We didn't do a whole lot worth mentioning besides shopping and eating in Shanghai. We spent an afternoon in the Shanghai Museum mainly because it was free, though the exhibits were very well done and pretty cool. They had a bunch of old Chinese coins with square holes in the middle and some pottery dating back 8,000 years! If you watched the 2008 Olympics, you'd know that China is pretty famous for it's acrobatics (even 10 year-old girls pretending to be 14). so we decided to see a show called 'ERA: Intersection in Time' (whatever that means). They didn't do anything that you wouldn't have seen at a standard Cirque du Soleil show, but it was still some pretty incredible stuff. The balance, skill, and flexibility of those guys is just ridiculous. Our favorite act was when a guy a girl swung around the ring holding onto a long piece of cloth. At one point the guy was holding the girl by her leg with only his flexed foot. Point his toe and she'd be a goner. Good show and only $10 bucks. Very good show.

I still can't believe it myself, but there are 4 girls here

Our last day in Shanghai we figured we'd better get out and do something. Shanghai has a lot of "canal towns" near enough for a day trip. We picked a town called Suzhou basically at the flip of a coin. The train ride out there was an attraction in itself - over 200 miles an hour smooth as silk! The canals themselves weren't all that interesting or attractive but we did go to some beautiful gardens. Hundreds of pictures followed, especially when we discovered the "oil painting" effect on our camera.

One last funny story about Shanghai: while wandering around town one day looking for somewhere to eat, we ended up in this really odd animal market. They had some rabbits and tons of birds, but most of the shoppers were more interested in the hundreds of grasshoppers of all shapes and sizes that were kept in individual containers. At first I just figured that Chinese people liked to keep them in their house and listen to the chirping as they fall asleep. Why else would you closely examine and buy a huge cricket? Fighting, that's why. So we've all heard about cockfighting, but imagine it on a much smaller scale with two grasshoppers going head to head in a battle to the death. Sounds amazing, right? The Chinese think so. Apparently it's serious stuff here. It wasn't cricket fighting season while we were there, but I hear you can buy the highlights from last season on DVD. Not even joking. What a wacky world we live in.