sybarites

We have arrived in China (proper)! Shanghai is the first stop on our tour of the country and we’ve only just cracked the surface on checking out the city. However, in a short period of time, we’ve taken note of a few things to add my mental list of things that are different and/or interesting; relatively speaking, of course. Most recently, we’ve come across giant bottles of beer which are ¥3.50 (about 50¢ CDN) and are pretty tasty when sipped cold on the shared balcony of our hostel above the sounds of the Shanghai traffic, which consists mainly of honking and squealing of breaks.

Then, there are the intersections which, although they have traffic lights, are uncontrolled and pedestrians are expected to navigate thorough and around cars, buses, bicycles and scooters at will and as best as possible. Maybe the lights are only in use during rush hour?

While walking down the waterfront promenade today, known as The Bund, we stopped at a shady spot for a rest and a map consultation.

I left Marc with the map and walked over to buy a Coke from a man selling cold drinks and had to turn back when I realized that all I had were large denomination bills. I couldn’t have been gone more than 30 seconds and when I returned, Marc was encircled by three young women who wanted their picture taken with him. They left as I walked up and Marc commented that that was the best thing that had happened all day. How flattering for me. Then, a minute later, the same three returned and asked to have their picture taken with me. So we did, but I still can’t fathom why. Do we look that much stranger than any other tourist on the boardwalk? Are they collecting pictures of tourists? Were we the butts of a joke or being set up as marks? It was harmless and the motivation remains unknown. (BTW, I don’t even look like that much of a freak anymore because I got my lip ring removed when we were in HK. I look normal again.)

Anyway, to keep it brief and to act as a reminder for me later of some of the interesting things we’ve encountered so far, here is my Top 10 List:

10. Seen: seven wedding parties during one weekday afternoon near the Hong Kong Cultural Center- can’t imagine what a weekend is like.

9. Snoopyland.

8. On a menu: “Hot Lemon Coke” We didn’t try it.

7. In a restaurant: a table-top waiter control system (?) with buttons for “Order”, “Water”, “Bill”, and “Service”. Incidentally, this saved us from succumbing to our usual fate of being trapped at the table of a restaurant being incapable of requesting the bill. On the plus side, we’re getting really good at charades and my Chinese vocabulary has doubled (i.e. 4 words)

6. On a poster in the Metro: an ad for KFC with a woman against a red background holding a bucket of chicken and shouting, in a big speech bubble, “Casual wear!” It defies explanation.

5. Method of transport: the fabulous Aloha bus line from Taipei to Kaohsiung. The bar has been raised to a new high level after having taken this trip. All the huge, Lazy-Boy-esque seats were on the top level of a double-decker bus and featured personal climate control systems and in-headrest speakers to go with the private 12”, fold-out TV screens. One of the channels showed the route, the ETA and where we were on the GPS. Also, there was a Bus Attendant, offering free refreshments, blankies and pillows.

4. Method of transport: the Maglev train from Shanghai Pudong airport to the Metro station. It took less than 5 minutes to to reach our destination while we relaxed and watched the sunset at 300km/hr.

3. Method of transport: the longest escalator in the world in SoHo in HK. We’ve never escalated so much as in HK.

2. Food: Asaji Ichiban is a chain of shops in Hong Kong that sells only a phenomenal variety of ichiban-type noodles.

1. T-shirts: “Blondes are Great, Dumb and More Fun”, “Help me! My girlfriend wants access to my trust fund!”, and, above a picture of a chocolate bar, “Peanutbutter Mother^#*&$er”.

Off for dinner now. I think we’ll go for Chinese.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 2:47 am by Marc and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.