Day 10

This morning we had some breakfast in the hotel, and then went to a tailor/fabric market.  I had been taken for a ride in the last market, so this time I was going to haggle much better.  I bought a wool coat for myself with my birthday money, and some other things for the family.  I got much better deals this time and am pretty happy with my buys.  I also got a set of six chopsticks; I'm growing quite fond of using them, so I'll have to try and continue to use them in the States.  Haggling is really quite fun; some of the prices they give you are ridiculous and it feels pretty good to get them to go lots cheaper.  For instance, the lady I bought chopsticks from today offered them for ¥140, which is about $20.  They were nice, but not worth near that much.  I got her down to ¥40 by walking away and insisting on the price (more like $5.70).  Like I said, I've paid too much in the past, but I think I did ok today.  After we got some buys, we headed back to the street to go home.  There was a lady making, tortilla/egg/vegetable things that folded like omelets, for ¥4; they were really tasty.  Street vendors make some of the best food around here, and it's usually pretty cheap.  You would pay a lot more than $0.56 for the thing I had, back home.

We took the subway back to our hotel.  The subway in Shanghai is priced based on your destination, which is different than Beijing, which was ¥2 no matter where you went.  It's pricier in Shanghai, but still very much the cheapest way to travel.  When we arrived at East Nanjing Street, where our hotel is located, we emerged into some of the biggest crowds that I have seen since arriving in the Middle Kingdom.  There were people everywhere, much closer to my expectations of the place.

At about 2pm, Will, Marshall and I decided to go to the Yu Garden.  Instead of taking the metro, we walked, taking a very circuitous route.  We got to see quite a bit of the city and the many, many people that are here.  For some reason there seems to be more people than usual in Shanghai today.  Probably because it is a Saturday.  We walked along the river for a bit before cutting in and going through a small park in the middle of the city.  To get there we walked right through a construction zone and no one paid any mind to us or the other Chinese on their way through.  That reminds me, on the way to the market, we saw an apartment complex being ripped down, not 20 feet from the road, by a front end loader.  It was kind of ridiculous.

Eventually we made it to the garden, through a packed skinny alley complex featuring the traditional roof style and structure.  It had been repurposed to hold many vendors and stores.  The garden set us back ¥30 but it was entirely worth it.  The buildings had been restored, and had been some sort of large house/palace in the past.  It was full of beautiful stones, stonework, plants, pools with fish, trees and even a random orange cat.  The place was quite expansive, and apparently we bought our ticket, and entered at the exit; we kind of went against the flow for about half of the time.  There were many Europeans.  We haven't met many Americans yet, most white people speak other languages, that I've seen (there was a large delegation of French people at the fabric market this morning, many of whom were not haggling, and getting taken to town by the Chinese prices).  There were even small water falls in the garden and it was full of pulchritudinous old pagoda-like buildings with the old style roofing.  We spent quite a bit of time there before walking back to our hotel by another way.  This time we took a very indirect route, and I had no idea where we were until we hit Nanjing road.  Marshall had the map and apparently he knew where we were the whole time.  Before going all the way back, we grabbed a bite to eat at Yoshinoya again.  This time they gave us disposable wooden chopsticks, quite a bummer.  At this point we were pretty close to the hotel.  I was taking a picture, and Marshall and Will walked off far enough that I couldn't find them.  I assumed they went to the hotel, so I went back myself, but the room was empty.  They got back a bit later, and apparently they had gotten stopped by some Chinese who wanted to talk to them, which is usually pretty great, unless they're saying, "DVDs, watch, bag?"  This time however, they talked for a while about normal stuff, then when they thought they were in the scam-clear, out came the infamous, "We're art students, would you like to buy our art?"  That actually happens quite often; Marshall and I even had it in the Forbidden City.  Hopefully we can talk to some Chinese strings free tomorrow though at English corner.  We'll see.

Tonight we went to an acrobat show in the Ritz Carlton, where the U.S. presidents stay when they visit Shanghai.  It was incredible.  They were balancing plates on their noses and doing all sorts of contortions while balancing on their hands and feet.  Jumping and rolling and spinning were all done in many different ways and extremely amazingly each time.  A magician did some card tricks, and there was a very humorous knife throwing skit.  A bunch of the women used sticks connected by a string to do pretty amazing things with hourglass shaped objects, spinning, catching and throwing them.  There were a couple of pair performances; the two spun around on ropes that were lifted up and down at various points.  It was like they were flying sometimes.  The last act involved many instances of persons being catapulted into the air using a teeter-totter like apparatus.  They landed on each other's shoulders and at one point there were three people standing on the man on the bottom.  Each performer was in the absolute best condition a person could be, from the men to the women.  The ladies probably weighed around 100 lbs, but I bet they could each lift several times more weight than I can.  I could not be more impressed by their performance; had they allowed taping or pictures I would have taken full advantage of my camera.  I suppose I could have snuck a few, but the effort they put into their acts made me reconsider.

Altogether it was a very full day today.  Tomorrow we meet for worship at 10am and have the rest of the day for self-directed learning.  It should be a blast.  Buenas noches.