day 10: let's go for a wok

We wake up a little late and go to lunch with Auntie Wendy to a restaurant right across the street from their place. I had been to this place last time I was there. They hand make their noodles, very good soups. Had some green onion pancakes, noodles that are made by shaving off slices from one large ball of noodle dough, some duck, spicy dried fish, and fried dumplings filled with beef, kinda like mini hamburgers.

Auntie Wendy splits and we go home to take a break before more sight-seeing. We snag a cab from my uncle’s place (by then I was incredibly adept at calling the guard and asking for a cab in Mandarin). We head to the People’s Square first, where there are a few museums. We decide to head to the Shanghai Museum of Art. Saw some impressive pieces of ancient art, including jade, bronze, paintings, weapons, masks and statues. We showed up there pretty late, and they were closing after a short while so we didn’t spend lots of time there. Still saw plenty though. Left the museum and walked around some more, through the square, and through a nearby park. Eventually head towards a hotel, the new Radisson hotel, to hopefully exchange a traveler’s check. We head to that hotel cause it has this rad, or shall we say “rad-isson”UFO looking top deck where it appears a bar/restaurant is located. We get in, everything seems to be going fine when I show them my travelers check, sign it, hand my passport over. And then they ask, what room I am in. Oops. Seems you have to be a guest to use their exchange. Scratch that plan. Then we ask how we get to the top floor to check out the bar. Turns out that’s not gonna open for another few weeks. Such is our luck. We walk around the square a bit more, head into another of the thousands of 12 story malls, down to the bottom floor, under the square, and come out to the market street. We walk all the way down that till we once again hit the Bund. Snag a taxi from there back to the house.

We rest up as usual at the house, reheat some of the leftovers from the restaurant earlier in the day for our dinner. Tonight, we decide to go check out a club called VIP, a huge club a friend who had been living there for a while suggested. Take a taxi and luckily inform the taxi the correct place to drop us off. At first we couldn’t find the place as the sign for the club wasn’t on the main street. We head past it at first, then decide to turn around. Due to my inquisitive nature, I decide to check out one place with flashing lights down a large alley, and find the club we are looking for tucked away in a large parking lot being blocked by larger buildings. A large place, pretty neat, but they don’t take credit cards which caused a few problems (remember, I couldn’t get cash cause I couldn’t find anywhere to exchange my traveler’s check). We try to meet some people, but most seem fairly unresponsive. Most people are oddly reluctant to speak to people that only speak English at this club. After just two rounds, we decide to head out.

day 11: shang-bye

Wake up, pack up, go downstairs for a late breakfast. Auntie Wendy has friends over playing mahjong and they join us for the meal too. One couple is there to look into buying property. Seems like the place to buy. I wonder… We call a taxi, and take it to the airport. No bullet train back this time. Oh well. Loooooong line to get out of the country at the immigration checkpoint. No worries though, we’re not in any rush. Get on our plane to Hong Kong. This time, no layover there, we actually stay one day. We have a late flight out, so we arrive fairly late. Getting through immigration there isn’t that bad though. I feel the airport there is well advanced, and we came in at a fairly random day so there aren’t too many people traveling. We take a shuttle to Kowloon, a northern part of the Hong Kong islands. That’s where I booked the hotel at the Salisbury YMCA Hotel. The architecture of the city is quite intriguing, as most seem to be built in unison, built in close proximity like dominoes ready to fall. We arrive at the hotel, with a light sprinkle falling on us. Seems the rain has followed us here too. We check in, settle in, and head back out to check out the city a little. We walk quite a ways up some main roads, neon lights beckoning us on every corner and alleyway. It’s quite the spectacle to see the signs hanging high over the road, just above the double decker buses. We walk through markets, stores, an crazy arcade with video games that seem way more advanced than anything we have in the states. We walk back through an open air mall, where there are several food stands. I buy some bacon-wrapped mini-hotdogs on a stick. SOOO tasty. Gotta have more. Find another stand as we keep walking. Shumai on a stick, dim sum dumplings that I love. Two sticks of snacks, plenty to eat. I could live here forever too! Cheap and tasty, who could ask for more? Head back to the hotel. Bed.

day 9: sweet and sour and short day

Wake up, eat another home cooked meal of course. We once again we, Aunt Wendy, Jason and I, head out to Dong Jia Du for the final pick-up of our new custom tailored suits. They’re snappy and great, we bag ‘em and buy ‘em and take off for our next destination, Huangchang market. I couldn’t find too much information on the place yet, but it seemed to be a place that was designed in an ancient style, but set up as an outdoor mall. Looked pretty cool, especially the restaurant on stilts over the pond in the middle of it all. We look around there for a bit, eat a few snacks (some of the best custard pies I’ve ever had), found a place with some cool cheap reprints of Chinese propaganda posters. Thank goodness for Aunt Wendy. Jason forgot to bargain at one place and he ended up buying full price for something. While for the posters, instead of paying about US$15 for each, we paid only US$3 for each. Score! Finally we head back home by taxi and take a nice long break after, of course, plenty of walking.

Have a nice home cooked meal. Get ready to go out to a club on the Bund. Find Bar Rouge and chill out there for awhile. Everyone there is pretty old or just not our type of people. But certainly a cool place to be, and a fun place to people watch of course. Some people are students, some people are business men, some people are well-off locals. After a few rounds, we head back home to end a nice not so hectic day. Finally, a day that wasn’t too packed.

day 8: so out of it, can't think of clever title...

Wake up, eat a home cooked meal again at the home. More veggies and such. Take a cab out to god knows where to meet up with a friend, Lisa, whom I met on my last visit. She was kind enough to take the day and night off to show us around Shanghai a bit. Once we met up in her neck of the woods, we took another cab to the Weitan, or The Bund as it’s known in English. Jason and I were familiar with it because we walked most of it in the drizzling rain carrying our luggage the first day we arrived in Shanghai. We enjoyed it much more this time, taking a leisure stroll on the walk right along the Huangpu River. We walked around there for a bit until we had to take off for Dong Jia Du to see if our suits and shirts fit right. A quick little taxi trip there again, and Jason and I are trying on our new duds. Pretty sharp, with only a few minor adjustments needed. We wait around for my Aunt Wendy who is supposed to meet us there, but she’s running late. We decide to go grab some more xiao long bao’s nearby where they took us last time. As soon as we show up at that little restaurant, my cellphone rings. It’s my aunt Wendy, and she just got to the tailors. Oops. She comes to meet us at the restaurant while we eat just a few dumplings between the three of us, Lisa, Jason and I.

Now four people strong, we head out in another taxi to meet up with Uncle Monty for an early dinner. Once we saw how much food we ordered, we realized we probably shouldn’t have eaten all those xiao long baos. We have a very tender pepper steak, crab cakes, fish, steamed dumplings, shrimp, a Chinese version of foie gras (goose liver) and these great asian tortilla-like snack filled with an eggplant dish. I’m sure there was more than that, but that’s about all I can remember.

From there, Lisa, Jason and I took a nice walk to the market where they are known for selling all the knock off brand name goods, like sunglasses, purses, clothing and more. Can't recall the name of it at the moment. Most notorious for the guys that come up to you (and by you I mean someone they think is obviously not from Shanghai) and ask “DVD? Rolex? Purses?” Eventually, after refusing, they will ask the ever enticing question, “Sex DVD?” We still politely refused. And then just flat our refused. Some of those guys are much too persistent. Jason got pretty good at saying, “Bu yao!” which translates to “I don’t want!” We walked around there for a bit, but didn’t have the patience to purchase anything.

Once again, another taxi is taken back to my uncle’s place to relax after a long day of walking. We hang out for a little bit there, clean up ourselves before heading out again. Lisa takes us to Xin Tian Di (sp?) to a bar called Soho. She wrangles some good seats for us, and we sit down to have some drinks. It’s pretty different as they have a guy standing on a podium right in front of the bar and he’s signing what are apparently big Chinese pop songs. After he’s done, two girls get up on podiums and start dancing to some dance music. And then eventually another girl gets up to sing more Chinese pop songs. After hearing quite enough (but still thoroughly enjoying ourselves) we head to the rest of Xin Tian Di. It’s very similar to a Third Street Promenade, except it’s not one straight street, it bends and curves through tall modern stone buildings. We walk around there too, and finally settle on another bar to sit outside of and grab another round. It was nice to just sit and people watch in a popular hot spot. Jason noticed one girl working the foreigners, trying to get a “date.” I don’t think anyone could get away with that on Third Street Promenade.

Thinking our night had ended there, Lisa surprised us by taking us to one last spot to grab a late night meal. A very VERY spicy Szechuan restaurant that serves hot pot style. There are two bowls in the middle over the stove, one in the middle which is very spicy, and an outer ring that is just broth. Lisa is from the Szechuan region and loves spicy food, and devours tons while we try and tolerate the burning. My lips were burning to the point of being numb but it all still tasted great. Lots of garlic and cilantro and, of course, chili oil. Noodles, vegetables, beef, pork, and something like crawdads were boiled and consumed. Once we got to the point of bursting, we called it quits and headed home. Got in our cab, said thank you and goodnight to Lisa, and called it a night.

update...

hey all. sorry for the delay in posts. just to give you a heads up, I'm in Bali now, chilling on the beach and resting up. There's no real great internet connection here so I'll be posting almost everything once I get to Bangkok, which will be about 6 days from now. can't wait for you to hear all about the rest of shanghai, hong kong, and tokyo. it's been way too fun and VERY crazy. meeting some great people.

my thoughts go out to the hurricane victims too. take care. bali hai!!!!

day 7: we've been shanghai'ed

Woke up to another home cooked meal. Feasted on several different vegetable dishes, some taro root, some spinach like stuff, and something that was like green onions but not as strong flavored. Today we were headed out to Dong Jia Du where there is a huge fashion and fabric market. We were going to get fitted for some suits and shirts. Very cheap for tailored suits, only about $100 for (what they claim is) cashmere fabric. I got fitted for two suits and two button up shirts. Jason got one suit, two pairs of corduroy pants, and one short-sleeve cop-like button-up shirt. He came a bit more prepared in terms of what he wanted, apparently. We walked around the market for a bit, then headed to a nearby xiao long bao place. My uncle loves them too, and goes to this place a lot. My aunt said people from all over know about this place, cause it’s so good and SUPER cheap. We got two different kinds, one basket of pork and one of chicken. You get 15 dumplings per basket and each one was no more than US$1 each!!!! So good, I could eat that stuff all the time, and survive forever with prices like that. More and more am I convinced to move to this city for awhile.

After the delicious late lunch, we head out to my uncle and aunt’s new condo they purchased. We take a ferry across the river. Again, it’s astounding how cheap everything is here. The ride costs only 6¢ US for a one way trip. We head up to the condo, and are amazed by it’s design and space and view. It has everything. The view looks up the Huangpu, and there’s a strong breeze that cuts right down the river right into the apartment. Several balconies, dark hardwood floor, huge rooms, a large bar. It was once owned by an artist so the design was pretty interesting. My aunt doesn’t particularly like though, so she’s gonna tear out a lot of I think. Oh well, still an amazing place. They’re gonna try to rent it out for US$8,000!!!! A bummer, cause I would’ve loved to move in. Now all we I have to do is find at least 7 other people to help me split the rent. The crazy thing is, a place like that could probably fit that many people pretty well.

We leave the condo and head for Pudong, the business district and newest part of Shanghai. We take a taxi and stop at a large shopping mall (another 12 story one of course) and look for an electronic translator for me. Lord knows I’ll need the help if I meet anyone I want to talk to someone. Found one, bought it, headed out. Take another taxi to the Hyatt in the Jin Mao Tower, the tallest building in Shanghai at the moment. I went there last time with my cousin, and we found this great jazz lounge in the middle of the hotel. They also actually have a great view from the men’s bathroom next to the last urinal in this lounge. I highly recommend it. No idea if the women have the same view. Sorry ladies.

After having a drink and some cheese and crackers, and catching some of the Chinese jazz band replete with traditional Chinese guitar and violin, we leave the Jin Mao tower and walk towards the other largest landmark in Shanghai, the Pearl Tower. It was a bit too pricey just to walk at the base of it, so we opted to just walk around it from the street. Took some lovely pics of the skyscrapers as we headed to another ferry to take us back to my uncle and aunt’s place. Fairly effortless, except I tried to pay the fare with the 1¢ paper money instead of the $1 paper money. Whoops. But in my defense, who the hell has paper money for 1¢?? I mean, really?!?!! C’mon!

Stopped at a 7-11 and bought some Reeb, a type of beer. I’d like to think it was the first beer in China, and as they read from right to left, they still think it says Beer. Right? Right.

Returned home to the apartment, took a nice break, cleaned up and headed out to karaoke. Twas a fun night, drinking and signing. We also played some dice drinking games, which really got us fairly inebriated. The video and pics I got of Jason’s return home are quite priceless. Made it home by cab, and crash. In the bed. Not in the taxi.

day 6: fly rice, my bund-ions are killing me, and "Ohhh, Donna"

today we left for shanghai. woke up super early (for me at least) and had a quick small breakfast before we headed for the train and bus. took a long bus ride to the airport. nice and relaxing, i think i passed out for most of it. i'm sure jason got another pic of me totally zoned out, head tilted back, mouth wide open. apparently i'm very hideous and hilarious looking when i'm passed out.

had no trouble getting through the trials and tribulations of the airport. took cathay pacific to hong kong, and connected to our flight through dragon air to shanghai. the food is never ending. i think we had a meal on each flight, even though they were only an hour or two long.

we landed in shanghai, and went through a headache of line for customs. jason got stuck way behind me as he was in the line right next to me. some guy was having some issues at the desk. sucka. i headed to baggage claim, eventually jason caught up. went to rent a cellphone. jason tried to get a SIM card, but it didn't work in the cellphone he lugged here. bummer. we decide to take the maglev train, the bullet train that travels up to 260mph. most people recommend you take a cab, as it's still not that expensive to do so. but we opted not to. pretty wild ride, so fast, the speed is amazing, to see things zipping by so close to the ground. when the passing maglev train flew by, it was in our view for a split second.

we arrived at the maglev train, which is a subway station fairly southeast of the city center. most people probably would've just taken a cab from there even, but oh no, not us. we decide to take the subway. first problem, we didn't have money in change to buy the tickets. so we bought some drinks to get some change. still only got paper money back, so we went to the change machine to break the bills. then we had to fight the maddening crowds that were trying to buy tickets and get on the train. once we got on the train, it slowly became apparent that we may not be able to disembark it, as we began to get crowded into one corner, with no spare room to manuever our huge bags through the crowd. at least, not without smashing a poor little girl or ramming into a business man. we had hit rush hour big time. oops.

we missed our stop, even though jason did do a farily good attempt at pushing his way through to the door. i think one of those little girls pushed him back in as she was trying to board the train. many people found our predicament very amusing. eh, weren't exactly stoked about it all. but the next stop after ours was a big station where most everyone got off, so we made it out finally. jumped back on the train back to the stop we missed, and got out.

NOW we decide to take a taxi. and, of course, there are none to be found. we see plenty driving by, but all are taken. rush hour is heinous here. we decide to walk to areas where we can hopefully find more taxis. i recognize some landmarks, and know the direction to my other uncle and aunt's place. we head thataway with our luggage in tow (well, with mine flung over more extremely sore shoulders at least). we arrive at an area called the bund after walking for about 10 minutes. a place with tons of traffic, plenty of cars. finding a taxi should be no problem at all. ha ha ha! nothing comes for quite awhile, and several other tourists AND locals are fighting to even find one. we walk on, further and further. i almost start to doubt my sense of direction, but some things begin to look more familiar. it must have been at least 2 hours of walking, god knows how many miles, but we eventually found my uncle's place, right on the Huangpu River. trust me, we were still looking for taxis the entire walk there, and not a single one was available. after one last mind-numbing scramble to find which building in the several complexes they were in, we finally took our sweat soaked shoes off in their entryway and sat down to a huge home cooked meal. never EVER will i make the mistake not just taking a taxi from the airport. but hey, we made it, right? and the maglev was worth the trip.

we end up getting the biggest room in my uncles place, the one usually reserved for my grandparents, who obviously aren't staying with them right now. big screen flat panel tv, an amazing view of the river and the Bund, and a nice rest area to boot. oh, and did i mention the tempurpedic massaging adjustable beds? cush (as in cushy (as in cushion)).

we thought our day would end there, but we ended up washing up and then heading down to get some massages. after that walk, lord knows we needed it. we go to this hole in the wall place. i get this girl who knows no english what so ever. i get a little wary though when they end up taking into the back, through some random alley, and into this tiny bedroom. soooooo creepy. don't worry mom, nothing bad happened. they just don't have a lot of room in their tiny place in the front. still, creepy. my "masseuse" is a 20 year old girl named Don Yong Yong. we try to have a conversation, she trying to learn some english, me trying to learn some chinese. it was pleasant, and we then went to the front room to meet up with everyone else. turns out some cops came for a visit. guess i missed the excitement. we finish the back massage i had with a foot massage, along with my uncle and jason. we end up giving Don Yong Yong an english name, Donna. she seems to like it. afterwards, head home and crash in our form-fitting beds. ahhhhh. another long as frickin' day down...

day 5: slow poke in china (ew, not like that)

oops. i haven't been updating lately, and i couldn't tell you why. well, i have been busy, but you may have noticed that jason 71 updates alot. damn him and his fastidiousness. he's some how able to survive on 4 hours of sleep but i can't seem to get up unless i smell food or someone slaps me.

well, day 5 of the trip in taipei was nice and easy. i woke up kinda late, in time for an early lunch at the apartment. tasty as always, some more jiao tsi among other vegetables and such. first plan of the day was to head out to the Living Core mall, another enormous shopping center. this one was special though cause it has a giant sphere that resembles the death star jammed right into the middle of it. quite fantastic looking, but the inside of the mall is fairly delapidated. it was dead inside (ooh, get it, death star) and i'm sure it was because of the time of day. but after visiting that mall, we headed back to the ever attractive Taipei 101 building, and it was jam packed. certainly, being the tallest building in the world helps fill it's mall. our visit this time was to travel to the top of the building. we jumped in their elevators, the fastest in the world at 600km/h. my ears were popping the whole way up, and you can't even really tell that we're moving besides the change in pressure in your head. the view was pretty nice, a little foggy, but great to see the city from way up and get some bearings.

we chilled out afterwards in the bottom floor's enormous food court, but instead of perusing some intriguing fare, we just opted for McDonald's (yeah, even in Taipei I eat that junk). BUT i did try one of their strange Asian concoctions, some sort of fried chicken sandwich with rice cake patties instead of bread and a strange sauce. yeah, i didn't finish it. blech.

headed home in, of course, the rain. donned our lovely ponchos that my uncle gave us. i think i still get really wet cause the damn things don't breath at all, and i sweat like crazy in it. gross. oh well, my backpack didn't get wet at least. we headed out for one last dinner with my aunt and uncle. they've been so gracious the whole time. my family is GREAT! so kind. delicious and filling as always.

head back home, and decide to try and check out some bars in shin da (i think?). we got pretty lost trying to find this one street. we walked for about an hour till we finally found what we had been looking for, this one college/music bar called Underworld. totally empty except for the DJ and his girlfriend and the bartender. i think two people came in later, but they just sat at the bar and read their books. we finished our drinks after some conversation and found another bar called Oldie Goodie. i think it was trying to be a pub, and this place was a little more hopping. well, at least there were other people in there. they had two guys playing live music, singing classic songs on their guitars. at random points, people in the crowd of about 12 would go up and sing with them. pretty funny to hear the main guitar player sing "You'll never know how much I rearry love you! You'll never know how much i rearry caaaaare!" hilarious good times. we leave and jump in taxi back to the apartment at intense speeds and make it home alive. another day down...

day 4: raindrops keep falling on my head... dammit

got a late start today. funny though cause i think the rest of the city still started early. it was very busy, everyone is out, families and friends. everyone works hard here, and really take advantage of the weekend, i think.

we grabbed another lunch with my aunt and uncle. we went to a cantonese place i believe. had two types stir fry noodles and soup soup too. also some mango and pudding for dessert. we went back to the house to prep for a trip to Danshui, the city on the coast of Northern Taipei. it was once a great fishing city, but not anymore. it took about 40 minutes on the metro to get there, a nice ride through the county of taipei. once we got there, we walked along the beachfront, or, really, mudfront with another market. seems that everything here is all about shopping and/or eating. it was a nice day with a nice breeze till we hit the end of the walk, when strong gusts start nailing us. people started running like crazy, so we joined in. then the rain started of course. it seems we can't get away from it. tons and tons of water came pouring down. we got soaked to the bone with our crappy little US$3 umbrellas trying to save us. it wasn't until we got to the cover of the metro station that i realized my uncle had given me 2 ponchos to wear. oh well. we decided enough was enough and jumped back on the metro to home. it took MUCH longer to get back then to get there for some reason. i'm not sure if it was a psychological thing because we were so drenched and a bit miserable or what. oh well.

got back home, dried off. watched some crazy taiwan tv, and passed out for a bit. late night we headed out to find some food, hit up the Warner Village, another huge mall, and grabbed some food at a food court. had a crepe for dessert. worst thing ever, tasted like cardboard. i highly don't recommend it. afterwards, we walked all over our neck of the woods for a bar. we mostly found token bars, where you pay to sit with a girl. didn't go to any of those, we just wanted a frickin' drink for pete's sake! finally found a weird 24 hour place that served alcohol, grabbed one drink, and then headed home. g'night gracie.

the crowds of people making mad dashes to get out of the rain in danshui. everyone was running for cover



the oki 71 hairdryer contraption we "designed" to dry off our waterlogged shoes. genius.

day 3: more pictures galore

Here are a few pics from day three. Enjoy...


jason taking pics of the national theatre



walking towards the chiang kai shek memorial. enormous, yes? the temple, not jason. never mind, i don't want to know...



this photo was in the museum under the memorial hall. it is of chiang kai shek's son who was elected president after him. i almost cried when i read what the story was behind the girl. the president visited an orphanage and met this girl who was abandoned because she was born with no arms. because the president met her, and encouraged her, and wrote to her, she studied hard and even learned how to write with her feet. it touched me for some reason, and i kind teared up. i think it's the look he's giving him, this silly yet compassionate old man. yeah yeah, i'm a sensitive guy sometimes. don't tell anyone...



71 and I taking a break. we rule.

at luxy, the huge club we hit up. we tried to talk to people but it was pretty tricky. luckily one of these girls spoke english pretty well and translated to the rest of them. yeah, i'm pimping pretty hard here... ok, not really.