Hello Hello Lady We Hello Your Hello Kitty?

My preferred form of transportation is increasingly becoming via train. Throughout Europe and Japan the rail systems are a relaxing, quick, and convenient way to get around. When I heard that we were talking an overnight train from Beijing to Shanghai I expected (and kinda hoped for) a rickety old Thomas the Tank Engine kind of train that belched out smoke as the Chinese passengers did the same with packs of unfiltered ciggs and bottles of beer. Ok maybe I was expecting a Soviet train from 1955, but a guy can dream.

I was shocked when we arrived at our train that looked almost exactly like the Shinkansen trains in Japan. While our quarters were tight, we got little bottles of Tibetan water and cheap beer to pass the time. Aside from the temperature (which rose throughout the night) and my inability to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time, it was an awesome experience.

Arriving in Shanghai we were met by our tour guide Rainy. I will get this outta the way right now and admit my love for Rainy. She was ADORABLE. I didn’t see many cute Chinese people over the age of about five on my trip, but I wanted to make Rainy into a keychain so I could take her with me everywhere. She showed us her eye exercises from school, warned us not to follow ‘Rolex Men’ or ‘Hello Ladies’ and had an accent that we still impersonate. SO much Chinese love for her!

Anyways, back to Shanghai. The city is overloaded with skyscrapers and all things modern. I loved walking around taking it all in, and was delighted that our hotel (which was an old apartment building for rich white people- hollerrrrrr) was right in the middle of it on Nanjing Road.

Alas, I started the tour by missing our bus and cabbing it to a museum I thought to be a mile away. In reality it was across a small park from me ☹. We toured the extremely underwhelming Shanghai Museum (which has been compared to the British Museum by someone who obviously had never been to the British Museum), and after a quick dinner took a strange ‘tour’ of the Bund.

The Bund is an area of old preserved buildings from the time when foreign merchants held sway in the city along the Huangpu River. Our ‘tour’ was by bus since the area across the street from the buildings was under construction. I was disappointed at the lack of commentary on the historic buildings, and the way in which our bus flew past everything. At the end of our ‘tour’ we were dumped out of the bus in the middle of the Bund, and apparently expected to walk back to the hotel. I didn’t mind much since it was so pretty, but still felt a little gypped.

To make up for this, I had myself a bottle of Chinese wine with some friends. It was in Shanghai that I started to taste Chinese wines, and I honestly had no idea what to expect. Fortunately my lack of expectations meant that I wasn’t too disappointed by the mediocre drink. Don’t get me wrong though. I love wine, and had no problem drinking the rest of it. All I’m saying is that China has a way to go before it starts producing good cheap wine like the Aussies.

The rest of my time in Shanghai was spent doing all the usual touristy stuff. We went to the new financial area of Pudong to see the famous buildings, and went to an old (yet very touristy) town that was filled with canals and bridges galore. It was all good and fine, but honestly the most entertaining part was realizing we had forgot someone who had to take an hour cab ride home.

The coolest thing we saw in Shanghai was undoubtedly the acrobatic show. The showcase of random Chinese acrobatic talents was out of this world, and for two hours we were blown away by performers jumping, flexing and balancing in ways that my would put me in the hospital. My favorite acts are tied between the ‘Jack and Rose’ and the ‘Ball of Death.’

Jack and Rose was a duet of two acrobats swinging around the theater on a long cloth to theme of Titanic’s My Heart Will Go On. I was sure they would eventually fall or drop each other off the rope, but the pair did their routine flawlessly to my amazement. In case you didn’t quite catch the theme it was Titanic. Oh sweet Jebus was it hysterical. For about 20-minutes My Heart Will Go On was spliced together over and over again for dramatic effect. To make it even better a bunch of Indian people behind us knew the words, and were singing along the whole time. The icing on this ridiculous cake was that on huge screens next to the stage the memorable scenes from the movie were played just in case you somehow managed to forget the theme of the act.

The finale of the show was the ‘Ball of Death.’ This consisted not one, not two, not three, not even four, but five guys on motorbikes riding around in insanely close proximity to each other. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t all crash, but was enthralled anyway.

Everyone I talked to told me about how safe Shanghai is. I felt pretty safe the whole time I was there, and was shocked when two people from my group were robbed at knifepoint right outside our hotel in two days. Now I cannot speak to their sobriety level or how closely they paid attention to their surroundings, but the fact remains that they were threatened with ghetto knives and I was freaked out.

On a lighter note, I had a pretty awesome adventure with some peeps from my program. After one day of touring we were given the evening off. We started out eating some delicious dumplings that literally cost several cents. From there, we made our way to the world’s fastest train, the Maglev. The train floats along a magnetic path to the airport at several hundred kilometers per hour, and is made infinitely better by ingesting some cheap Chinese alcohol with a meal of nutritious grease from Mc D’s.

Upon arriving at the airport we found the bar, realized everything was really expensive, and found a vending machine that sold beer and mixers. Once we had our liquid fun we found a bus back to the city, and hopped on without a clue as to the price (no one spoke enough English to tell us, we weren’t THAT drunk). A few kuai later we were on our merry way back to Shanghai. Upon arriving we visited a building I was dying to see because (and I’m sure you can guess why) it was a relic of Soviet influence. The Shanghai Exhibition Center was formerly known as the Palace of Sino-Soviet Friendship. While the friendship obviously didn’t last, the beautiful Stalinist style building did. A few pictures later we sauntered back to the hotel. As we got closer we noticed some police lights and someone joked, “I really hope those lights are for someone in our group that got robbed again!” Turns out they were, and we called him an asshole. But seriously, it was really funny.

By the end of our trip I had been traveling pretty much nonstop for about a month, and hadn’t slept in one place for more than a few days. I was ready to go back to Hong Kong and settle down for a while to recover from the sickness that had slowly taken over my body in the last week. Fortunately I managed to get a really cool roommate for the semester, and even made a few friends. While I enjoyed seeing Mainland China, it is not a place I can see myself living in (the same is not true of Hong Kong).

P.S. Everyone thinks of China as a great place to buy really cheap stuff. It totally is, but the quality is often shit. Feel the terracotta warriors I bought on the cheap for instance, and then look at the black soot that rubs off on your hands. My favorite part of the warnings from our guides was their terms for ‘fresh antiques’ and ‘recent relics’ that we should beware of in the markets. They were indeed everywhere. But lets be honest who’s NOT going to buy a poster from the revolution for a dollar?

P.S.S. On the list of cheap shit to buy in China, alcohol is surely up there. I have no idea what I had, but I tried some potent sauce in Red China. Some of it smelled fine, but felt like acid dripping down my throat. The two bottles I remember most clearly are: a bottle of horrid smelling bottle of what I thought to be grain alcohol (it turned out to be cooking alcohol, but when mixed with Sprite and OJ what doesn’t taste good?), and some alcohol that cost about a dollar for a little bottle that ‘farmers’ drink to quickly get fucked up (or so I was told). Anyways, the point is that alcohol there is dirt-cheap and probably ate away a few layers of my liver’s lining. So come to China and try the local flavor, but bring some extra cash money dollar to drop on the good stuff.