So yesterday I decide to save myself 3RMB and take the hostel’s free shuttle bus to the Yuyuan Gardens. Sounds lovely, right?

Silly me, I assumed “gardens” meant some sort of green area. Ha! Nope. Shopping center. Some rich dude bought out these ancient buildings, had them all gut re-habbed, then turned them into..yep..you guessed it….shop after shop selling the same crap as the shop next to it!

Regardless I got me some last minute souvenirs. Had some fun w/ a Canadian woman and her son who had moved to China so she could teach in a Canidian school over here. They also had a Chinese friend with them who finally tought me how to say “no thank you!” to all the people that run up to you and shove some crap in your face “Hey Lady! You want?!” So now I can just say “Shay…boo lao!”

They needed to head back to their village early so I went to the Shanghai Museum which is free and pretty nice. Funny thing is, soon as I get there I notice that one of the dudes on my Great Wall trip was there! Small world. At least when you’re travelling w/ a bunch of tourists…and going to a bunch of touristy spots. He was finishing the museum, I was just starting, so we did like the old timey days and set a meeting time and a place and met up later that evening.

We were pointed by a Chinese guy with perfect English, who responded to our “help us, we’re lost” signal of opening the biggest map Shanghai could offer, to a very cute but trendy bar area. It was one of those areas where a Coke costs $5. FIVE DOLLARS. Remember I’m in China here….so imagine what the beer cost.

Since drinking and wandering around the streets at night is completely legal and not frowned up on here, that’s what we decided to do. Stopping off for 50 cent giant beers along the way. We found a karaoke bar…and after much confusion of where to actually go in the building to get there, we realized it was private room karaoke. Not so much fun for 2 people.

Regardless, Philip is Swiss. He saved up, and quit his jobs (mainly a gym teacher, also worked at a fittness center and teaches skiing), to travel the world for a year. He was 5 weeks into the trip. Already did a trans-siberian trek on the train and went camping for a week in Mongolia. The idea of this made me very jealous. I wonder if I could have done this too, if I didn’t have to pay rent.

Right now, I’m just killing time till I leave for my flight. I think I’m really gonna miss travelling. I was worried about being able to entertain myself alone for 10 days, but I’ve really gotten to like moving around, not having any specific plans, not knowing who I’m going to meet or go out w/ that night…and basically doing whatever I want, whenever I want!

Butt at least I will soon be able to poo in comfort once again. :D

PS And for the record…I can officially say I’ve made it the entire trip w/o a drop of the squirts!! Nevermind the cold….

I’m back in Shanghai! Crisis averted. After asking around enough, I finally got the answer I wanted: “You’re allowed to leave the hostel, so you can go to the train station for your train, but you’re just not allowed to come back in!” I’m fine w/ that. So that’s what I did. They had the whole area blocked off w/ police tape. However as I passed each area the officer kindly held up the tape for me to cross through.

So. Soft sleeper arrangement. MUCH nicer. I’m talkin posh. Diolies under the free water bottles in each room. Private TVs in each bunk (that I couldn’t hear b/c my headphones had a different plug). Free slippers. A western toilet AND a squatter option. Both sparkling clean and fully equipped with TP.

However, my back still hurt like no other when I woke up on the super hard bed. In the long run, I don’t think it was worth paying double for. This train was 3 hours faster though. So when I got in this morning I actually still made the free breakfast in the hostel and had a whole day to enjoy.

While I was in Beijing, and while we were being quarantined in the hostel, everyone naturally fled to the bar. I had a few hours to kill and met some really interesting people. I spent a lot of time with my dormmates the previous night, two girls from Norway. Also really cool, interesting people. I think I might do a separate post of just the people I’ve come across on the trip. Maybe one on just the food too.

The aquarium that I was looking forward to going to today was merely mediocre. Not bad. Not the best either. However, having a fancy $10 sushi dinner next door was great!

I finally found the Hayatt. And I”m SO glad I did. I ended up spending a whopping 112RMB on one drink. It was amazing though. Like a mojito but w/ lychee too! The view was awesome. Place totally swanky. I feel like I could totally live it large here if I was going off the USD.

So the boring/dead hostel bar last week is now overflowing w/ lots of unfamiliar languages. I think I’m gonna go try to meet more folks!

I’ve gotten a few Facebook comments on some of my posts, which is fun for me to hear from people. However, this is why I can’t respond.

In case you didn’t know, fun is not allowed in China. This includes Facebook, Twitter, and even Tumblr. All of these sites are blocked.

So to get around this…Dan had to hack into my Tumblr account and set it up so I could just email posts so it. (Luckily Gmail isn’t considered fun..and therefore is not blocked) Then Tumblr posts my post to Twitter, and Twitter in turn, updates my FB page.

However I’ve exchanged lots of info w/ foreigners here for plenty of FBing when I get home. The order of questions for everyone new: Where are you from? Where have you been/are going? What do you do? Do you Facebook? What’s your name? No. Joke.

So Oct 1st is National Day here in China. And from what I hear, it’s good I’ll be gone before that. Because I guess if I feel like it’s crowded now….it doesn’t even compare. Aside from all the moon cakes everywhere (not to be confused w/ it’s American rival: the moon pie) there’s a whole bunch of schannigans with parades, floats, going all out. I guess it’s the 60th year this year. Ooooold!?

So the deal with the moon cakes is that you buy them, cut them up into pieces (they’re prob the size of a cupcake) and share them w/ someone you care about. I guess there was some lady in olden times that lost a lover and went to the moon and cried a lot or something. Then I also heard that there was this guy who wanted to be immortal but didn’t do his mortal chores (ie chopping wood) got lazy…and was banished to live on the moon forever…and still get to be immortal?! Ok so maybe my Chinese proverb knowledge needs a bit of brushing up on, but that’s the jist.

The real pain in the ass comes along when you step into the elevator and there’s a sign stating “Due to China national holiday pre-exercise, area blocked off and no allow entry for pedestrian or traffic after 4pm until 6am. Sorry so inconvenient. Mgmt”

The kicker: my train leaves for Shanghai tonight at 9pm. The score: the train station is across the street. Their solution: go there at 4pm.

There’s not enough battery power in the world to make that sound enticing. At least there’s a KFC over there.

I’m going to ask around a bit before I make that commitment.

The deal, you ask? Well from the broken english of the bartender at the hostel bar last night, supposedly there’s going to be a bunch of soldiers in the street rehearsing something. I hope it’s not gun practice.

When I arrived in Beijing, I was happily greeted, well more like a blank stare, by two guys in camo carrying what looked like big scary machine guns.

There’s security all over the city. Since the streets are so big and hard to cross due to crazy driving (however not as bad as the drivers in Xi’an) they have underpasses to walk through. However, in order to use the underpass you have to run all your bags through an x-ray machine and if you don’t have a bag, you get the wand treatment.

Weird, yet I’m glad I feel so safe while walking under the street. Note: this is mostly in the touristy areas, and also at every subway entry point.

So I guess I”m gonna go look for 5 hours worth of things to do. Just in case.

Srsly, folks. I can’t wait to get back to the good ol U S of A and drop a nice duce on it. Well, not on it in some sort of unpatriotic way, but IN it. IN one of those nice ones you can sit on where there’s always a roll or two of TP next to it and when you flush it your feet don’t get wet and it doesn’t smell vile as all whatever because you can’t flush the tp, you have to put it in some overflowing waste basket where you can see everyone else’s skid/rag marks….

However, I think I am getting the hang of the squatter. The trick is to squat ALL the way down. I’ve seen the Chinese people doing this to eat their lunch next to a street vendor where there’s no chairs in the proximity. Works for peeing too.

So yesterday I went to the Forbidden City. Took me about 20 min before I realized they now call it “The Palace Museum”. Regardless, I got to make a video clip of me singing “From Yesterday” inside, cause that’s where 30 Seconds to Mars shot the video. Should be wonderful b/c I had no voice from the cold.

Tried to go to the MAOsoleum, but it closed at noon and you have to check your: camera, bags (including purses and man bags), and dignity at the door. It was 3 when I got there and I had all of the above on me. So I ate a veiny chicken sandwhich at the biggest KFC in the world, that’s conveniently located across the street (from the back end of Tiananmen Square..) which the guide book failed to specify…thus leading me on another hour long journey of wandering around aimlessly.

After the refuel I walked along a wall for about a mile which finally led to this gorgeous park. It cost 10RMB to walk through this park. Out the other end was the “bar area” which it was just turning dusk when I got there. Very scenic. Way more happenin than Shanghai’s. Then I closed out the night back at the Olympic grounds to see the water cube lit up at night. Totally worth it.

Today I did the Great Wall trip. I opted for the tour that drives us 3 hours out of Beijing, 10k hike (and I mean SERIOUS hike…steep stairs..crumbling wall parts to climb over…), then you zip cord over a river, that leads you to a boat that boats you to a parking lot where a van is waiting to shuttle us over to a Chinese buffet down the road. Not to mention the fact that at each of the 30 towers we crossed there were peddlers trying to get us to buy t-shirts and their water bottles for 10RMB. Thought this was the non-touristy route?! Phew! What a day! I’ll leave this one for the pictures when I’m able to post. It was amazing!!! Talk about a view!

I’m gonna try to round up some friends to try the renowned Peking Duck restaurant that’s in these parts tomorrow.

Until then….

I spent my last afternoon in Shanghai on a short tour arranged through my hostel, of the water village, Zhujiajiao, just outside of town. It was very scenic. I small river ran though a very old fashioned looking village. However, such is the way of Chinese tourism, instead of quaint little homes or shops lining the river, it was all stand after stand of the same crap that every other tourist shop has (even in Xi’an, which we thought would be different.) Fans, silk this-and-thats, bracelets, the red woven things w/ tassles….kinda ruined it for me.

However, I met up with this man named David, from Israel, who was basically my private tour guide for the day. He was studying Chinese and had lived in Beijing for a year and was traveling the rest of China before he went back home. He was telling me about all of the symbolism in the stone pathways, about the roots of Buddhism and traditions of ancient culture. These are mostly things that I wouldn’t have thought twice about as I walked through the village and the little garden towards the back end (which was actually the most peaceful). Plus it was nice to have someone to ask “what is this” when buying weird looking food from the little vendors. We ate at the cheapest looking restaurant that we could find. I wasn’t too hungry and nothing looked particularly enticing so I decided to go “weird” and get the “torfu” and clams soup. It wasn’t bad. The clams were very chewey. David ordered the chicken and peanuts dish. I forget that everyone does “communal” for dinner and should have ordered something he would have eaten. He wouldn’t try any of the soup 1. because he sounded gross and 2. because he didn’t know enough Chinese to ask the waitress if there was pork in it (or he couldn’t understand her anyways). Oops. His chicken and peanuts was pretty awesome btw..ha!

Afterwards, I tried to go to the Grand Hyatt downtown, to look at the city view at night. However, once I got off the train, it was all under construction and I had NO idea how to get there. So I wondered around the base of the Oriental Pearl Tower (3rd largest TV tower in the world) and took some pictures of that, as well as the Shanghai Tower (second largest building in the world…that also happens to look like a giant bottle opener). And in doing so, I also found the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium! Put that on the list of things to do during my last 2 days in Shanghai before I head home!

Then I headed back in just enough time to catch my train to Beijing. Holy hell. The train station was a mad house. Luckily I managed to figure out what platform my train was on easy enough to crunch into the mash of people flooding towards the one door that led down to it. The room I was in was literally a cubby hole. Joee emailed me about a Chinese woman and her baby next to her on the flight home…strewing dirty dipers around and the like…well. Let’s just say…this was my turn! There was a family on the bottom two beds. Complete with baby alarm that goes off every 5 minutes or so. Luckily I had my headphones and was able to drown them out w/ the most sleepy-time music I have. Baby noises blend nicely w/ Sigar Ros, btw. It wouldn’t have been so bad, seeing as that the train only cost $50, had I not woke up with the most excruciating back ache ever. I still probably slept 10 out of the 13 hours, but I could hardly sit up (not like there was enough room to sit up entirely) in the morning. The train home is a sofet sleeper ride. It was twice as much, but I had to, since no hard sleepers were available.

And when I woke up, I found that Joee’s cold had struck with a vengeance.

So I checked into the nearest hostel I could find. Conveniently enough, it was across the street from the train station. I was hoping to meet more young travelers to bum around with, but it seems like this hostel is mostly Chinese businessmen.

After a nap I went to the Olympic grounds. 1. The stinkin lady at the info desk at the hostel told me the WORST way to get there. So I walked for almost an hour along a super busy street. No clue where I was, only knew that I was headed in the right direction. Only to find on the way home there was a stop RIGHT THERE! 2. I had gotten there 10 minutes too late to see the inside of the water cube. The ONE THING! I wanted to see on the grounds. However, I did find that they have open swim for the public Thurs-Sun in the evenings for 50RMB (WTF?!!!…wait, Carol, that’s only $7…cheaper than most gyms in Chicago…) so I might do that if I get bored. I also ate some squid on a stick that had some corn kernels in it too, and found 1RMB on the ground (now if I can only find about 3500RMB more I wouldn’t feel so bad about the 2 new cameras).

Today I’m going to hit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Garden. Then tomorrow I’m off to the Great Wall! I booked a tour that’s a 3 hour drive out of the city where you have to hike the wall from one point to another which I guess takes 3-4 hours, then drive home. The ever-so-informed host at the info desk assured me that it’s the “non-touristy” route w/ no shops or people haggling you to buy the same crap as the dude one blanket over. So that should be nice. My dormmate in Shanghai, that recommended me this hostel, said that was the tour she went on and she loved it.

We’ll see! Hopefully I can manage to control the ever-cascading snot flow from my nose by tomorrow.

In case you should travel to China anytime soon, and assuming they speak Mandarin in that part, here’s all you need to know to get by:

(note: these are spelled phonetically)

Hello: Nee How

Goodbye: Tjeye Tzing

Thanks: Shea Shea

Cold Beer: Bing Pee-jo (Very important. When it’s colder outside they prefer warm beer. This country really is backwards…)

Cold One: Bing Da (?)

Empty Glass: Gan Bay (this is similar to cheers…or bottom’s up! but I learned the hard way that they really expect you to empty your glass (save this one for the shots)

This One: Jigga (jigga WHAAT?!!)

How Much Is This?: D’oh Schow Chien?

RMB: Quai or Rem-M-B or Yu-an

Steamed Dumpling: Boudza (?)

Rice Alcohol (super strong): By-chou (or Bo-chu?)

And if you happen to be staying in Xi’an near either of these landmarks, it’s helpful for cab drivers to get you home:

Drum Tower: Goo Loo

South Gate: Non-Men (or Non-Mar with their accent)

To help with your shopping needs (or to understand the Tai Chi chants in the park):

1 - EE

2 - Are

3 - San

4 - Sss

5 - Ooo

6 - Leo

7 - Chi

8 - Ba

9 - Jo

10 - Schur (the sch is kinda like Sean Connery would say)

With the above and perhaps a map in both languages to point to…you could live forever in China.

Apparently he moved to China. He’s in restaurants, bars, shoe stores, the hostel lobby….

In other news, I just saw Joee off this morning. I don’t remember if I said this, but she got a pretty decent cold the past few days. Therefore, I’m glad to see her go. Kidding! I’m actually going to miss the company as I navigate around the country of little characters (the people and the writing). I booked an overnight train from Shanghai to Beijing for tomorrow night. It’s a 13 hour ride. In the spirit of cheapness, I opted to take the “hard sleeper” which consists of 6 beds, communal bathroom and no door to the cabin. The “soft sleeper” has 4 beds, private potty’s and doors. However, I hear the toilets are of the hole in the floor/squatter type. I can’t handle the stationary ones. Imagine the splash zone on the train.

On our first day in Shanghai, Joee and I went exploring around the city a bit. We talked to the info desk at the hostel for advice on the “must sees” for Joee’s 2 full days here. The girl was like “Ugh. Well. The park is nice. Tourists also enjoy the Jade Temple.” So instead I asked her where the camera place was. The park was nice. The Shanghai Museum of Modern Art is there. She really just implied that the whole idea of Shanghai was the nightlife.

So with Joee fending off her cold, she spend the day resting yesterday while I decided to scope out the Temples. First stop was Jing’an Temple. It’s 20RMB to get into both of them. , each. Not bad…under $3. You walk in and it’s this big square Chinese looking building. There’s usually people worshiping and burning incense. I saw a woman showing her daughter how to go through the motions saying “Eee, Are, San” (that means 1, 2, 3!!..luckily Patrick taught me how to count before we left Xi’an). It was cute. Second temple was a bit of a walk, same schtick as the last one, BUT! For a mere $4 (note: more than the price of admission) you could buy fish food fo the koi pond. I probably spent a good hour petting/feeding the fish. Neat!! Then I went back to the hostel to join Joee in her napping, to ward off the few minor signs of a cold I’ve been feeling.

Which brings us to the “bar street” of Shanghai. Hengshan Road. This is where the little piece of paper stating “Nee how! Please take me to Bar Street” that you hand to the taxi driver, comes in VERY handy. We walked up and down the street. The like to do the thing where they have people stand at the door and shout specials to you. However, since we’re obvious foreigners, we mostly heard “Hello! Come in! Hello!”

I prefer the club 1+1 in Xi’an (which I later realized was actually listed as THE place to go in all of the tour books. We went to 1 bar that was pretty normal. Second one had a live band that was quite hilarious. They waved glow sticks around in the small audience in front of them. And the second the singer noticed the two white girls sitting off to the side, he kept waving at us and doing the “cheers” motion with his glass. Then we went to the “club” on that strip. It was very loud. Very crowded. Very expensive. So we headed home. So much for that. Then we realized that the list of “places to go” on the hostel guide, included none of the above. For obvious reasons I guess.

I can’t figure out how to upload pics on these computers at the hostel. It’s all in Chinese. SO I guess that will have to wait for now. Perhaps in Beijing!

Ciao for now!

Everyone was telling us how much of a difference Shanghai would be from Xi’an. They really weren’t kidding. First of all, it was a huge relief for Joee and I when we were bombarded by Americans willing to lend us some advice or point us in the right direction as soon as we got off the airport shuttle bus into the city. One lady was from Edgewater. Then another guy was from Lincoln Park. I’m starting to think that Chicagoians really get around….

Then, we were warned about how expensive Shanghai was going to be. Sure. Compared to Xi’an, it definitely is. So now meals cost around $4 instead of $1. Yes. Markup indeed. Still cheaper than Chicago. If the flight weren’t so dang expensive, I’d get a summer home here.

I got a new camera today. Yep. The second one on my trip. Spending almost double than what we spent on the entire week in Xi’an. (Got it at about the same price as the camera from Xi’an. Same camera, but I bought it in this huge electronics mega mall where there were Canon booths every few meters (see it’s seeping in already!) or so! Legit?! Yes?).

Joee and I visited People’s Park today. I wouldn’t even compare it to Lincoln Park. Maybe the park w/ the swings at our old place on Wilmot. Then we visited The Bund. Another tourist spot. That was entirely under construction. No boat tour for us. However we recieved several shady offers. Then we ate at a real Chinese fast food place. It was a chicken and rice bowl w/ miso and a side of seafood flavored jell-o. They really need to get over food that wiggles when you jiggle it.

Then new camera. Then we went to this acrobatics show. They rode bikes in a huge metal ball…just like Homer in The Simpsons Movie! Then they added 4 more dudes who did it too…at the same time!

Honestly though, I got more of a kick from the folks who “ooo” and “eee” in Chinese sitting around us.

Ok. I have to pay for internet now by the minute. aaaaaand DONE!