Shanghai Old Town

Today I went on a walking tour around the Old Town of Shanghai with some work colleagues and a couple I met at an Australian Chamber of Commerce event last weekend. We started out at the Yuyuan Gardens, next to the Yuyuan Bazaar, where you can buy all sorts of Chinese souvenirs, like chopsticks and chops (a stamp with your signature on it) and heaps of other stuff. We had lunch at the Green Wave Gallery, which is quite a famous Chinese restaurant in Shanghai.

We stopped by a street which the guide said was a bustling market, but the road had been pulled up for construction. Shanghai is changing so quickly the guidebooks can't keep up. In parts of the old town you could really see all the modern buildings just creeping up the street, while the locals just sit there everyday watching it happen.

The Dongtai Antique market was pretty cool. One of my work colleagues ran into her uncle while we were there. Apparently he's a bit of an antiques collector, and can help us out with buying antiques if we want (and distinguishing real from fake).

The Flower, Bird, Fish and Insect market was a highlight. It's basically a market where you can buy pets. They had the cutest kittens and puppies there, but they all looked so hot and dehydrated, we felt so bad for them. They were breathing really fast to try to cool down. We asked how much a kitten cost and they are 10 yuan, which is about $2 aussie. You could also buy cicadas there for 2 yuan - they stay alive for about 3 months over the summer and then die, then you buy another one the next summer. There were also heaps of people selling crickets there, which you buy for fighting each other - you bet on which one will win.

Jin Mao Tower 金贸大厦

I don't know if you can view the chinese characters in the title and in fact I'm not even sure if what I just wrote in chinese says 'Jin Mao Tower', but my computer types chinese(!) so I thought I've give it a go. I hope I haven't written anything rude or political. Anyway, my computer types Chinese if I hit Control+space. The way you type Chinese on a keyboard is to type the words in pinyin (Chinese spelt phonetically using roman letters). Pinyin is what I'm learning, since its too hard to learn the characters. Sometimes my computer switches back to Chinese automatically and all these characters start appearing. It was a bit disconcerting when I didn't know how to change it back to English.

This evening I went up Jin Mao Tower. Its the second-tallest building in Shanghai (420.5m) and was built in 1998. Its 88 floors high - 88 is a very auspicious number. Jin Mao means 'economy' and 'trade', but it also carries the meanings 'gold' and 'prosperity'. Here are some photos I took from the top. There are some slightly more professional pictures of the tower here.

Above is the Oriental Pearl Tower, which looks a bit like something from the Jetsons. Good photos of the Oriental Pearl are here. The river you can see in the pictures is the Huangpu River. Across the river is the Bund, the name for the area along the shore line, which has lots of Western early 20th century buildings - very nice at night and a tourist attraction of Shanghai. One of the pictures below shows the view from the observation tower down into the Hyatt atrium. The Hyatt is on the 57th to the 84th floors.

Check out the Shanghai World Financial Centre here. I've also added a photo of is below. It's planned for completion in 1997. Some people don't like it because the circle up the top is a bit like the rising sun on the Japanese flag.

The peak hour subway

I had my first experience on the Shanghai MTR, or mass transit rail, this evening. I had to meet my real estate agent at 6pm and realised I was not going to get a taxi in time as there were none available during peak hour. So I got onto the subway. When the train arrived on the platform it was already absolutely packed. The doors opened, some people fell out and then we got in. I didn't need to hold onto anything because we were jam packed and I wasn't going anyway. I only had to go one stop, but before we got there people were already jostling towards the doors. The doors opened, and I fell out, along with a few people who didn't intend to but were in the way. Apparently sometimes they have 'pushers' to pack even more people in. A lady at work said that last time she got on she couldn't get off at her stop because she wasn't close enough to the door.

Introducing Shanghai

Here I am in Shanghai! I can't seem to access my blog site but I can still post to it, so don't be offended if I don't respond to your comments because I can't see them.

I caught up with Libby and Karin on Sunday morning for brunch at 3 on the Bund. The view from the balcony was incredible, looking north up the Huangpu River (with a few massive ships rolling by) and across the river to the Oriental Pearl Tower, which looks like something from the Jetsons. Of course, I didn't take a photo. But I did take this one of the three of us at the restaurant. After lunch we went to look at some shops and then went to Xiang Yang Markets (pronounced Shee-oung Young), the fake markets here in Shanghai. I bought a fake Prada handbag for 100 Yuan (a bit less that AUS$20). Mind you, the first price they offered was 680 Yuan!!!!! My first offer was 80 Yuan. Apparently in Xiang Yang they know the bargaining approach the foreigners use, which is to halve the first price and stick to it. Lucky I had my experienced Shanghai friends with me to tell me that 100 Yuan is a good price for a handbag. However, when we were shopping along the street close by they had clothes shops where you couldn't bargain and the clothes were quite expensive, fairly comparable to Australian prices. Later in the day, I got through my laundry which had accumulated a fair bit. They have a laundry here in the hotel where you get charged per load (apart from the normal laundray service where they charge you per piece) but you don't do it yourself, there is a laundry lady and she does it all for you and irons it too if you want. It cost 20 Yuan per wash (about AUS$3) + 10 Yuan for the dryer.

I'm getting to use my Chinese a bit already. You have to speak Chinese in the taxi as they generally don't speak much English. Even if you know the Chinese words you usually have to repeat it a few times before they understand you (I'm learning you really can't be lazy with the tones). I asked someone the time earlier in the day (since I have no watch and forgot my mobile at the apartment), and I understood the response, especially after they showed me a big clock nearby, and since I knew the approximate time anyway.

Its kind of hard buying food here because a lot of the time the restaurant menus are only in Chinese, which I have no hope of understanding. If I learn any written Chinese, I think it will be restaurant menus to start with. Also, I don't know how to say take away or eat in, and its kind of embarrassing to say you don't speak Chinese because everyone else does. And I don't know how to say I don't speak Chinese anyway. People who can speak English will generally speak it to you straight away because they can see you're a foreigner. But other people will speak to me in Chinese and I feel really rude because I have no idea what they're saying (unless its nihao ie hello). Anyway, I've been watching Chinese soap operas on TV and I'm picking up the odd word here and there so maybe that will help. I think soap operas are a good way to learn the language because its pretty obvious what's going on so you have the context already. Of course, I have no other interest in soap operas apart from an academic one and never watch them in Australia. My saviour as far as food goes is a service called Sherpas, where you have a book with menus in English from heaps of restaurants around downtown Shanghai, and you ring Sherpas, who speak English, and tell them what you want, and then they deliver it. Last night I had Turkish. Its not real cheap by Chinese standards (my meal was about $12AUS) but still not bad. You can get heaps of different cuisines around here. Thai, french, italian, greek, indian (lots of indian) and of course Chinese. Once I get a bit braver I will go into the Chinese menu restaurants but baby steps for the moment.


The view from my apartment at night.
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The view from my apartment during the day. There are an incredible number of skyscrapers in every direction. They are a little obsured in the distance of this photo because of the smog.

Singers

Only a few hours sleep until I get up on Saturday morning to finish working at the client before I jump on a plane at 1655 to my final destination, Shanghai. I just met up with my mate, Chang Ling, who took me out for a night on the town in Singapore. We went to the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel and had a glass of the famous Singapore Sling (very nice), followed by a pepper crab and deep fried squid down by the Singapore River at Clarke Quay (an expat hangout). The Long Bar has cracked peanut shells all over the ground. You can throw your shells on the ground as they want the Long Bar to be a place where you can relax and not worry about making a mess. Chang Ling’s plane got in late so we only met up around 11pm and of course Singapore was still going strong when I got back to the Orchard Hotel, where I’m staying, around 2.

Singapore is a pretty cool place. I had heard from some people that it is sterile, and I imagined it would be all concrete and road but there are heaps of trees and greenery throughout the city which makes it really pleasant. The weather suits me fine, its hot all the year around. Earlier this evening I went for a walk along Orchard Road, the famous shopping road in Singapore. I bought a couple of accessories for my camera (and did some bargaining) and the camera guy also taught me a few new functions on my camera that I didn’t know about (probably because I didn’t read the manual yet).

I have been working at a client out in Jurong Town, about 25 minutes by taxi from the city. There is a ship building company right next door (hey Stew, this isn't where you were working in Singapore is it, when you were doing the cable ship?).

I take the freeway out to Jurong Town - some workers travel in the back of a truck to work, and I was wondering what they do when it rains... then it rained and I found out-->
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Last night I managed to get back from work in time to go on a Night Tour of Singapore. We went on a boat ride on the Singapore River, had Chinese seafood for dinner, went to the Raffle Hotel (no time for Singapore Sling) and Bugis Village (serious bargain shopping).

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It has been a painful few days in Singapore as THE sale of the year has been on in Singapore but I’m already overweight in baggage so I couldn’t buy anything (damn all those client workpapers, not that I wasn’t already overweight). Oh the shoes, the shoes…. Hunter, I was thinking of you as I looked at the shoes.

The Fullerton Hotel, Singapore

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Backtracking a bit, Brisbane was fun. I caught up with my ace friend Mish and her new hubby Troy. We ate dip and watched Mythbusters so I know they are true friends.

The last night I was there the client took me and Desmond (my colleague from Hong Kong) out to Turkish for dinner at Southbank. The restaurant was great, a vivid Turkish theme throughout. Then it was straight onto the plane for an overnight trip to Singapore and then straight to the client there (after an hour in the hotel to freshen up). Luckily the plane was empty so I got 3 seats to myself and slept quite well. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Brisbane at night.

A huge thanks...

A huge thanks to my great friends Az and Dingo, who put up with me for 7 WEEKS while I stayed at their house during my homeless stage prior to departing for Shanghai (via Brisse and Singers). And an extra huge thanks to Az for coming out in her car to look for me when I got lost on her street one night. I rang her and managed to tell her I was lost at which point my mobile battery ran out. It would have been good if I stayed put until Az found me, especially since I was actually at number 70 of their street, their house being number 78. Nevertheless, I know South Blackburn pretty well now.

I have experienced some wholesome vegan cooking but I probably wrecked the nutritional value by eating chicken schnitzel sandwiches at lunch (go Gazza and Jules!!) (but not all the time!).

Anyway, with any luck I might see these guys in China sometime next year.

Exotic destination number one

A quick update - a couple more changes of plans and it turns out that the first exotic destination I will be visiting is Brisbane!!! I will be here from Monday to Wednesday, and then Singapore for about 3 days, and then (with any luck) Shanghai.

How many days left?

It's been more than 8 days since my last post and I'M STILL IN AUSTRALIA. There are a few things still being sorted out on the work side of things so all I can do is dream and surf the internet. I was looking through my Lonely Planet, and came across THIS idea:


So let me know if you're interested! Apparently the real trans-Siberian is Moscow to Vladivostok, whereas Moscow to Beijing is the trans-Manchurian or trans-Mongolian. there also seem to be some options to do a round trip from Beijing up to Vladivostok through Mongolia, which sound fun. Searching on the web I found a nice travelogue site on China, Mongolia, Russia and the trans-Mongolian rail (and lots of other places around the globe where this traveller has been), with lots of cool photos. Check it out here if you're interested. Looking at the map now I realise most of it isn't actually in China so I may receive some criticism over this. I'm planning to go to lots of places in China too!

Rob, my journo friend, has given me my top 5 goals for while I'm in China. They are:

1. Learn to speak Chinese.
2. Recite Dr Suess's 'Sleep Book' in Chinese (a favourite of mine, that is in the English).
3. Travel to all the must see tourist sites in China.
   
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5. Bring back a Chinese kitchen utensil not commonly found in Australia and use it to cook at a dinner party when I get back.
   

I've forgotten the other one so hopefully Rob will remind me, and by doing so participate in my self-indulgent blog.