Broken lenses

20 September 2009

 

We rose late this morning as Scotty believed that we were leaving for Huangshan today. We had breakfast and packed lazily. We confused the front desk man when we said we wanted to check out. Luckily he knew enough English to inform us we were booked until tomorrow. After confirming the date on our train ticket, we realized we had another day to enjoy Shanghai.

 

After dropping our stuff back into the room, we headed for the shopping complex next to the main train station. The main floor was a supermarket with a massage parlor downstairs and a huge camera section upstairs. Scotty's lens had broken and so he was in search of a new one. After attempting to bargain down the price of a replacement lens, the cheapest over 3000Y, one shop said they would fix it for 400Y. While waiting for them to repair the lens, we walked around and Scotty attempted to find a cheap fish eye lens. He bargained them down to roughly US price but ended up not buying. The camera guys didn't seem to be as eager to sell as the other vendors unfortunately.

 

After a failed attempt to find Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant near the train station, we ate a a Wu Da Nang and had our dumplings (9 Yuan). We then headed to People's Square and Nanjing Road via subway. I love Shanghai's subway system. Very safe and cheap! I wish it went to more places though. Of course the city is expanding their subway system and adding tons of new lines in the future. Additionally, the construction everywhere is a bit maddening.  However, the city looks like it will be quite spectacular by the World Expo in 2010.  We are definitely here at least a year and a half too early to enjoy the new and improved Shanghai!!

 

We enjoyed refreshing boba milk tea for only 4Y (less than $1 US!) This was the first time we had found cold ones, which were great after walking around in the heat and humidity. We then toured the Shanghai Planning Exhibition. It consisted of pictures of historic buildings on the second floor followed by the crazy plans they had for the world expo next year. They had all these models of the city that seemed to grow in size as we moved from floor to floor. The last model was huge and took up half the floor. We also watched a planetorium style 3D video rendering of Shanghai post-2010.

 

After the exhibition it was time for more boba tea and some strange goopy bread-like fried ball (3 Yuan) things that I liked but Scotty didn't. For dinner we headed back to Yang's Fry Dumpling place for a 11Y dinner consisting of more dumplings and a 7Up (I was very excited as I had learned how to say soda - "qishuir" - and was understood by the cashier when I said it!) Scotty got another body massage in preparation for the climb on Tuesday while I headed back to the Zhao An.

 

-Julia

 

Our first day full day in China! (Sept 18, 2009)

18 September 2009

We missed posting our first day blog entry... so here it is!...

We were picked up promptly at 10am by Jack from Bravo Tours at the Zhao An Hotel. Jack was a very enthusiastic middle aged guy. En route to our first stop, Jade Buddha Temple, we were given a brief history. The jade Buddha's were brought over from India in the 1800s and were carved from a single piece of jade. The monk who brought them over originally had 5, which he was taking to an island off of Shanghai. However, the officials in Shanghai made him leave behind two. This turned out to be a lucky thing in the end though. A temple was erected in the honor of the jade carvings. During the cultural revolution (1950s?) when the old religion was banned, temples were destroyed. No one knows what happened to the other 3 jade Buddhas but the ones in the Jade Buddha Temple, along with hundreds of statues, were saved by a very crafty monk. He placed pictures of Chairman Mao over every single statue. Nobody dared to desecrate the picture of Mao and so the statues were saved.

The jade Buddhas were beautiful. The color of the jade was a light mocha, a hue I had never seen in jade or if I have not in that quantity. Of course we were not allowed to take pictures of the two statues, so no pictures for you to enjoy. Along the way we purchased a scroll with our "names" in calligraphy for the not so low "donation" of 150Y (nearly $20). I, of course, ended up leaving the scroll in Jack's van never to be seen again.

The next stop was Yu Gardens, which required crossing through the old Shanghai city. We were enveloped with people and Scott was haggled constantly - "Watch! Bag! T-shirt! Sir! Come look!" With my authentic Chinese appearance, I was never bothered. The Gardens were peaceful compared to outside and we toured the grounds. They were built to bring the forests and the mountains into Shanghai, which had neither. In fact, before the big buildings were around, a bunch of rocks in the garden piled maybe 15 feet high was the highest point in Shanghai. 

We were hungry at this point and so we visited the infamous Nanxiang Restaurant where we had our first taste of dumplings and steamed buns. We had a set course of steamed buns with crab meat stuffing, steam buns with vegetable stuffing, dumplings with gammon stuffing, cake (not American style cake) with sweat bean powder, shrimp balls with crab roe soup, spring roll with crab roe stuffing, dumpling with curry meat stuffing, egg soup, fruit, and chinese tea. It was 88 Yuan each ($12) for each of us. Jack had lunch with us and it was nice to have someone explain what things were and how to eat certain things. He was impressed by Scott's chopstick skills.

We then headed to the Bund, which I had been looking forward to. However, due to the World Expo being held in Shanghai next year, everything was under construction. None of the beautiful waterfront walkways existed and instead we were presented with a maze of walls, construction noise, and dirt. We walked across a bridge to see the cityscape of New Shanghai and then boarded back into the van.

We were then dropped off at the Old French Concession where we walked around by ourselves. The main shopping area was built by the french in a blend of european and chinese architecture.  The area had been converted into an upscale shopping district that was very glitzy and built for western tourists and well to do Chinese people. We walked a little ways off the main shopping area and found street vendors hawking dusty old "antiques." We followed one guy up to his house to see his porcelain bowls and "antique" scrolls. We had to go down some back alley and then up very steep and narrow stairs to a room that doubled as his bedroom. They were very nice though and not pushy. We then went back onto the street and Scott looked at almost every vendor stall, which consisted of exactly the same items. Scott got to practice saying "bu yao" (don't want), which he enjoys saying.

Heading down more small side streets we passed by people playing cards or taking naps in chairs on the side walks. While Scott got an hour long foot massage, I explored the streets more, watched a mahjong game, stepped on dog poo, and hung out at the park listening to Mandarin phrases on my IPod. Then we headed back to meet with Jack and go to an acrobat show.

We were more than impressed with the acrobatics and even more impressed that they allowed us to take pictures. My favorite was the last act where they fit 5 Chinese men on motorcycles in a cage. It was very nerve racking to see them ride around like that. However, judging by the way people drive here I guess it's probably not that scary for them. After the show, I had to do my own acrobatics while using my first squat toilet. Holding my camera bag and daypack balancing squarely over the hole and then having to grab the toilet paper was a feat in of itself.

-- Julia

Oh... tired..

Julia and I walked all over Shanghai today... up Nanjing Road to the Bund, and then after a taxi ride under the river, all around New Shanghai (Pudong).  During our travels we met two English students (Linda and Qian Qian), who were excited to practice their English with us.  We joined them for some rather expensive but fun tea experience.  I didn't know tea could have such exciting flavors.  We had one type of tea that was mixed with fruit, giving it a very sweet taste.  It was so sweat, I could have sworn they dumped a spoonful of sugar in there.  We also learned all kinds of history and drinking techniques during the "tea performance."  For 6 different types of teas (with several re-tastes each), it cost us 750 Yuan.  While expensive, I thought it was a great experience.  We then walked up Nanjing road, where we did some window shopping and I haggled several shop keepers.  However, since we are trying to reduce the stuff we carry until we get to Beijing (mostly due to all the climbing we are doing and the limited size of our packs), I only bought an iPhone cover and charger.  However, I learned that you can buy a 175 dollar North Face Windstopper jacket for about 15 US dollars... that will come in handy for some presents... 

For lunch we had a few dumplings and a few other little snack things.  We then made our way to the Bund area (which apparently in german means along the sea), where we tried to walk to the Pudong area.  However, due to the omnipotent construction, we failed to find the ferry that crossed the river.  Feeling defeated, we grabbed a cab to the Oriental Pearl TV Tower.  We wanted to make our way to the top and get a view of Shanghai's skyline.  However, it was 150 Yuan (20 dollars) each to go to the top.  That was a bit steep for us, so we took a very round about way (unintentionally due to the construction) to walk the half mile between the TV tower and the Jin Mao Building (which looks like a Chinese temple turned into a skyscraper) by instead getting lost amongst the construction and instead walking 2 miles.  After exploring the Jin Mao building (and catching the sites), we grabbed some mystery meat from a local street vendor.  This guy was legit.  He was making his "mystery meat" off the side of his moped.  We then headed back to Nanjing Road, where we found the wonderful "Yang Sfry Dumpling" shop.  There was a huge line and nary a seat to be found.  It cost us only $15 Yuan (2 dollars) for 8 dumplings and hot and sour soup.  It was SOOOOO good!

I'll post about our first full day hopefully tomorrow (today was our 2nd full day).  Tomorrow evening we catch the sleeper train to the Yellow Mountain for some climbing :O

-- 
Scott

First Photos from Shanghai, China!

Its been a busy first 2 days in China (complete with some censoring issues due to the Chinese government)... but we're having a great time thus far!  We thought we'd share a few of our first photos.  We'll try to write our first impressions and trip thoughts latter today.

- Scott

Blogger Censored

Apparently blogger has been censored in China... which means that Julia and I will have to use workarounds to actually post blogs. Luckily Google lets you post blogs via email. 

I consider China's efforts a bit silly, as we are trying to post about the beautiful things we find here! :)

- Scott

Arrival in Incheon, South Korea

17 Sept 2009 - god awfully early in the morning ...

We managed to get to Los Angeles International Airport by 7:30pm thanks to our new friend and subleaser Carrie. We were starving since we had spent most of the afternoon running around doing errands and so decided to have our last Mexican fix before leaving California. After the most expensive diet coke ever ($3.64), a burrito, very non-sizzling fajitas, and the obligatory chips and salsa, we checked in at Asiana Air. Our luck held out and we were able to carry on our 30liter packs with our hiking poles onto the airplane.

Travel with Scott is always very exciting. And as we passed through security we got our first shocker. Both of us passed through the metal detector and we were getting our stuff together when there was a huge shout (at first it sounded like a cheer of some sort coming from the TSA personnel) and the TSA guy standing closest to us barked at us to drop everything and step away from our luggage. For awhile we just stood there and I was starting to wonder whether there was some real danger in our midst. Then they pulled out a black carryon suitcase and asked the crowd who it belonged to. Nobody stepped up. Apparently it held some sort of malicious laptop - whether the problem was that it was still in the bag or if it had actually been tampered with, we will never know. After a few tense moments they let everybody preceed.

We were both a little disappointed at the 777 airplane we boarded. Scott was especially disappointed with his "aisle" seat which was right next the window. I was in the middle seat and a Korean lady sat in the aisle seat. However the food was excellent. The attendant asked Scott in English if he had ordered a low-fat meal (which he had since usually this means you get fed first in the plane.) Then she turned to me and said something in Korean. I can only assume it was to ascertain my choice of food. With my look of confusion, she turned to English and asked "Chicken or bim bop bu bo?" (or it sounded like that ... ) My continued look of confusion led her to explain that it was rice with vegetables so I decided to go Asian and have the ethnic food. I got a lovely presentation of shredded zucchini, marinated sliced cucumbers, carrots, bean sprouts, mushrooms, and something that sort of looked and tasted like lean ground beef. The rice was excellent and I followed the lead of the Korean girl next to me and mixed in the rice with the veggies minus the enormous tube of spicy sauce they had given us on the side. There was plenty of spice to satisfy me without adding the extra indigestion. Very tasty meal. Sides of kim chee, fruit, and dried cuttlefish and stewed squash (????) finished up the meal. I don't remember what Scott had because it wasn't nearly as good as my meal ... :)

So skipping the next 8-9 hours where I was passed out, we were awoken with breakfast. This time I went with omelet instead of the kim chee with rice and watched Night at the Musuem 2 and a little bit of Star Trek.

We landed 45 min (!!!) early and we made it to our gate after riding on the slowest walk-alator we've every seen. The light from the East is slowly seeping it's way into the airport, attempting to fight the fog enveloping the airport. The airport sounds are growing louder and the building is coming back to life. Three more hours until we board the plane for Shanghai!!!