April 4th.
I awoke to a grey and rainy Shanghai. I was unaware this would be a prediction for numerous following days. After a quick coffee upstairs, Ellen, Johann, and I hit the streets. We were meeting one of Dave's coworkers, Brian, for breakfast.
We met Brian at a Starbucks. In January when I left, I said to myself I wouldn't have a Starbucks until I got home. ... Well...
Brian introduced himself as he sat down with a cup of coffee. Ellen had told us he made the perfect tour guide. His personality showed through quickly in the first few minutes. His intimate knowledge and familiarity of Shanghai made him a good guide. But his friendliness, humor, caring-ness, and over all ability to put everyone at ease made him the perfect tour guide.
Breakfast consisted of dumplings. Brian said the place was a secret hole in the wall. Well it was a hole in the wall type place, but sure not a secret. I was glad we had gotten there early as I watched the line begin to circle the block later. Johann and I watched the dumpling making for a bit. Dumplings are essentially dough with meat balls inside. But the juices of the meat sit inside the pouch of the dough that are steamed to a boiling temperature. So to eat them can be tricky. Brian, luckily, gave perfect instructions. He warned us to not tear the dough as you use chopsticks to pick them up. Then nibble on a corner of the dough to create a hole to drink the juice out. Then devour the delicious dumpling! As you can see from the pictures, I'm terrible with chopsticks. But I will have you know, I never tore or dropped a dumpling. Success. A delicious success!
Brian had to make a haircut appointment. He told us what to see while he was gone. So Ellen, Johann, and I stopped at another dumpling shop for fried dumplings. Then we went on to the park. Brian had told us to find the "Parents Proudly Pimping." We all had that face too. This is an area of the park where parents or grandparents create a little station to find a good spouse for their children. They have a list of their information; description, job, yearly income, age, and so on. Then other parents go look and play ultimate matchmaker. The idea is the kids, who are 20-30's, don't have time to find a spouse. So the parents help! This isn't some small thing. There were easily multiple hundreds of people. There were even marriage brokers with large books to flip through. We walked through the Parents Proudly Pimping for a bit, laughing pretty much the whole time.
The park continues on. Ellen, Johann, and I explored as we went along.
We next met up with a woman named Cheryl. She has lived in China for ten years. I'm not quite sure how to describe Cheryl. Here's why; she is a very kind woman and a very caring woman. That's obvious to see. But as we went to a market and I watched her bargain I knew she would easily take down anyone who stood in her way. I discovered I am a pansy when it comes to bargaining. I tried pathetically a bit near the very end, but Cheryl would get prices to less than 70-80% off and say she could have done it better. She radiated confidence and authority. Johann and I watched just in awe. Johann got very excited about bargaining, while I just wanted to let Cheryl always bargain for me. Between Brian and Cheryl, I had to take out a notebook to copy down all the information being thrown at us!
Brian, Cheryl, Dave, Ellen, Johann, and I all went to lunch after the market place. Brian laughed as he told us about the spot for lunch. He said he hadn't been there yet, but was certain "the kids"- as we are continually called here-would love it. He was 100% right. It's a restaurant entirely based on bathrooms. The seats are toilets. The tables are bathtubs with glass over the top. All the food is served in tiny urinals, bed pans, or little urinal cups. The food is designed to look scarily like poop. You can only imagine the hilarity that ensued.
The restaurant was next to a busy market place. We wandered for a bit. Everything from food to jewelry to art was being sold. But eventually the overwhelming crowd became to much to handle and we left.
Brian had discovered an art festival that we all went too. It was a very westernized festival. It was the largest concentration of westerners I had see yet in China. The art was incredible. From music to clothes to actual paintings to food to moving art everywhere you looked was creativity. We spent multiple hours here. They had interpretive dance competitions, latte art competitions, and just the best atmosphere. The perfect place to just relax for a bit and enjoy.
Dave, Ellen and Cheryl decided to go home then. Brian, Johann, and I went to his hotel to meet up with two more coworkers, Oscar and Mike. Brian had the perfect quote as we went towards the hotel. "Politics make strange bed fellows. And so do ex-Pats." Brian began to rattle off restaurants or bars he wanted to us to see in Shanghai that night. He kept saying to us, "As long as we are having fun." This actually became a theme for the night due to Brian continually asking "But, are we having fun?" The trick was to realize this was always a rhetorical question with Brian. Anyway. The list ended up being around 30 or so items long. We did three.
The first was a infused rum bar themed entirely around pirates. Mike entertained us with middle school pirate jokes. We sat on stools around a wooden barrel. It was fairly early so we were the only people in the place. Still fun to see however.
We then decided to go where we could talk and relax for a bit. "The Boxing Cat." We played pool- which Johann and I lost- and hung out talking. Oscar speaks Spanish fluently. We talked in Spanish for a while. I didn't realize how much I had missed it these last few days. It was a needed reminder.
The final stop was "The Shelter." It's a techno dance club that is made out of an old bomb shelter. You must walk through a cement tunnel before emerging in a dark thick-walled room. The music was loud enough that no matter where you were in the room your chest vibrated with the bass. Brian and I swing danced. Which was not only hilarious but incredibly fun. We stayed for a bit. However, Mike, Oscar, and Brian were getting up at 5am to watch live feeds of the Final Four. So Mike got Johann and I a taxi because he speaks fluent Mandarin. Then Johann and I went to our beautiful room and quickly fell asleep.
April 5th:
Easter! Johann, Ellen, and I got up early. Dave wasn't feeling well so he stayed at the hotel. I had made connections from America to go to a WELS church service in Shanghai. In an upper room of an apartment, several folding chairs were set up. An electric piano sat in the corner. It was all in English and entirely westerners. But it was nice to be surrounded by people who understood the background and believes you came from. Between transportation and the actual service, this took up the whole morning.
Afterwards, we met up with Dave for lunch. I wanted to explore the other side of the river. We all hopped into a taxi that dropped us off beneath the Pearl of the Orient. Tourists were everywhere. Well really just people were everywhere. We took pictures, walked up and down the river side, and even stopped for ice cream despite the rainy gloomy day.
We kept seeing signs for the "Sightseeing Tunnel." There are only tunnels connecting the sides seperated by the river- no bridges. The four of us decided instead of taking a taxi, we would find out what this sightseeing tunnel was. We bought tickets. All of us were expecting a walking tour through a museum-like tunnel. Instead we experienced a trippy journey through strange lights via glass cable cars. Colorful lights swirled and danced before us. There was really no theme except confusion. We all got done and just laughed. It was clearly aimed at extecential 5-year-olds.
We walked around on the other side of the river one last time. I couldn't help but smile at the beautifully illuminated city of Shanghai one last time.
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