At the Intersection of Chinglish and Haggle

On our first real day of what has been dubbed "No Clothes Glee" Tour (the airline lost 2/3 of the group's luggage), we discovered that the Holiday Inn offers a veritable feast in the mornings.  David and I decided that in order to fully appreciate and immerse ourselves in Asian cuisine, we obviously had to try one of each thing.  And we did.  There were steamed buns filled with veggies or meat, little cups filled with something like a cupcake, Chinese pancakes (delicious crepes filled with hoisin sauce, pickled veggies, and assorted other fillings), omelette, mini pancakes, dumplings, fried buns, dumpling wrappers filled with rice, rice wrapped in a leaf, Shanghai noodles, taro root, pork bits on the bone, a tea egg (very strange and oddly cinnamon-flavored), and so much more.  And we tried everything.

We were practically rolling out of the breakfast nook by the end, but it was worth it.  I did leave a few other savory dishes for the next morning (stay tuned and see what they are!), but felt that I had gotten a good crash course in breakfast.  If traveling has taught me anything, it is that a distinct breakfast cuisine is a very American thing (perhaps British, too).

As we set out on the bus for a full day of activities, the smog was fairly striking.  Our inside said that it was an overcast morning, but I wasn't sure how she could tell.  Everything g looked hazy, from the ground to the heavens.  When the sun broke through later, I could see the distinction, but still nothing was quite clear.  It was as if I was looking through contacts that were slightly the wrong prescription.  While this caught me by surprise, I was perhaps not as shocked as my bus mates were to discover that a simple syllable, like ma, could mean many, many different things (mother, horse, trouble, curtsy, question) depending on how it was pronounced.

We started the day at the Bund, the riverfront of the Whangpoo river, which serves as the center of the city.  Along its length is a pretty walk that shows off the hundred year old colonial banks on one bank and the towering, glittering, imaginatively-designed skyscrapers on the other.  People spent their time taking pictures of the river,

stalking cute Chinese babies,

or perhaps a bit of both.  For me, it was interesting the setting of some of the books I have read and to picture people here throughout the past century - shirtless laborers loading boats high with imports and exports, fantastically done-up women sashaying past with open parasols leaning on their shoulders.

Our next stop was the Yuyuan gardens, which were gorgeous.  Built over 400 years ago during the Ming dynasty, they were a cool and peaceful sanctuary from the heat and the hustle and bustle of the bordering city streets.  The buildings boasted carved wooden screens, separate passageways for men and women, and large curb-like pieces of wood at the entrances.  I learned that these were a demonstration of the homeowner's importance: the higher the curb, the more lofty his position in society.  The corridors for men and women had geometric openings between them that I learned were shaped like picture frames, as looking out them one could see the gardens.  Apparently many painters were also garden designers (does landscapers do them justice?) and by creating these frames for their work they could kill two birds with one stone.

After the gardens, we were released to have lunch on our own.  A large group set out to find a less-touristy area to eat.  I slipped away from the larger group with three co-conspirators, and we stumbled upon a street food market where stands selling whole half-watermelons (rinds removed) on sticks stood next to stands selling soups, seafood, and fresh-cooked dumplings.  

None of us were terribly hungry, so we just tried one of several things until we were full.  We started with blocks of seasoned tofu, one light and one dark, which upon later consultation we discovered was the infamous stinky tofu (chou dofu) that most people aren't brave enough to try.  None of us found it stinky or anything short of delicious, though.  Next we tried dumplings - one veggie, one meat (really delicious), and one that exploded with liquid that we realized was probable some form of soup dumpling.  They were all great.  We only bought things that were specially cooked for us, right in front of our eyes, to hedge our bets.  And we haven't gotten sick so far!

After lunch, we went to the beautiful Shanghai Museum for a grand total of 30 minutes (due to an unfortunate schedule change).  Due to the short time, I only got to do a quick walk-through of two galleries - bronze and ceramics - but they were beautiful.  The bronze gallery offerings convince me that about half of what ancient Chinese villages did was drink wine, though.  They did have a few other things, such as bells that were on display with a recording of what they would sound like, which was interesting.

Most of the afternoon was spent at Fu Dong university, a top Chinese university with an extracurricular choir (just like ours!) of about 200 people.  We worked with a small subset of the choir and did a musical exchange/outreach.  Despite most of us practically falling asleep from jet lag, we had a good time and the students seemed quite excited.  They thought it was pretty adorable when we tried to speak Chinese.  We were also lucky to have dinner with the university students in what I guess was one of their cafeteria spaces.  We had a true have a bit of everything dinner with a giant lazy Susan in the middle of the table.  It wasn't my favorite meal, but I still tried everything.

Finally, we went to the ERA Acrobatic Show.  It was incredible.  Acts ranged from a man on a balancing board flipping four stacked bowls on to his head to men creating a human-driven Ferris wheel and doing stunts, to contortionists stacking themselves in improbable configurations.  Seven men drove motorcycles around inside a huge wire globe without colliding, people were see-sawed fifty feet In the air only to land atop the shoulders of a multistory human tower.  Gymnasts flipped themselves through hoops 10 feet in the air without spring boards, and trampoline-flung bodies soared through the air.  Ribbon dancers suspended their partners in the air using only their feet.  It was very impressive.  It was everything that the new Cirque du Soleil lacks that the old Cirque du Soleil possessed.  Thank god someone is still putting on a good show!

I was supposed to go out around the city with a friend of a friend, but we arrived back late and still hasn't received our luggage.  I also had trouble getting in touch with my would-be host and found out that public transportation would have taken forever.  As a result, I wasn't able to meet up with him.  Given how packed the day had been, though, it was probably a good thing.  Well played, Shanghai.

Spotted: surreptitious photography.  Even as we were sneaking photos of adorable Chinese babies and grandparents, they were sneaking pictures of us.  I did have several old men come up and take pictures with me, though.  I guess they figured that it was better to just come up and ask.  Let the blonde adventure begin.