Time: 0945 AM SAT
Weather: 3°C with Fog - expected to get sunny
On Thursday I wrote at lunch about the length of the chinese language course and said we might go to the river, that didn't happen. Some people did go down there but I didn't join. I decided I'd much rather attempt to find the french market, where I had been told is the place to find cheese and wine. I was told there was a Carrefour in the region and looked it up online. It is only 20-30 minutes away by foot. I told some others and the group grew and grew and grew. Soon enough there were 13 of us walking to a french grocery / supply store. A few of the people walking wanted to test the open container policy so not far beyond the gates of the school we stopped at a local grocery and picked up some beers. Those who were drinking popped 'em and we started again after short delay. We did make it all the way there without being stopped by any of the officers we walked by, so thats cool enough. We got to the store and found it had many of the promises that were made to me, I picked up a few blocks of cheese and some American singles (cheese, sadly). We found the rum that has been missed by many rum and coke fans. I was sad to find that even the french market didn't have such common day items as Cheez-Its, Ritz, or TownHouse. The Ritz they do have tend to be infused with random flavors, orange, lemon, chocolate, etc. The trip there and back lead us down very busy streets. I actually captured video of what it is like to cross the street here, dangerous. There were many vendors selling coats in small stores and roadside "crap-on-a-stick" type of shops.
Friday after school I decided I wanted to go find a tailor I had seen in a video on Shanghai. I did a little bit of research at lunch and found the address that seemed to match the video address plate. A small group of us, 4 total, wanted to check out the prices and see if this guy was really as crazy as he seemed to be in the video. We embarked on the journey and missed the street. Went too far and rather than trying to figure it out on the way and potentially get VERY lost, we returned to the university and checked a map to see what had gone wrong. The road we needed was under construction and didn't have a sign. We found a new route and took that. The map indicated the tailor would only be about 30 minutes walk, we left at 5pm. We found our road and watched the address numbers start to fall. The map indicated it was to the east, but the numbers kept getting smaller. We weren't quite sure why this would be true, but we just stuck with it. There were multiple parts to this street; west, middle, east. We had hoped the numbers started again at any division west to middle or middle to east but had nothing other than wishful thinking. We were on a snipe hunt. Our journey lead us to the east. Block after block and shop after shop, we never found the tailor we were looking for. We did find quite a fancy shopping area. At about 630 we figured it was time to give up and just find a place to eat. We say a Pasta and Pizza shop and it was a clear winner. Expensive by local standards, at about 9-12 usd a person it was a good meal. We caught the subway home and more adventuring was arranged. I have not given up on trying to find this tailor, he is known for "Western style suits and shirts."
Friday night, after returning from our snipe hunt, I heard there were some folks who wanted to go down and have a glass or two at the world's highest lounge. Located on the 87th floor of downtown shanghai, it takes 3 elevators and a minimum purchase of 12 usd to stick around. We had also heard rumors that the locals turn off all the city lights at 10 pm - a race against the clock began. We left around 845. A couple of subway rides later we made it downtown and the lights were awe-worthy. The construction for the world expo makes it very difficult to get around and therefore we had to walk in the wrong direction to try and get to where we needed to be, but of course this wasn't until we had already walked in the right direction and saw the say indicating this was the wrong direction which then made the wrong direction initially into the right direction in finality (we turned left, but should have gone right). We walked and eventually got near the base, as the clock struck 10. We lost the race and the lights began to turn off on all of the buildings. We continued to the building and went up the first 54 floors, then transfered elevators to get to 85, after the last transfer to get to the 87th floor, we spoke with the lounge and they said, "We're sorry, we don't have room for 11 guests." I wasn't sure if they had turned us away because we were younger and not in suits, or if they were actually full. As we were leaving, I asked the a women working in the grand hyatt lobby on 54 if there was a dress code or anything. She said there is, but it was only no shorts or open-toed shoes. She assured me that we were turned away because the lounge was busy. We knew of another place that had decent drink specials and some of us were going to head there and more of us were heading elsewhere. However, it was now 1030 and the subway closes at 11pm (which is just insane). We raced back but the last train that was boarding for our transfer left at 1040 and we got there at 1045. Upset. We returned to the street and - because the subway closes at 11pm - every cab gets 4 yuan more expensive and .... is taken. It took another 25 minutes to catch a cab. I returned home and went to sleep. The cost was 45 yuan total, by 3 people ends up being about 2usd for a 20 min cab ride.
I'll write another post later today,
JBiber
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