Shanghai II

October 16

another quiet day in Shanghai so I decided to check out their one mountain. The locals say it's more of a hill than a mountain though. I took the train but cant recall the stop nor the mountain. When I got off the train I couldn't locate any signs for the mountain so I just decided to head in one direction. Mind you this was a pretty rural area and I felt like a hitchhiker walking the streets. After walking what felt like forever, I still saw no signs of the mountain. I decided to end my search when I discovered a hotel. One of the best things to do in any foreign country if you're a backpacker is to find a fancy hotel. The facilities are always clean and theres always free wifi in the lobby. My thing is to always walk in with earplugs visible and to just start speaking english to myself so the staff thinks im having a business call and i can not be disturbed with questions such as whether im a guest there or not. In fact i went to the intercontinental hotel so often that they thought i was a guest. I even got plenty of concierge services too. Thank you Intercontinental Hotel for helping me out in Shanghai!

The rest of the day found me back at Yu Garden and back to the girl who spoke english. It just so happened that her shift was ending so she said she would show me around. Maybe i do have a lost puppy look...

Turns out her english name is Dream cuz apparently some guy once told her she was like a dream come true so she chose that as her name. Haha chinese cyrano. Anyways Dream was super friendly and asked me to follow her to her house so she  can change out of her work  clothes. I waited outside for her and she showed up with a banana and a chocolate bar for me. The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me.

October 17

I decided to check out Shanghai Library today but was disappointed that I was not able to enter any of the good sections because I didn't have proper library I'd. So I decided to go to a university nearby instead. I walked the campus for a bit and checked out some of the buildings. I might have disturbed a class in session with my squeaky shoes...all the students turned and look.

In the evening I met up with my high school friend Catherine for dinner. She had been living in Shanghai for the past 5 years. It was so good to see a familiar face from home and she still looked the same after 20 years! 

October 18

Didn't do too much during the day. Usual routine of going to the dumpling place and the Intercontinental Hotel. In the evening I met up with Stephanie again for dinner and we walked around town. She told me about this corner at People's Park where parents go with their kids and their CVs in an effort to do some modern day matchmaking. I asked her to take me but sadly we didn't see any exchanges take place.

October 19

I met up with Fred's friend Ann for brunch and she brought along her friend Lyric. Ann did a fantastic job of ordering various Shanghainese dishes. I think we had shuttle mushrooms, wonton noodle soup, meat medley platter, pan fried noodles, pig arms and I'm sure there was something else I forgot. Ann is pretty well traveled and had just returned from the states. I told her to visit again so I could return the hospitality. 

After lunch I went back to collect my things and headed to the train station for Beijing. I barely made it on time and there was a madhouse full of passengers. I h as d decided to book the 15 hour overnight train bc it was only 30 dollars. The other drawback is that you can't lie down and you're stuck on this hard seat that makes it very hard to sleep.  One thing that I did observe is that there are more tickets sold than their seats. It's not uncommon to see folks without a seat just squatting by the bathroom or along the aisles.

The people I sat with were pretty cool. There was this older Chinese couple who kept asking why I didn't speak mandarin...unfortunately since I couldn't speak mandarin, I couldn't respond. There was also a fellow near my age who spoke a little English. He shared with me his recent travels to shangrila and going to Lhasa. The pictures he showed me were breathtaking...shangrila is truly a parades. Next to him was a guy who had two boxes of live hairy crabs and he had to keep sprinkling water on them every few hours to keep them alive. I'll try to post a pic later.

I don't think I slept for more than 10 minutes a clip throughout the night. I couldn't find the ideal sleeping position on that hard seat without getting a neck cramp.

The hole in the floor toilets that everyone used was also an experience. While the hole was fairly large, people's aim appeared to be visibly poor. Enough about the train ride.