Shanghai Salvation

After my very short stay in Sanya, I returned to Suzhou saddened by my re-emergence into the familiar and plagued by an already fading tan. Instead of staying in Suzhou and wandering around spending money for 4 days, I decided to go to Shanghai and spend my money there instead. Since it is the May holiday, the trains are insane and tickets are virtually extinct, so I opted for the more expensive and slower (but much easier) bus. I’ve been to Shanghai a few times so I knew how to get to the area where my hostel was located…what I didn’t know was that this hostel, which states on the internet that it is ‘brand new’, is so brand new that it doesn’t even exist yet. The place is under construction and since I didn’t think I’d be sleeping in a fun house looking building mid-construction, I continued searching the area and 2 hours later, with a broken back and no patience left, I decided to check out the construction site again. In tiny little letters a sign stated that someone was upstairs in the tv room. Assuming the third floor was the temporary reception area because it was completed was a mistake. I was shown my room, the showers and the washroom (the only things in the building that are ready) and asked to pay for my stay while sitting in a TV room with a beautiful, new, wide screen. One question: why doesn’t my hostel have garbage cans, towels or a sawdust-free floor, but it has a new plasma TV? Despite the negatives, the place is nice, in a great location and will look amazing when it’s done.
The outside of my almost finished hostel.
The 6 person dorm room. Every bed has a reading light (very cool) and a cupboard that can be locked (to store your valuable passport).

The view from outside my room. Literally

This is my hallways, which is obviously still be constructed, but which is about 100 times better than the other floors.

The shower room.

The reason I didn't think I'd possibly be staying here. Where is the hostel?

My first night I wandered through the Yuyuan Garden area, which essentially a shopping area where foreigners get sold cheap goods at a ridiculous price. I don’t know if it’s the season, but I found a steamed bun with crab in it, sold in a bamboo cup with a straw at 10 times the price of a regular steamed bun. It was interesting. I also stumbled upon a wedding street (streets have themes here) where shop sell new dresses and old ones are hung from wires.

The shopping area around YuYuan garden.
I think people have made wishes on this tree. I don't really get it, but it looks cool.
A mini lake in the middle of the shopping market.

The used wedding dresses for sale. Too bad I'm not 5 foot 2 and 90 pounds. Anyone know a 12 year old that's getting married?

My second day began with a trip to the Shanghai Art Museum, which I really enjoyed. Despite the diagrams stating that one should not take a picture, Chinese people (as we all know by now), do as they please. Not that it makes it right, but since they were doing it I did it too.

A typical Chinese water painting.

This is a very good example of a Chinese paper cut.
All of the images are cut out of a single piece of paper.

The first 2 floors are full of Chinese writings and paper cuts, but the museums’ main exhibit, was impressive in more ways that I can explain. Just so you can see what I mean here are some pieces from the exhibit called “Journey of a Master, the Art Exhibition of Dong Xinbin”.

A funny thing here is that there was a photography exhibit. The photos were framed and the frames were suspended from ceiling, angled down slightly at eye level----for Chinese people. I didn’t see much, but my breasts had a great view.
After the museum, I walked through the newest and trendiest shopping area in Shanghai. Here you will find stores from all over the world.

Ananya could work at Mango in Shanghai.

H & M is a HUGE hit here and was packed, despite the fact that things are ridiculously overpriced for China. They are even going to open a Roots here soon. I had a little moment.

During this walk I stumbled upon a movie theatre.

Now this isn’t the first one I’ve seen in China, but it was the first time that an English movie that wasn’t old was playing at the time I went in to inquire. I bought a ticket to see Spiderman 3 despite the fact that I could have bought 10 copies of it from the DVD shop for the same price, but hey---it was the experience I was going for.

The first big difference is the fact that buying a ticket for a movie is like buying a ticket for a concert---you choose your seat and you sit in it when you get in the theatre.

It’s kind of cool that you get what you pick and you don’t have to go and save a seat 1 hour early, but it does suck if you get stuck behind someone really tall (not that I had that problem in China, but I think I might have been that problem).

The doors opened 10 minutes before the show, the lights dimmed 5 minutes before and the previews started on time. Because it was an English movie, the movie trailers that they showed was in English (actually trailer---they only showed the teaser for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie). The commercials that were shown were in Chinese though. Because I know first hand that the concept of a quiet audience is very much a Western concept, I was a little nervous about how well I’d be able to hear the movie, but I think the fact that they had to read the subtitles in order to understand it, kept them a little quite, since I didn’t think it was any worse than watching a movie at home. I do think parts of it were censored though, either that or this movie will win for worst editing EVER! There were moments where the cuts from scene to scene were really sharp and things started mid-sentence. Not sure what that’s about.

The movie was cheesy, but entertaining, the popcorn was horrible (it was not buttery, but covered in candy) and the only bad thing was that the seat stained my white shirt (I have a giant brown spot on my back). The experience was worth the money, especially since now I can say I watched Spiderman 3 in a movie theatre in the middle of Shanghai.

This is a typical housing unit in the area known as the French Consession.
This is a park in the middle of Xintiandi.
A view of the Pearl Tower as seen through the wonderful mixed architecture of Shanghai (my favourite thing about the city).
They even have a Superman store in the Shopping area on Nanjing Road.

Shanghai is such a wonderful city and there is so much to discover that in my 4 days I spent 90% of the time wandering through areas I’ve never been. I found some markets, the very expensive shopping area and park with a little pool which I read beside. It was a great weekend.