China part 4: Insane shopping, insane views

Minnie and I decided that the Expo was cool, but we were over it. We couldn't justify spending the price of admission to stand in line for hours on end. So we decided to check out Shanghai, and that was it.

One thing we both wanted to do was see some of the fabled shopping areas that we'd both heard so much about. We asked the woman at the front desk where to go and after 3 quick transfers on the subway we'd be in the heart of the shopping district.

As soon as we got off the subway we noticed that the station was a little different. Instead of the usual classy coffee shops and book stores there were instead tables set up with goods for sale. A woman came up to us with a small card showing pictures of watches, belts, handbags, sunglasses and polo shirts. She said "what you want? Handbag? Watch? Sunglass?". We kept walking. The escalator led us into a 5 story building of sheer consumer madness. The stores were more like stalls--10'x5' spaces with as many goods crammed inside as possible. People all over. So many things for sale. There were the inevitable handbags, as well as shoes, pants, dresses, jewelery, perfume, socks, underwear, shorts, hair extensions, clip-on bangs, glasses, computer accessories, backpacks...the list goes on. Almost any consumer good you can find in a mall is available here...and this is just the first floor of five. We were constantly hounded by people to buy things--I suppose I looked like an easy mark. They may have seen me as a westerner walking around with an Asian girl which generally means I have money. No matter what, we got asked to buy things and were followed constantly.

Minnie started getting good at negotiating prices. I looked at a pair of shoes from a Japanese company that I really like and the woman told me it would cost 850 Yuan. I told her she was crazy. The price came down to 750 pretty quickly and she stopped around 720. Minnie went into negotiaing mode and confused everyone by only speaking English to them. I told the lady that the shoes were fine but too expensive and I would just get them elsewhere. We started walking away...500 Yuan...walking...400 Yuan. Minnie said 200. The lady countered with 300. Minnie pulled me out of there. Then we settled at 220. I was happy. It is about $45. Retail from Japan they are about $120. Perfect. I have to be careful though as I have begun to hear about guys from the US developing a serious sneaker fetish once they move to Asia. I totally understand how that can happen. My apartment has its own shoe closet...
Minnie with glasses and bangs.
New Vibram 4 Fingers running slippers.

For lunch we got some noodles and the dumplings/mandoo that Shanghai is famous for.



As we made our way higher the stores got nicer and the people got more relaxed. By the 5th floor there were no people following us around. There were legit looking stores with some really cool looking fashions. The prices were still amazing but there was less room to negotiate. Then it hit me: there were 5 floors in this massive building, and each floor is packed with shops. Some of the shops had bags of merchandise that were stacked on the floor with a tabletop on them used to display goods. There was too much stuff to even put on display...and this was one of many buildings like this. Someone had to make all this stuff. There must be armies of people making things. Maybe you are thinking "of course! The Chinese sweatshops!" But that is easy to say. Once you start to actually look at the insane amount that is actually produced you begin to appreciate the scale of it. For every shirt you wear, there are 100 that don't get bought. Someone designed them and not everything is fashionable, or the right size, or there is a quality control issue. Even if the stuff does get bought some of the clothing is so trendy that it won't be worn again after 3 months. People are making more clothes than the world can wear. And that is just the clothing. This place is full of flip flops, glasses, bags...some good, 90% weird. The fact that the US garment industry can't compete makes complete sense.

To keep us going we got some bubble tea and egg tarts. Pat turned me onto these in Hong Kong and I was really happy to show them to Minnie.
Here is a picture of Minnie standing in front of a Chinese store that sells "Korean" fashions. In case you don't read/recognize Chinese or Korean, the big illuminated letters are Korean and the small ones are Chinese. It was strangely familiar and comforting for me to see Korean while I was there. I can read and pronounce it (I didn't know what it meant until Minnie told me) and it is really weird to know what one thing says while the other looks like a foreign language.


So we finished shopping...Minnie got some stuff and so did I. We didn't buy anything too extravagant. I got some shirts to wear to school and around town and Minnie mostly did the same. After shopping, we wanted to check out the Bund. I will leave the technical specifics to wikipedia, but here is the lowdown: on the river is a street of pre-Mao international finance buildings designed by European architects.

Instead of a taxi we jumped on the back of this guys bike.


Instead of being total tourists and checking out the buildings during the day from street level, we decided to look around for a bit and then get a better view.




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Russian embassy.

Minnie heard that a good place to see the area was from the coffee shop near the top of the Hyatt hotel. Her intel was good, but a little off. The coffee shop has been replaced by a swanky bar. I was wearing shorts and a tshirt. Minnie was wearing dress and somehow--even with my backpack--they let us in. Not only that but we got the best table in the bar. The room was shaped with views in mind. No table next to the window had a bad view, only ours was ideal. It offered views of the whole Bund as well as the Pudong area which is home to all of the new, futuristic bank towers on the other side of the river. After all, they named the bar "Vue".

Minnie has been shooting lots of film pictures for a while. She has a digital camera, but also likes the quirkiness of film. I liked shooting film too, and my mom graciously sent over my SLR. Minnie and I spent the evening shooting lots of film pictures and drinking cocktails where someone must have misplaced a decimal point in the price...in our favor.




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We chose a great time to go to the Hyatt as well. As soon as we sat down the skies opened up. At first it was a steady drizzle and then it became a monsoon rain. We hung out for a few hours just soaking up the views. It was fantastic. Then as the rain stopped, we decided to walk to the Bund and play with our cameras some more.



















I hope to take many more photos with my film camera. I haven't retouched a single one and I love the way they look. After a long and exhausting day we got a cab and headed home. We had more of Shanghai to see still!