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!

part 3 (expo day 2)

We woke up a little tired from Expo-ing and lots of walking. We decided to devise a plan for the day--there had to be a better way to go about seeing the Expo.

First things first: Breakfast. We went outside our place and checked out the street food. There was a woman who made a huge burrito style wrap where he made a paper-thin shell on the grill and then filled it with hot pepper paste, some cilantro and other things that I was seeing for the first time. Minhee and I each got one and it was a great breakfast...for me. Minnie wasn't a fan so she got some noodles from another guy in front of Koala. This was a first for both of us though: A guy made us breakfast for us while wearing his silk pajamas...outside on the street. Before you dismiss him as just some eccentric or nut, know that Shanghai has a strange tradition of folks wearing their pajamas outside. It has become such an ingrained part of people's lives that the government actually started a campaign to get people to stop. They even have pajama police. It's a funny idiosyncrasy of Shanghai, not a real problem. If Shanghai wanted to make a difference and help better the city's image then they'd start a campaign to get people to stop skipping in line or to allow riders to exit the subway before pushing onto it. But I digress...Back to the noodles. They were an incredibly spicy and garlic-y dish. The casual cook mixed them up for us in a matter of seconds while adding several different sauces to thoroughly coat each noodle. In the US it'd be a spicy dinner. Here it was apparently a normal breakfast--and it was eaten cold. The noodles themselves were delicious. They were thin but tough and chewy in the most fantastic way.

Since we were going to follow our new plan (get an evening pass to the Expo and make sure we see Japan) we had some time to see Shanghai. Minnie wanted to check out the world-famous shopping areas so we took the subway there to check it out. We walked around a pedestrian mall and saw some high-end shops but it wasn't what we were looking for. We got some coffee and walked around more. We wanted to get off the touristy strip and we managed to get into some small side streets. There were some vendors set up selling produce and some underwear and that was it. We walked around and took some photos of the juxtaposed old buildings with the nearby newly built hotels. We got lunch and hopped on the subway to the Expo.

There were a few other people doing the same thing as us: getting an evening pass to avoid the lines and beat the heat. We walked right in through security the day before but today we had to wait about 30 minutes. Not too bad.

Today we were smart. We brought my backpack instead of a Minnie's purse so I was able to carry Minnie's SLR, an umbrella, snacks, 2 digital cameras, water--plus the contents of her purse. With me carrying the weight, we were able to move fast as soon as we got off the Expo subway. We headed to the pedestrian walkway as went across the park directly to the Japan pavilion. We were going to see Japan no matter what, and after that see what else was open.

The Japanese pavilion is a bubbly lavender-purple ovoid-shaped building that has been called everything from "the breathing organism" to "purple silkworm island". And it is wildly popular with the Chinese. I checkout a clandestine video online that someone managed to take of the pavilion soon after the Expo opened. It looked awesome. Japan was dreaming of some amazing new technology and wanted to show it off to the world at the Expo. That was enough to get me into the line to see it.



The line was amazing all by itself. It was 5 lanes wide divided into 100 foot sections sections and as soon as one lane would fill, the Chinese military police assigned to crowd control would close that lane and start filling the next one. As soon as all 5 lanes were filled, 10 MPs (5 in the front and 5 at the back) would walk each line to the next section to prevent line changing and skipping. This continued through several sections. The 5 lanes eventually got funneled into one and were portioned into groups of 500. We snaked around for what seemed like over a mile, the whole time under the watchful eyes of the military police. Unlike the day before, skipping was kept to a minimum. To keep us cool, there was a canopy covering the line. The covering gave intermittent bursts of fog. It seemed to work better than being sprayed with jets of water, but after an hour of getting fogged it started to get annoying. By the time we got to the front of the line we'd spent nearly 3 hours slowly shuffling in line. People gave us stares the whole time. I was one of 4 westerners in line and Minnie spoke English...we stood out.

Standing in line doesn't take much physical work, but it is exhausting. Our energy was fading, but when we got to the 500 person group staging area that was enough to get us excited again. We were briefed by some lovely Japanese women that we'd be seeing an exhibit and we couldn't take pictures. They told us in Mandarin as well as English. Once inside, no one listened. We walked to an escelator and zipped up through a tunnel to the 3rd floor. The walls were painted to show Japanese technology from the past 50 years...there was too much to take it. We got the to the 3rd floor and started walking down a ramp through displays of traditional Japanese architecture and rural homes. Then we got to a meeting point where we learned a little bit about a Japanese crane that was thought to be extinct then we were ushered into a room where we were shown a new digital camera from Canon and a television touch screen wall from Panasonic. Both looked like really cool technology that seemed like they'd be to market within 10 years. The camera was a really simple device that has amazing capabilities. I won't bore you with the specs (and let's be honest, as much as I like technology I can't write about it like the tech guys can.) To see a video and read a description, go here.

Then we went into a theater to watch a play about the crane, the technology and Japan.

And that was it.

At the end, Minnie and I had about 100 pictures of each other standing in line and we were really hungry. By the time we finished all the food vendors were closed. We were able to go to a Chinese fast food chain near the subway entrance and ordered food they were surely about to toss for being too old. Every pavilion was closed at this point. We weren't able to go anywhere but home.


The pavilion was cool, but not 3 hours of waiting cool. It was exhausting and looking back on it: totally not worth it. I would have preferred to see smaller countries again and be able to eat some good food. This was the straw that broke the camel's back: we were done with the Expo.

At first I was mad. How could China put something like this on and attract so many people? Why were they allowing for such big lines? Who in their right mind would wait 3 hours and come back to do the same thing the next day? Then it hit me: this Expo wasn't for me. I don't mean it wasn't my style or it didn't suit me, I mean it wasn't for me. It was there for the billion people of China; 95% of whom would never leave the country. This was their chance to see the world. If I was Chinese and knew I would be able to "go" to Europe for the cost of waiting in a 2 hour line then I would definitely do it. When I thought of it that way I felt better.

Here is the design for the interior of the pavilion, in case you want to make your own.

This is Minnie. We are almost an hour in. You can see the trepidation she is feeling. She is worried. Why are there all these people?

Me, as exhausted as I have ever been. Also the least tasty food I had the whole trip. At least we could drink massive bottles of Tsingtao when we got back to Koala.

part 2 (end of Expo Day 1)

Part of our plan for seeing as many pavilions as possible was relying on the fact that the Chinese folks in attendance were known for going home around 8pm. With this in mind we lazily strolled around looking for the pavilion with the shortest line. All the attendees were pretty motivated to stand in every line that they could and no line was short. We happened upon the weather pavilion, an exhibit dealing exclusively with meteoroligical phenomena and decided to give it a shot. The wait was about an hour (side note: the idea of "skipping" in line does not exist like it does in the US, or Korea and if you are not vigilant you will get passed repeatedly in line) and it was a somewhat interesting exhibit. If you have ever watched the weather on television or seen any weather-related show on the Discovery Channel then you have already seen all the content. At this point, it was just nice to get out of the sun.

We got in an incredibly short, non-moving line for the joint pavilion of small Pacific Island nations. After about 15 minutes we learned that the reason for the stationary line is that the exhibit was closed for another 45 minutes. Instead of waiting to wait some more we walked around and looked for something else.

We walked right into a lineless building without even bothering to see what it was. What we entered was a building of bland commerce. It was a mix of goods from many countries whose only connecting element was that they were all for sale. Other than that it was a mix of completely unrelated goods. There were Manchester United jerseys next to Japanese animation dolls which were both next to high efficiency refrigerators.

We came across Estonia, the country that was in my mind famous for one thing: being the country that Sean Astin tells his parents that Brendan Fraser is from in the 1992 movie Encino Man. Apparently, Estonia is famous for much more than that...or at least that's what they want you to think. Just look at all of the amazing facts about Estonia, printed next to the entrance to the pavilion! I will say that I have used Skype and despite it being usurped by gmail's chat it is a really cool idea. I just hope that Estonia can find some cool stuff to brag about in the future or at least get a better PR person. Estonia's wikipedia page is far more interesting by comparison.

Just before we got into Estonia, we saw two signs on the door. The top one didn't make sense. Did it mean no piggyback riding? Is that something that tired Expo-goers had been doing? Is it really that much of a problem that Estonia needed to tell us not to do it? Apparently it was.

Apparently it wasn't. I was completely wrong.


I was legitimately excited to see what was inside this former Soviet Bloc country. What would they have? What was the culture like? After all, they were just across the Baltic Sea (and the Sea of Finland) from Finland. Would this be a lost an endemic Scandinavian culture? It was so exciting!

The inside looked great! There was a tiered sloping area made from recycled hardwood. On each tier sat several shiny plastic pigs. Pigs that would be perfect to ride, or at least sit on. They were gorgeous and each one had a slot in the back to make it resemble a massive piggy bank. Instead of money, Estonia was asking for ideas. Perhaps innovation is the new currency. Maybe Estonia was just out of new ideas. Who knew--there was little explanation.




Behind the pigs was a video area that showcased some of Estonia's unique cultural specialties. Unbeknown to me was the fact that Estonia prides itself in stop-motion animation. The video kept letting us know that they were the world leader in this field. It did look interesting, but it looked like something from 30 years ago. I don't know if they are aware that CGI is quickly making their art form redundant.

One of the themes of the Expo was global warming. Estonia may just become a paradise in the near future if temperatures keep rising. Right now it isn't an incredibly interesting or progressive place. Before you think that I am just trashing poor little Estonia, relax. I think that they are just fine. They aren't a big country, a populous country or even a moderately wealthy country. The medium sized Korean city I live in that you never even heard of until I moved here has more people than all of Estonia. I suppose there was a reason for the short line...



The thing that drew me to Serbia's pavilion in the first place was its outside. It was housed in a simple cube shape, but instead of keeping it simple, they used brightly colored plastic decorative building blocks similar to a macro lego all over the outside of the building. It was gorgeous. Unfortunately, it was far more interesting than what was being shown inside of the building.

It essentially let us know that Serbia was the centerpoint of Europe and the crossroads between Asia, the Middle East and Europe. It's focus was time. It didn't make much sense, at least in the context of the Expo. I (and I am sure I wasn't alone) wanted to see Serbia. I wanted to taste its food and be excited about it. I wanted them to let me know that Serbia was the place to be, it was where my next vacation would be if I was smart. Instead we got a lightshow about time. I will try to focus on the positive: the lightshow was awesome.




At this point we were getting tired. Our drive to stand in long lines was waning. What were we to do? The "big" countries seemed impossible to get into. Even the smaller countries that had beautiful architecture had long lines. We started feeling like it was going to be hopeless to get into where we wanted to see. Well we got an ice cream cone and instantly powered up. We had all the energy we needed to push on. The cheap soft serve made me think of one thing: Ikea. Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark were all on our list, so we decided to go for it. We walked across the Baltic Sea and decided to see what Sweden was all about.

Sweden's line was about 90 minutes: the longest line we'd encountered so far. The sun was setting and we were feeling a little cooler. Once we got in, however, we were instantly energized. An escalator took us to the second floor through a sweeping, spacious glass entryway. Sweden's theme was a mix of "Before and After" and "Better Living Through Technology".
They used simple pictures to illustrate problems and what they were like a few decades ago and when viewed from another angle, you could see a modern scene from clean, beautiful Sweden.
Sweden's pavilion also served to show what an amazing company they think Ikea is. They actually had a spacious Ikea kitchen set up just like in its stores, complete with an impossibly sleek and efficient ultra-modern look. They set up a few more rooms upside down on the ceiling.




Sweden left us feeling really happy. We both started thinking of how we could relocate there. We rode the wave of good feelings into the gift shop where I got a rum ball almost the size of my fist and Minnie got cheese cake topped with blueberry. I forgot that she isn't used to eating that sort of food and it was a huge treat for her. We both left with smiles and walked to the nearby joint building of smaller European nations. These are the nations that you may know the name of but really don't know anything about them or even where they are besides "Europe...".





The highlight of this joint pavilion was easily Malta. Malta is a tiny island nation next to Sicily. When I went to the pavilion, I didn't know anything about it. After I was inside, I learned that they had a bar.


Many of you might be thinking, "Here we go...just some drinking. Real cool guys. Real cool." But remember, I am in Korea now, a country that proudly produces beer akin to Milwaukee's Best and like the U.S. macro brews, relies on marketing rather than beer recipes for its financial success.

This was the first time I got to taste a delicious beer since I was in Portland in February. It was then that she explained that this was the first time that she had tasted a delicious beer in her entire life! She immediately proclaimed that she loved it and we shared some pints of amazing Malta-brewed Cisk.
By this point we were tired, hungry and dehydrated. The beers were in the 9% abv range and they did the trick in no time. We still had some time left so we hustled over to see where else we could go.

We got into Norway without waiting in line and checked it out. It showcased its snowiness more than anything. There wasn't much substance to it and it felt rather empty and aimless compared to Sweden. It looked nice, though.




Turkey was closing and we got in with the last group. Both outside and inside were really cool. This was a country that neither of us expected to be able to see. It was great. As we got through the exhibit, we came to the end where the bottleneck began. There was a clunking bell sound around the corner. We couldn't tell what was going on. As we moved with the mass of people we could see what the holdup was: There was a fat Turkish man in a Fez serving ice cream with a arms-length spoon. He wasn't just serving the ice cream...he had flair! Minnie and I couldn't pass up more ice cream so we got in line. It turned out that the actual line was short and the mass of people were just gawking at the show.

The server happily messed with the slightly tipsy Minnie and gave her the cone multiple times before swiftly plucking it out of her hand before she knew it was gone. The ice cream was something that I hadn't tasted before. The flavor was vanilla but the consistency was less creamy and more like cold, delicious strings of melted cheese from a hot pizza. As per wikipedia, this treat is called Dondurma and gets its consistency from actual flour and resin added to it.
After our ice cream we walked over to the Netherlands. It had a long line all day and was closing as we approached so we got inside before they closed the doors. Actually, we didn't get inside. The whole pavilion was an outside attraction that consisted of a figure-8 shaped ramp that led us upward and then back down at the end. It was easily the most bizarre place we'd seen. It was fantastic. It was clear that it didn't take itself too seriously and it looked as if it had been constructed with a healthy dose of whimsy. This looked like a fun country to actually visit, although I think living there would be a bit too maddening for me.










That was the Netherlands. It was fun. We were getting tired. We thought that since the park stayed open until midnight all of the pavilions would be closing then too. It turned out that they closed at 10:30. That meant that we'd have from 8pm to 10:30pm to do the bulk of our viewing of the expo. That was our new plan.

We left and took the efficient subway and then a cab back to the Koala. It was easy and awesome. We quickly fell asleep.

Here are some exterior shots of buildings that we didn't get to go into or that looked so good that I wanted to show them again.

Spain

Serbia

Belgium

Romania
You can read.
Latvia
France

Guess