Weekend adventures

On Saturday night David and I organized a dinner and a cruise down the Huang Pu River for a group of our fellow new teachers. Our sunset cruise sailed for about an hour along the Bund, one of Shanghai's top tourist areas. The Bund faces the new part of the city, Pudong. Pudong is where all the major businesses are located as well as the famous Pearl Tower.

The boat was crazy. It was several floors high. They had a dinner service on the first floor and tables, drinks, snacks and singing on the top floor. I'm not too sure what was on the floors in between. It was too crowded and hot to really go exploring the ship. The view was amazing. The lights were incredible. I know what you're thinking..."um, hello you used to live in NYC, the home of Times Square." I know, I know. The lights were just different. They were artful.

 

We sat next to a group of people from Taiwan. We started talking with one of the girls. It turns out that she's moving to Astoria to go to FIT! Small world! The girl sitting next to her (pictured), whom I didn't speak to at all for the entire cruise, asked me if she could take a photo with me. Normally, I would have found this to be strange, but right before we got on the ship a small middle school aged boy asked if his family could take a photo with me. I'm not quite sure the deal. Is it because they thin I must be someone famous, or am I really that funny looking?


After the cruise we went to a North Western Chinese restaurant that we were taken to during our orientation. It was so good that we decided to go back. Unfortunately, I don't think the folks at the restaurant wanted us there. We were told that they were out of several of the dishes that we wanted. They even told us they didn't have anymore rice! Can you imagine a Chinese place without rice in China! We weren't about to eat without rice, so one of our friends went to the place next door and bought several large containers of rice. Somehow the North Western Chinese restaurant suddenly had rice. Overall it was quite the experience!




The following day David had work to do, so I decided to go walking around the city by myself. I decided the first place I had to go to was the "Knock-off Market." I'm not one for Gucci or Prada type things, but I felt it was worth seeing. Boy, did I pick the right day to go! I had the pleasure of seeing a local Chinese police raid. The police were going stall to stall looking for Gucci and Prada fakes. For some reason they didn't care about other brands like Coach. The police made the workers open up drawers and unpack suitcases during their search. I saw one store being closed down for having Gucci shoes. I tried to sneak a photo of the whole event, but got too scared. I was worried about being arrested myself. I'm sure David would have loved it if I called him from a Chinese jail. So I decided to move on with my shopping. I went into this one shop and the man asked me right out if I wanted Prada. I told him that the place was swarming with police and he should be careful. He told me it was ok. And with that, the back wall of his store magically opened to reveal a hidden room filled floor to ceiling with the contraband goods the police were looking for. I felt like a rock star when I entered the room, no better yet, I felt like a bar patron during Prohibition. I eventually did find a Prada bag that I liked and when the guy told me how much it was I told him it was way too high. He kept telling me that it was Prada. I kept telling him that I didn't care. Eventually, we agreed upon a good price.



After that whole ordeal I decided to go to Pizza Hut for lunch. I was craving Western food and was curious to see what a Chinese Pizza Hut was like. They had strange pizzas. One pizza had salmon and wasabi! On the table they had this cute little card that gave instructions on how to eat pasta! The graphic made me laugh, so I took a photo.

After lunch I decided to take a walk through Remin Park, or People's Park. It a very lovely park. As I was walking though I noticed a few non Chinese people surrounded by several large crowds of Chinese. At first I thought it was some sort of tour, but as I was walking through the area I was stopped by a local man who told me the whole deal. It turns out that on every Sunday in this one section of the park they have an "English Corner." Locals gather here to practice their English. As I was standing there talking to this one man, I was suddenly surround by a large crowd myself. Every age group was there. There were old men and women as well as primary school aged children. They all wanted to know what country I was from, how long I had been in China and if I liked Chinese food. It was a strange, yet fun experience. They also wanted to know if I would be back next week with my husband. I told them I'd think about it. I asked if I could take their photos. They suddenly got very shy and slinked away. All except the man who originally started talking to me. Here's his photo below.