How hai? Shanghai!

On May 2nd, Lauren and I woke up in Hong Kong, grabbed a great dim sum breakfast with Becky, and then hopped on a couple planes for Shanghai. The currency between Hong Kong and mainland China is different, so Lauren and I decided to change money once we got to the airport in Guangzhou for our layover before Shanghai. However, because of the Swine Flu scare, our three hour layover proved to be just long enough to go through the quarantine rigmarole and get to our gate. New plan, Lauren and I are going to change money once we get to Shanghai. Given our long day of traveling and complete forgetfulness, we got into a cab at the Shanghai airport without any cash. Luckily we had a really great cab driver and he had no problem letting us change money once we got to our hotel.

Once at our hotel, we collapsed under fatigue. We took a nap from 7pm-9:30pm, and then woke up pretty hungry. Our hotel was in an excellent location right on Nanjing Road - a popular street for shopping and night life. Lauren and I ventured out and realized that there was a Haagen Dazs right next to our hotel. We had ice cream for dinner, just like real adults....hahaha. Afterwards, we took a short walk down our fantastic little street and made the wise decision to get a sandwich from Subway to supplement our ice cream dinner.

This is also the night we were introduced to the pushiness of mainland peddlers and vendors. Just walking down Nanjing Road we were approached by no fewer than ten people trying to sell watches, purses, shoes, toys, all kind of fake stuff for "good price." We quickly discovered that the best way to get them to stop following you all the way down the street is to ignore them completely.

The next morning, we got up and with Lauren's good research headed over to Fuxing Road. This is a really quaint part of Shanghai that's not too crowded and is part of what they call the French Concession. It was such a fun street to walk down and the trees lining the road were very pretty. As we walked, we came across a nail salon. Lauren had been dying to get her nails done, and I was no opposed, so we walked in and discovered that the prices were phenomenal. And by phenomenal I mean that in Japan to get a full manicure is upwards of $70 (the same thing at home I can find for $25 or $30) and in Shanghai at this salon we could get it done for about $35. We relaxed and left after a couple hours with beautiful manicures and a hungry appetite.

While walking down the street, we found a wonderfully decorated Thai restaurant with outdoor seating. After months of craving Panang curry, I finally got some and it totally hit the spot. We got some nice pictures of the outdoor scenery and flowers and then after lunch we were on our way to explore more of Fuxing Road.

Before I left for Shanghai, I was told by one of my teachers at Koga First to see the acrobatic show in Shanghai. As you all know, I just saw my first Cirque show at the beginning of April, but that experience did not dwarf the spectacle of the Shanghai acrobats at all! This performance was in a regular theatre space and the technical aspect was not the most impressive part of the show. At first they started slow to ease the audience in with some basic tumbling and flipping. But they progressed quickly into an incredible contortionist act. This woman was more flexible than the actual Gumby! She balanced mini plastic chandeliers on her hands and feet and proceeded to roll all over the floor without dropping anything. It's as though the directionality of her joints were merely a suggestion to which she was in no way bound. There were high fliers and awesome feats of strength. I got a couple blurry pictures, but I will try to get some up here soon.

Lauren loves the night life, so after the awesomeness that was the acrobatic show, we went to the Park Hyatt to check out a bar Lauren had read good reviews about. Sadly the bar we wanted to go to on the 93rd floor of the World Financial Center was closed on a Sunday night so we went to the bar on the 91st floor instead. This would have been incredible except that it was on the verge of rain and way overcast, so up on the 91st floor all we saw was fog! The drinks were great though, and I ended up having something with gin (of course) and also egg whites. Strange. We also met a Japanese man who had just moved to Shanghai to be the manager of the bar at which we were drinking. We spoke to him for a while and he asked where our next destination was, "House of Blues and Jazz," we said. Since he had only been in Shanghai for a few days, he didn't know where it was, but he immediately went over to a computer and looked it up online for us. This turned out to be incredibly helpful because the Jazz club had moved from its original location and while driving around in a taxi, we had to use the driver's cell phone to call the club and get the new address.

The Jazz club, once we finally found it, was great! There was a band there on a three month booking from The States with a guest trumpeter from Tokyo! After a few songs, Lauren got the idea for me to sing with the band! I told her this then, but she reminded me so much of my mother at that moment, "How cool would it be if you could sing with the band! You should really do it! I will go talk to them for you!" That was paraphrasing, but you get where I'm coming from. It was fun and encouraging, but I am shy as all get out when it comes to my singing, so I let Lauren go talk to the band leader. After just a couple minutes, she comes back to me and asks what songs I know. I throw out some titles, Gershwin and Over the Rainbow. She plays the mediator and before I know it, I am up on the stage singing Over the Rainbow in a real jazz club with a real jazz band in a foreign country!! It was such a crazy thrill, I was on top of the world! And Lauren got a video of it on her camera, so I will try to post that as soon as I can.

My song with the band was the last song of the night, so after that Lauren and I hung around to chat it up with Igmar (the band leader) and Nori (Japanese trumpeter). In fact, Nori had another show he is playing in Tochigi (the next prefecture over from Ibaraki) at the end of May and I really hope to go. Not much later Lauren and I went outside to find a cab to take us back to our hotel for the night.

The next morning we got up to do some serious temple scouting. We began at the Longhua Temple and Pagoda. The temples in Shanghai were all yellow with brown roofs. And while walking through Longhua we saw a huge open pile of trash just strewn in a corner. I thought it was a pretty interesting social commentary to have such an ugly display in a place for reverence and prayer. Next we moved to the Jade Buddha temple. Again each building was yellow with very similar decorations and gardens. The Jade Buddha was rather impressive however. We were unable to take pictures given that white jade is prone to easy deterioration. Outside of that particular statue however, there were more Buddhas that we could capture on film. One of which is called the reclining Buddha for the relaxed position in which the statue is carved. The whole time through this temple, Lauren and I had been following a German tour group. Lauren knows German, so any time she has a chance to practice listening or speaking she really enjoys that. But while we were trying to get our pictures of the reclining Buddha, a German man behind us did not approve of us trying to snap a good shot and quite purposely said, "Shit Americans." Lauren was livid and we were both ready turn around and show him how ugly we could be, but good sense got the best of us and we just moved on and fumed to ourselves.

Next we moved to a section of Shanghai called Old Town. It is a location with very traditional architecture and wonderful shops and food everywhere. We had typical Chinese lunch of dumplings and rice and then started looking around the shops. This proved to be quiet and enjoyable experience and a real chance for Lauren to keep working on her haggling skills! I purchased a few souvenirs for some friends and I got a small journal for myself with a silk outer cover. There was one woman in particular that was just so much fun for me to watch as she and Lauren went back and forth on the price of six little Buddha statues. At the end of it all, we got a picture with she and Lauren!

Lauren and I were pretty beat after this, so we went back to the hotel to get ready for our dinner reservation at New Heights - a chic place in a section of Shanghai called The Bund. The Bund is the banking and financial district of Shanghai with classy restaurants and bars. The night view is wonderful and New Heights is the best place to go for the atmosphere but not the exorbitant prices. Our view from the roof terrace was wonderful as it looked out over the Huangpu River. We were able to sit there for a couple hours just chatting and eating slowly enjoying the scenery and taking it all in. After dinner we ventured over to yet another bar Lauren had researched called Glamour Bar. We each enjoyed a drink - I a Long Island peach tea and Lauren a glass of wine. The music was great, so we got up and danced in an open area next to the bar. We were the only ones dancing, but we didn't mind! And just after that we went to Rouge Bar. The decor was cool, but the place was pretty dead, so we decided to call it a night. Lauren probably could have kept going, but I was so beat - I just don't have that kind of stamina! The next morning we hopped on a plane for Beijing and my adventure will continue there...