Notes to this section:

"The perfume experience in Egypt" is referring to a ploy we experienced in Cairo, whereby we were looking for a particular restaurant, someone came up to us and said that he would help us find this restaurant, but first we should stop by his brother's perfume shop...  We ended up buying lotus oil which, although I love it, wasn't what we had set out to do.

For those who are not sports enthusiasts, "World Cup" is from soccer.

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Friday, September 14 (Mel):  Still in Hangshou

The hotel has a built-in blowdryer.  Yea!!! To celebrate, I wore lipstick to spite Ardith.

We had breakfast at the Shangri-La hotel.  It is swanky, and we saw a lot of Middle Eastern and Japanese people there.  The restaurant also served REAL coffee and not that Nescafe crap.  They had a breakfast buffet for the low price of 152 yuan ($19), so we skipped it and just had eggs.

After breakfast we hailed a taxi for the Buddhist temple/monastery.  It was so crowded.  Reminded me of a Buddhist Disneyland.  We started with the caves, and even found bats hanging on the ceiling.  We hiked up another gazillion steps (thereby reinforcing my view of China as one big Stairmaster) to what we thought was a temple, only to find a bunch of rocks (Buddhist Stonehenge?) and a drink vendor.  We climbed back down, across a footbridge, and landed at the temples.

Buddha

The only words I can think of to describe the three temples are "breathtaking" or maybe "incredible".  The first temple had a happy Buddha in the middle and four statues on the sides.  The statues were 25ft. high.  Two were happy and two were angry (like warriors).  The happy ones were either playing an instrument or dancing.  The other two had swords.  They were intricately painted, and made of stone.  The highest temple had the 12 "zodiac" gods (like year of the tiger or year of the rooster, etc.).  The middle temple had a breathtaking carving of scenes with Buddha in the middle.

We arrived in time to see the noon ceremony.  The monks wore bright yellow robes, a taiko drum beat slowly at first then faster, and they were chanting.  The oldest monk went to the front and did things with water and a paint brush.  I was in arm's reach of him.  Then the foulest thing happened. 

The guy standing next to me -- his cell phone rang.  And not only did it ring several times, but he answered it and started talking!  I about yanked the phone out of his hand.

After the ceremony, we went outside the side entrance and I saw a man arguing with the elder monk.  The only thing we could figure is that the man yelling was an ardent communist, arguing against the Buddhist religion.  So I'm thinking, why go to a temple if it's aggravating to him???

Sign at monastery bathroom; in case you had any questions...

We also saw the hall of a thousand monks.  Each monk had a different face and was holding some sort of object.  What became apparent was that several races and ethnicities were in the faces of these monks, including African and European monks.

Hall of one thousand monks

After the temple we headed back to the hotel, then went to Kentucky Fried Chicken (here on out referred to as "KFC") for lunch.  Ken was in Chinese-food overload.  It's just like the KFC at home, except they dip the chicken in hot sauce before frying.

Ken in heaven at KFC

The post office was next door.  And guess what?  They can be just as rude as the American post office!  We mailed our postcards, then caught a taxi back to the hotel.

Taxies in Hangshou are 10 yuan ($1.25) no matter how many people or where in the city we go.  It's a great deal.

While Ken rode a rickety bike around the lake, I did internet.  Grant (our tour guide) said that an email has 7 hops before it gets out of the country.  The first hop is the internet place (sometimes), the ISP, the Ministry of Communications, and 4 other government departments may scan the email for certain keywords before it goes out of the country.  Incoming messages make it okay, especially with hotmail.

After internet I went to Grant's room to kill time.  We talked about the monastery, politics, etc.  Then Ken, Grant, and I went to Mr. Pizza for dinner and Hagen Daas for dessert.  Apparently Grant has Chinese-food overload too.  Believe it or not, the pizza was good.  They even had parmesan cheese to sprinkle on the pizza, which freaked Ken out.

Starbucks is invading Hangshou

Everywhere we go, people say hello to us, just to see if we'll respond.  I've decided from now on I will reply with "privyet" (which is "hello" in Russian).

As I'm writing this journal, we're watching the Chinese equivalent of the Grammy awards.  The current song is like Chinese salsa.  Sometimes I forget I'm in a communist country.

Saturday, September 15 (Mel):  Going to Shanghai

We packed up early, took taxi to train station, and got the 9:05am soft seat train to Shanghai.  It was a double decker train, with groups of four seats with a table in the middle.  The seats had blue silk seat covers with a doily draped over the back and lace curtains.  The bathroom on the train was the cleanest I'd ever seen.

The taxi took us to Nanjing Hotel in the heart of the Shanghai shopping district.  The hotel is at least 70 years old.  We threw our stuff in the room, and then headed for the museum. 

Street near our hotel at Shanghai

Actually, I should say that I limped to the museum.  My foot is definitely injured from the temple excursion in Hangshou.  The Shanghai museum, although beautiful in architecture, was uneventful.  I will say, however, that the exhibit from Tibet angered me.  The introduction more or less said that the Chinese liberated the Tibetans from the themselves.  When Grant and I talked about Tibet a few days ago, he said the Chinese took over Tibet through their religion.  They introduced Buddhism into Tibet and, knowing it was religion of non-violence and pacifism, took over Tibet 200 years later.  After the museum we walked through the streets of Shanghai, then went to the "1221" restaurant.  It's owned by Australians, and all the staff speak English.  The restaurant was like any other except for one thing:  the tea server carries a water kettle with a small 3-ft. long spout.  He places the spout 6" from the teacup, pours the boiling hot water, and it shoots into the teacup in a twirling pattern without any of the 200 degree water spilling on your lap.

At dinner we toasted to Darren/Michelle and Robert/Kitty.  It's their official last day with us.  Tomorrow we pick up two new couples.  We had two toasts, and I had a shot of vodka with each toast.  Soon after, I could no longer feel my cold...  (Note:  Everyone in the group was coming down with colds.  We attribute it to the air conditioning system, which is never cleaned in any hotel.)

After dinner we went to the Peace Hotel to view the skyline from the balcony.  The Peace Hotel is famous, because US presidents stay there when visiting China.

Downtown Shanghai at night

On the way home from the Peace Hotel, we saw hundreds of Chinese people marching down Nanjing Street with several people carrying the flag of China.  We were slightly alarmed, and I was wondering if it were a political demonstration.  We had no idea what they were chanting.  After a few minutes, someone came by and explained that China had won that day's playoff game for the World Cup.  Whew!  I didn't have to worry about being arrested!

Sunday, September 16 (Mel):  The markets of Shanghai

We started the day by heading to the Sunday Market.  (We later found out that it's open on other days besides Sunday.)  We ate breakfast on the way (i.e., hopping from vendor to vendor).  The market was huge.  Several streets of shops and carts and booths.  The buildings were the "traditional" Chinese houses of pointy tile/wood roofs, red banners and lanterns hanging everywhere.  On the way to the market, we saw a crowd of people watching two guys trying to hoist a piano out of a second-story window, trying to navigate the piano through the power/phone lines in the process.  It was quite a sight.    While buying a basket, a man with really good English approached us, and helped us haggle with the woman.  His name is Mr. Ma ("ma" means "horse"), and we would end up spending quite a few hours with him.

Ken expressed interest in Chinese paintings, so Mr. Ma took us to the Professional Students Studio.  There were hundreds of every size painting, done in the traditional Chinese manner.  We sat down at a table with a female student, who proceeded to layout her paintings.  Paintings of the four seasons (She told us, "If you display these in a row in your house, it means you wish for long life.  If you display one season on each wall, it means you want interesting life.")  Paintings of the Venice of China (the city of Zhuozhong). Paintings of bamboo ("Bamboo grows fast, so painting of bamboo means you wish for quick success.") Paintings of the Spirit Warrior ("The spirit warrior will protect your house from bad things.")  We narrowed down the paintings that we liked to five, then started haggling price.  They started at 1105 yuan ($138).  We said we didn't have that much.  It went to 900 yuan.  Then to 750 yuan ($93) for all five.  We scuffled through our pockets.  They said they took American money or we could use the ATM.  "No ATM -- too many fees!!!" we both cried.  While scuffling through our pockets, I found American money.  So we paid them with that. 

Mr. Ma offered us tea in his shop -- a pearl shop.  We enjoyed his company, and he was very happy to have the practice speaking for his English.  Although the student painting thing felt an awful lot like our perfume experience in Egypt, at least he was content to spend over an hour with us, not trying to sell us something.  For part of our time at the pearl shop, we tried to talk with Mr. Ma while four women were yelling at each other.  Apparently, one woman wanted a refund for a bracelet, claiming that she paid too much.  The other three women (store employees) claimed that they already gave her the refund.  Mr. Ma was talking to us about his family and where he lives while this argument was going on, seemingly oblivious to the argument.  It wasn't until Ken and I kept looking in the back of the room at the argument that Mr. Ma finally acknowledged the argument, explained the situation, then kept on talking about his family.  As I've mentioned before, everybody yells in China, and nobody thinks anything of it!

Mel and Mr. Ma

After the market we found an internet place.  Then headed for the hotel.  We stopped at a place which sells Mao stuff, and found a Mao-waving watch.  I've noticed that the Chinese in Shanghai treat Mao in the same manner as the Russians do for Lenin/Stalin -- if they can make a buck off of them, then they'll do it.

We found Grant, and he took us to the laundry place.  It's the stereotype Chinese laundry, and they're cheap.  They press everything, including the underwear!

We joined the group at 7pm to head down to the acrobats.  For 50 yuan ($6.25) we saw the most incredible feats.  Not only was it the typical balancing stuff, but the most complicated yet disturbing were the two contortionists.  One was a girl of about 9 years old, who could bend her body completely in half -- backwards.  The guy was about 18 years old and would dislocate his shoulders, back, hips, etc., fold in half, and then fit through a 12" hoop.  It was freaky.  The entire show was done in bright reds and yellows, with lanterns in the background, and Chinese music.  The only thing that might improve the show is if they wouldn't interrupt the music so abruptly for a new song.

After the acrobats we went to diner at the Hard Rock Cafe.  Then back to the hotel.  I hung out with Grant while Ken went to bed.  Seems that Ken is now getting sick.

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Next segment: 

the "special" museum,
Mel goes off again -- this time on binding women's feet,
the post office experience,
the "Venice" of China,
the rat that terrorized dinner,
Master of the Nets...

mkadenko/01.01.02