Either way, after wasting 7 kuai (a more common slang term for yuan) on a single-use card that got eaten up at the end of my trip and about half an hour, we were able to explain what we needed to the lady behind the glass. These cards are used. You pay 20 kuai deposit in addition to any money you put on them and get that deposit back when you’re finished. Also, they become demagnitized amazingly well. It seemed like each one of us took a turn being stuck behind the turnstiles, walking over to a pair of service people and having them reactivate the card. Despite it all the fuss, it was amazing!
It’s like another city underground. The connections are extensive, there are markets underground, the basements of all the malls near us are connected by the subway halls, there are tons of flashing lights, and this really cool hallway with futuristic-looking plastic walls that constantly shift color. I’ll hopefully post a video of that as soon as Tori gets her video camera fixed. (She dropped it at the first train stop.) After spending about ten minutes figuring out which stop we were at, I randomly picked “Hioananmen” or something like that and we went. Stepping outside of the shelter of the subway was quite the shock this time.
We were in a market of some sort… But it was finally like what you see in the movies with all the random venders lining the streets. I’m sure we were the only white people who had been or would be there for quite some time. It was the best experience though. We ended up in this fabric market where we were able to eventually understand that for 460 yuan, they would measure and make this specific fully-cashmere sharp-looking suit for Tori after 5 days of labor. This is from flat fabric to suit in five days for about 70USD! There were similar things for jackets also.
Eventually we got a little hungry and randomly wandered into this tiny hole in the wall with a boiling pot out front and worn down ceramic with plastic chairs inside. The dumpling soup was delicious, completely filling, and 6 yuan each! There were candied fruits we picked up from a street cart, Bailey managed to offend someone who was apparently cutting her a ridiculous deal. It was really cold and the lady was going to let her have these gloves for 4 kuai, but Bailey tried to ask for 3… it did not go over well. Apparently, it’s rare to find gloves for less than 12… Bailey was getting the deal of the century because she was a cold lost white girl. Oh well. She eventually got gloves for 5 times that price.
We got lost in quite a few back alleys and ended up entering a completely different subway stop than we left, but it worked out ok. We headed to the “hi-tech park” which ended up being a bust except for this awesome asian boy-band picture we took of ourselves on a rock. Will be posted later. After some arguing, we all decided to take the ride to “People’s Square” which is probably about as central and touristy as you can get in Shanghai. The buildings are all huge and amazing! It’s like if there were ten Sears Towers and John Hancock Buildings in one location in Chicago. My favorite is one that looks like an obelisk that is about to blow up the moon with a giant laser.
After ordering some delicious jasmine-orange tea at the local 85 Café, we watched a movie, entirely in Chinese, without subtitles, with the tagline “let the bullets fly.” I do not recommend doing this. It was 50 kuai and we made it about 1.5 hours into the movie before we had to leave. The movie had kind of an Inglorious Basterds feel to it and the audience kept laughing at the dialogue, but since we didn’t understand the violence and had no idea why people were dying gruesome deaths it was not satisfying in the least.
After coming back home, we ate a dinner in the dining hall of some rice and two meat-veggie dishes… All of the meat has bone in it. It’s extremely annoying, and I’m beginning to steer toward dumplings and dishes without meat. Imagine if all of the chicken in your orange chicken had a little bone in it. Yeah. Makes me fruit.
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