Shanghai adventure pt 2

So yesterday was quite the random day. I ended up having two Chinese roommates in my hostel the other night. I went to bed so early that they both got back to the room after I was asleep. They both showered when they got in at night, which made the already damp room pretty effing humid. Then it rained. It was just gross in there by the morning. I also got attacked by a mosquito. I woke up with the bites and was kind of jazzed that they didn't really itch. Now, a full 24 hours later, they completely do and I look like I have chicken pox.

My roommates and I all three woke up about the same time yesterday morning; one of them spoke a litttttttle bit of English, the other not so much. They seemed to both be university students on holiday. I was chatting with the girl that spoke English; we ended up grabbing breakfast together and then I headed back to my friend's hotel "base camp."

Every time I go in his room I nullify his key card, and every time he goes in he nullifies mine; it's kind of a funny little game of tag we're playing and completely confusing the hotel staff since we have to go downstairs and get our cards reactivated each time.

While I was getting ready it started raining, and my plans for the day had been to check out another small, authentic town very nearby. I'd heard great things about it from friends in Songyuan. I almost didn't go, but I figured I had to do something, so might as well take the chance that it wouldn't be raining there.

The town was one that a Chinese friend of mine that lived in Shanghai at one point had told me about. My American friends had recommended another, but he said I would like this one better. I got directions from the concierge and I was off. It was about a 40 minute subway turned light rail ride away, and the above ground bit of the ride was absolutely gorgeous. Everything was green, all the architecture along the way was very European, there were lots of canals and waterways and some were even Venice style through the houses. Oh yeah, did I mention, THERE WERE HOUSES?! First ones I have seen in China.

When I arrived at my destination, it wasn't super apparent where I wanted to go, so I called my friend and he directed a taxi driver for me. And then I got my big surprise. Huan Le Gu was in fact not a rustic, authentic Chinese town. It was an amusement park, like absolutely legit, huge, Six Flags Great America style amusement park.

I called my friend again and was like, "Wth?" and his response was just to giggle and tell me he thought I'd like this better. So, with not much else to do in BFE Shanghai, I had a day at the amusement park, by myself.

I actually had quite a blast. I made some friends in line for my first roller coaster. I was definitely quite the spectacle, I think in the whole park I saw maybe two other foreigners. My new friends didn't really speak English, and they had the ultimate worst phone translator ever. At least half of the things they tried to ask me I could not figure out for the life of me what they were getting at based on the translator's interpretation. But communicating a love of roller coasters and other things of the like is pretty easy! The roller coasters were as awesome as American roller coasters, but we did have to stretch before riding them (no joke) and there were a ridiculous amount of instructions.

Yes, there are literally 12 steps to riding this roller coaster. And the second last is indeed to retrieve your belongings, and the last is to exit. Common sense much?

In the afternoon, I got a text from my friend from the States inviting me to join him and his coworkers on an excursion to the Pearl Market in the evening, so I made the trip back to his hotel and met the four of them. The Pearl Market is in a huge mall, but is exactly what you might expect from a Chinese market: three floors of insanity, in general the higher up you go, the nicer the products get. The first floor tends to be all clothes, the second jewelry and the third all the knock off bags, watches, shoes, gadgets, etc. you could ever want. Naturally, the jewelry floor had a lot of pearls (mostly real) hence the name. The deeper into haggling you get with someone or the more serious you appear, they all have these crazy secret back rooms, and back rooms within back rooms, that they can take you into with more and better merchandise; it's a trip.

This was the crew's fourth trip to the market, they all love haggling and they love name brand (or knock off) goods. They knew personal details about a lot of the people at the booths ("did you ask her about her toothache?" "she's not due for another two months yet, but does she have a name picked out?") and they knew them all by name. I'm not a big shopper or haggler and I really don't care much for Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, or whatever, but it was still a fun excursion.

Afterwards we walked down another really cool street with all kinds of foreign restaurants to find a spot for dinner. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant, which made me unbelievably happy. I absolutely love Mexican food, and I haven't had any since I arrived in China almost three months ago. It wasn't the best I've ever had or anything, but it was definitely a welcome meal.

Since everyone I was with is here on business, they have been putting everything on their corporate cards to expense it (not the shopping of course), and dinner and drinks were no different. Until all of their corporate cards got denied. I think they spent about an hour on the phone with Am Ex trying to determine what happened, all the while calling and emailing their people in the States as well. Apparently their corporate office is going through some changes in management and whatnot, so it's a result of that, but it leaves these four people SOL in China. The fact that it's a holiday in both countries doesn't really help either. They're all supposed to check out of their hotel tomorrow, where they have been staying for some 20 odd days, and it's a nice hotel… with no more corporate cards, that's going to be fun.