Veni Vidi Vici: Beijing-Shanghai

Spending ten days in Beijing has been awesome! Beijing is truly a cool place to be. The time has gone by so quickly and I've had so much fun. China is different, that's for sure, but they got their own thing going here. Squatting is a resting position and a crapping position for the chinese, whereas I myself find the position energy demanding and not food-baby producing. The chinese kids wear trousers without a groin so that they can do their thing on the street where the parents catches the result in a newspaper and throws it in a bin. The chinese I meet are for the most part really friendly and in public offices and stores there is no lack of staff. In the post office two employees helped out me and Tomtom getting all our stuff wrapped and shipped to Europe and they did an excellent job and didn't charge us extra for all the hassle. Also in stores they are many and helpful. Makes you wonder, when you compare it to electronic stores in Norway where they have a 14 year old helping out a line of 50 customers who's been waiting an hour.

Sunday, October 2nd, I hooked up with my new group. A bunch of nice people, young and old, couples and singles, big and small and we went out for dinner. Since I had seen most of Beijing already, I did a couple of things on my own. Wednesday we set out for Shanghai. My room mate for this trip is an Englishman called Mark. He's 51 years old and from Norwich. In the overnight train to Shanghai we shared compartment with four Chinese people and had alot of fun. Their little English and our crappier chinese didn't were no obstacles for having fun. Exchanging chicken feet for Norwegian chocolate seemed like a nice deal until we started eating the things. We had fun in the train, playing cards, having beers and chatting. At ten o'clock the lights went off, so no Siberian party train here. In the morning I had noodles for breakfast, beat Mark in chess and ate my oreo bisquits. Good start of the day! We got off in Shanghai and Milly, our funny, little chinese guide, got cabs for us to the hotel.

The first day in shanghai was great! We had lunch and went for a walk through the city. Milly knows alot so she also guides us like a regular tour guide and doesn't only bring us to food and hotels. We went to the Shanghai museum which was great. The museums in China have so far been awesome so it seems like their way subsidizing stuff works, compared to Norway. Chinese communism results in the best metros, cleanest streets and best museums I've ever seen. To support this I've even got my own little commi-cap now haha. After the museum we went home and had a power nap before dinner. Derek, a massive giant of a Canadian, Les, a scottish born Englishman and myself went out for some drinks after dinner. We ended up in a German biergarten and had a Paulaner each. That was the single most expensive beer so far, 80 yuan, which is roughly 10 euros. And it was half a litre. We got redemption however, because asking an Indian/middle eastern looking dude and his two Chinese friends for direction to a cheap bar, they ended up taking us with them to a club. It turned out the dude had his 25th birthday that day and that he was filthy rich. He had rented a night club and we went into a skyscraper and took the lift up to some floor and suddenly there we were. We paid another 80 yuan, but this time we could drink as much as we wanted :D there were maybe 9 gogo girls dancing on the tables and bars. Live music in the form of Akon's support band, according to Derek, and some dancers. The night club had everything I don't have including style. I was standing there in my free hostel t-shirt I got in Beijing, stained hiking trousers and hiking shoes. Massively underdressed compared to the others haha. But we had shitloads of fun and went to bed in the morning.

Day 2 in Shanghai. Pretzl from the grocery store for breakfast and then a walk through the bund, a famous street in Shanghai. Milly told us about the stuff around us and in the end we were at a small square with classic chinese buildings. Shanghai is totally different from Beijing. If it wasn't for all the asians running around, I would never have thought it was an asian city. Every building is very modern and western. We relaxed a bit in a pleasure garden before Derek, Les and I went to the third tallest building in the world, Shanghai World Financial Center. It's located on the east side of the river that parts Shanghai. This placce was all farmland and now it's full how high rising buildings and concrete. It's all so strange. The center has the highest observation platform in the world and it was really cool standing up there looking down on other massive buildings. It was like being in a plane right after take off except from the fact that you had large windows and infinite time to check out the surroundings. The toilets in the bottom of the builfings were also great! The seats were heated and you could get your ass and/or privates flushed afterwards. The pressure and temperature of the water could be adjusted and if you pressed the button twice, the beam would oscilate. Comfortable and paper saving. Only thing the toilet lacked was an air dryer and some history magazines.
We hooked up with the others and went for dinner. It was an early dinner, because we were going to see some Chinese acrobats. My god that were some good acrobats! I think it was the Chinese olympic team plus some more. They were jumping, kicking, changing hats and driving motorbikes 5 in total!) in a global shaped cage. That performance was some of the best/funniest I've seen. Highly recommend checking that stuff out if you ever go to Shanghai! Cheap as we were, we enjoyed beer we brought with us while watching it haha. The performance was over and we headed back to the hotel with the tube, that is everybody except me, Marco, a swiss dude that sent his stuff with his wife back to the hotel, and danish guy that did the same with his girlfriend. We went out to have a drink. Like the day before we exited the metro station and asked some random kids where to go. They said "follow us!" and we ended up at this posh nightclub called G+ on the 7th floor in a shopping mall. And oh my god! We thougt this would be expensive, but what the hell. We can afford one beer. But 90% of the girls in this club looked like models. One girl came in, hotter than the previous one. Alot of rich Russians and Chinese were hanging out here. Everybody very fine in their clothing ... and us. Me in my commi cap, hostel shirt (can't change clothes every day), hiking trousers and shoes haha. Man, that place made me feel malplaced. But hey, who cares? Never ever have I ever seen such a collection of girls in one place. So we stayed for a couple of drinks. And guess what, they cleaned a small stage and up jumped a little girl and started singing. It was like being at a concert and it was awesome! Live music again haha. How do we run into these places? I have no idea. Maybe this is Shanghai. At least two ou of two nights have had live performance. Some black dancers from the states did some Michael Jackson stuff which was fairly good but also fairly gay. They didn't have too much clothes on. But if the price I have to pay for dancing next to 50 young lucy lius is to look at a couple of brown six-packs then hey, I'm up for that. I was pretending it was beer. I chatted a bit with one of them and it turned out that they were all hookers or gold diggers haha, but still though, incredibly beautiful! We headed home in the morning and the next day it was time to head off to Xi'an and the terracotta warriors!
See you later Shanghai! I'll be back loaded with money one day!

Enjoy some photos:
link: https://picasaweb.google.com/111895625193387647956/20110917SiberiaIrkutsk?authkey=Gv1sRgCIbV99uIn9O3PQ