Sha-sha--sha-Shanghai

(This was written on the plane back from Shanghai but the last few weeks have been nuts so I'm only typing it up now.)

This entry is coming to you from a Shanghai Airlines plane heading to Pusan. I've just had a whirlwind trip visiting my lovely friends Steph and Greg who are part of the Former Guelphites Spread to the Four Winds contingent. Twas a delightful though lightning fast weekend.

Saturday, I woke up at 5:30 am to catch the bus to Busan's Gimhae airport. One thing I really like about flying from smaller airports is that you don't have to be at the airport that much before your flight. I arrived at the airport at 8 am for my 8:50 flight. After less than two hours I was in Shanghai and ready for a full day of Chinese romping. S and G picked me up at the airport and we took the Maglev, which is the fastest train in the world, from the airport to the subway in the Pudong section of Shanghai (Shanghai is divided into two - Pudong and Puxi). S and G teach at a school in a really fancy part of Pudong. After dropping my stuff off at their sweet apartment, we ate at a nice local restaurant they go to a lot and generally caught up. Then we headed to the art museum to check out this great exhibit by this French artist who took pictures of old people and then blew them up so that they were huge on the sides of buildings. You know I love old people faces so they was right up my alley. We saw some other cool peices. I've really been impressed with the Chinese contemporary art i've seen. Then we were off down to a nice shopping / hanging out area with great old buildings and little art shops and the like. We had drinks at this little place that didn't seem to make any of the drinks in the building. THey were mysteriously brought from elsewhere. Also the (not busy) bartender had a wild hairstyle, involving shaved bits and long bits, thus marking the first of many crazy Shanghai hairstyles. After checking out some cool / entertaining shops, we headed off to the most commerciallyt successful street in all of Chine. It was big and broad and had tons of American and foreign stores as well as local ones. There were also tons of people coming up to us saying "bags, purse, iPad, iPhone" every few metres. The sheer number of people in Shanghai is totally wild. I'vebeen to several countries with fewer people. At the end of the street you reach the Bund, which is the walkway up against the river. We were on the Puxi side looking at the Pudong skyline. The Puxi side has old colonial-ish buildings with crazy columns and carved stone while the Pudong side has these super modern/futuristic skyscrapers. Really interesting contrast. We went to a delicious chinese restaurant and ate duck and broccoli and some kind of root among other things. Afterwards, we walked along the Bund looking at the beautiful sights and boats. Then we went to get Haagen Daz. Now, we had assumed that the Haagan Daz store was going to be a regular old ice cream parlor. Not so. In fact, it was basically an ice cream restuarant. We were seated, there were elaborate menus. I got this awesome chocolate ice cream and lava cake thing. It was intense. Alas, after that Steph had to head home to take care of some application biz (which i could sympathize with cuz applications are the devil). G and I wandered the streets unsuccessfully looking for a happening area but it was still fun. I needed to pee and we had some comedy of errors situations trying to find me a place to go. We finally found a surprisingly clean public squatter down a back alley (yes, a public squatter in an alley cleaner than the bathroom at work - sad). We headed home soon after and the three of us hung out til we went to sleep.

In the morning we had an incredibly delicious breakfast (I had blueberry pancakes and an absurd amount of bacon - Heavenly). Alas, the weather decided to suck sunday so we made our way around in the rain. Afrter a thwarted attempt to check out the sex museum (closed) we ended up doing a bit of shopping at a nearby mall on the Pudong side of the river. I bought some sweet stuff at H&M. Then we headed down to another area to go to a famous dumpling resto. We'd planned to just get a late lunch there and then head to this Uighur resto in another area for dinner (I'm kind of obsessed with Uighurs) but the weather made it more appealing to just have dinner at the dumpling spot. This was a good choice becuase it was so so so ood I can't even express it. Magical.

Since it was still raining like crazy when we finished eathing we opted for a quiet night in after stopping at Dairy Queen (wooooooooooo!).

I really like Shanghai. I like the sound of Chinese and I like the look of the people and I like the busyness and distinctness. Shanghai folk also love buffont bangs, which was entertaining for me.

We spent sunday night playing Street Fighter (Chun li gave me my only victory over Greg. She never did let me down) and watched Happy Gilmore which I hadn't seen in like a decade. Monday morning I slept in a bit and then met upwith S and G for a last lunch at a sweet burger and milkshake joint. I accidentally walked in on a dude in teh bathroom, thus scarring him for life.

Alas after that it was time for me to cab off to the airport. I went to Terminal 1 only to realize that my flight was at Terminal 2 but the bus ride was like 2 minutes so it wasn't a problem.

And thus here I am, on a plane that only has like 40 people on it, above the clouds. It was great seeing S and G because they are great but also cuz it was fun comparing the two different expat experiences we've had. The scene in Shanghai is quite different than Daegu in that foreigners in Shanghai arent't as friendly and "let's all know each other-ish" as the ones I'm used to. This partially because of the greater variety of foreigners I imagine. Unlike in Korea where you are most likely a teacher or in the military if you are from the West (and a migrant worker or a student if you are from elsewhere - but these groups are smaller and more isolated in Korea than in Shanghai). And life in Shanghai is quite different than life in Korea in terms of diversity (Shanghai has much more) and social control (Shanghai has more). There are lots of similarities too, even little things like opening windowns in the winter and being obsessed with bangs. Shanghai's subway is good and cheap, which I enjoyed.

In the grand scheme of things I barely just got a taste of Shanghai. I quite enjoted it and would / wil totally go back someday. And it was just wonderful seeing familiar, adorable faces and remeniscing about old days gone by (that sounds really elderly of me but whatev).

So that is my overly detailed tale of my whirlwind weekend in Shanghai. I think of it as the real kick off to the end of my time in Korea because I've now only got 4 weeks of work left and with Christmas only les than 2 weeks away, the next little while is going to fly by (future note: little did i know how fast!). Soon I will be setting off on my travels with nothing but a backpack and moxy. Should be goodtimes.

Love,
AAA

p.s. in honour of having been in China, here are two music videos of goodlooking talented pretty voiced chinese men.
Khalil Fong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrKH-OiDMRU
Wang Lee Hom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSFN63tb5GQ