Bad blood Mary - bad.

After sleeping in and slowly getting ready, we headed back to Manifesto for brunch.

Fuck was it good.

That was until the manager gave us a treat - complimentary bloody Marys.

I was feeling fabulous until I had sip of that fuckiing drink. And then I wanted to die.

After a couple of trips to the ladies room (thank god they weren't squatters), we went to a stinky street market.

Haggling had gotten a bit tiresome at this point, so my bargains weren't over-the-top, but still so cheap.

After the shopping, Jarod demanded we go to the Sex Museum.

So we did.

It was definitely interesting and all the signs were bi-lingual, so we didn't get a dildo confused with butt plugs - phew!.

Still pooped, we headed back to the hotel to prep for our trip home.

My hat for your pants

The past several times I have gone out with Jarod and Steve, Jarod has been the one getting 'fall-out-of-the-cab' drunk. Literally.

So, I was kinda expecting the same when we were in China.

I was kinda wrong.

We left the hotel and had difficulties finding out nightspot of choice.

Finally we got there, paid $20 to get in and prepared to watch Jarod go. It just so happens though, that I was the one to be 'that-girl'.

Why, you ask? Well, I was drinking gin & tonics all night, and to my surprise, they were free-pours, equalling about 4 oz of booze (according to Jarod).

Oye.

The music was great, the view was stellar and the boys were cute. So the drinks kept on coming. And coming. And coming.

Which explains why I was the way I was.

Steve had never seen me that messy, Jarod had never remembered me that messy and needless to say, I had a fucking blast.

You can't beat beer and shopping

We woke up the next morning to the sound of Steve saying "I am finding something to wear even if that is all we do."

Our itinerary was set.

So off we went to the French Concession. I find it so odd that Shanghai considers itself the Paris of the East and that the French had a presence here so long ago - just odd.

We bought a couple of cheap beers and started shopping.

After shopping for a little bit,l I had found a couple of things, Steve found a jacket and Jarod had just found bitterness. Typical.

One of the tour books we had mentioned a Propaganda Museum that was worth checking out. So we postponed the shopping and headed down to the museum.

This was so cool - these posters ran the gamut of messages, from stuff about steel to stuff about America. I thought the ones talking about American imperialism and race issues in the US were definitely the most interesting.

After the museum, we went back for some more shopping, but again, not without a beer in hand.

How lovely life is when you can shop with beer.

Also, I have to say how much I love shopping with/for boys. I got such joy out of playing stylist for Jarod and Steve and making those shopgirls WORK.

After shopping, we headed to a Lonely Planet-recommended lounge.

Manifesto was so good - the waiters were cute ex-pats who gave us some hints on where to go that night

After that, we headed back to the hotel to prep for our first night out in China.

YAY!

Shanghai surprise

When we arrived at our hotel in Shanghai, we were, well ... a little surprised.

Our hotel in Beijing was very nice and in an amazing location.

This one was nice, but out of the way and surrounded by what is considered slums by Western standards. Like, I am talking derelict buildings, poverty, you know, what you visualize when you think of slums. Ok, maybe not TOTAL slums, but definitely slum-ish.

We are troopers though and started out tour of this city of 20 million! Can you imagine, 20 million other people to deal with?

Before we got to Shanghai, Jarod had described it as 'the last line of defense against alien invasion' - and he was right. I hate it when that happens.

The buildings here are straight out of the future. They are big, imposing and a little audacious. I am convinced the city planners just old a bunch of architecture students carte blanche.

Some of the buildings worked for me (Shanghai World Financial Centre) and others didn't (Oriental Pearl TV Tower). I don't know, I think new buildings are neat, they do things with architecture now that would be unimaginable, but the old stuff impresses me a lot more. Does that make sense?

Anyways, we checked out the Bund, and searched (and I mean searched) for a ferry to take us across the river. We had some guy wanting to charge us $15 each, but just said "You have to follow me" - um, no thanks.

Finally, we found the $1 ferry, and crossed the river to the Pudong, walked around for a bit and went for expensive drinks on the 87th floor of the Jin Mao Tower.

The view was sick - hello, 87th floor! - I think Steve squealed when we got up there. Getting up there was interesting in itself, the Hyatt only starts on the 54th floor and looking down is enough to cause some serious vertigo.

After the $20 drinks and the overpriced appetizers, it was off to bed. We aren't young anymore.

Smog free living

Wednesday morning we got up and were shocked - there was no smog!

It is amazing, because the day we did The Wall, it was disgusting. Seriously, you couldn't see two blocks in front of you!

So we headed out - tried to do the Underground City, but it was closed.

After that, we went to The Beijing City Planning Exhibition Hall.

Sure, it was neat to see the scale model of the city, but none - and I mean none - of the signs or descriptions were in English, making it a cool, but relatively uninformative visit.

They did have a 4D movie though - we couldn't see it, but Jarod mentioned something about it being about Aquarius' age or something.

After teh Hall, it was off to shop till we dropped and to see Embassy row and where Jarod used to live.

Embassy row was neat, but just after walking past the embassies, we ended up in what seemed like little Russia. Russian restos, stores selling furs galore and a lost of writing in Ruskie.

Weird.

Then we caught a cab to Jarod's old neighborhood. He hadn't been back to his hood for a number of years and was shocked at the development that now surrounded it.

It is amazing what unlimited resources will do for development.

This was also the second night we attempted to go out. The time was a bust - we just ended up going for pizza and beer (yes, you read that right).

The second time was a bit of a bust too - the gay club we went to was empty and the other clubs were full of irritating 17 year old Chinese kids on too much Red Bull, listening to bad hip-hop. Ew.

So, we went back to the hotel, happy to not be out.

Oh, and this was disturbing - we got out of our cab to go to a club and this 8 year old boy in Santa hat opens the door, wishes us Merry Christmas, asks us for money and takes a drag of his smoke!

We aren't in Communism anymore Toto.

One Ticket. One Person.

After our extensive tour through history, we headed to the market where we were accosted by booth people. Bargaining was all around and it was stressful. I actually had to get stern and tell a few booth girls to stop touching me. Someone called me a liar (which actually ended up being a bargaining tool for me) and I had had enough.

Irritated and shopped out, we headed back to our hotel.

The plan was for me to take a short nap and then for us to head out.

It ended up we all napped - until 2 AM!

Needless to say, we didn't go out.

When we awoke, we caught the subway to the Olympic sites.

Side-note: I am pro-democracy, don't get me wrong, but there is something to be said for 100% of a state's resources going to one goal. The Olympics was this goal, and beyond the Olympic sitese themselves, the Olympics has had an impact on this city - even I could see that. The subway system is second-to-none. Clean, efficient, effective and cheap as hell!

I digress, we got to the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. Both of these sites are amazing.

It is hard to get a real sense of their impressive nature from the tv. Sure they looked cool, but they were incredible.

They are both marvels of modern architecture.

Both are beautiful, but I hate the Water Cube.

HATE IT!

You see, the Bird's Nest was straightforward - buy a ticket at the gate, go through the gate and gawk.

The Water Cube was a convoluted example of poor planning - or at the very least, a government needing make-work jobs for people.

Walk here, go there - the whole thing from crossing the street to the Cube, to getting tickets, to getting in, to checking it out, took two hours and only 45 minutes of that was spent actually IN the Cube.

Ugh.

I was cursing the entire time.

Idiots.

Don't be rude, stop staring

One of the things that I have noticed about China thus far is that people stare at me.

And not in the 'look at that hot piece of ass' kind of way either, but they do stare and a lot of them do.

I'm not going to lie, it makes me a little uncomfortable. In Canada, if people are caught looking at you, they will smile to acknowledge the fact that they aren't a creeper.

Here, they just stare and don't really care if you catch them.

The boys say it's because they think I am exotic. I just think it's because 'one of these things is not like the other'.

Whatever it is, during our exploration of Temple of Heaven the stares got fun.

First - Temply of Heaven was beautiful. Where Forbidden City had lost it's lustre to me - I just can't do that much history for that long - Temple of Heaven seemed more natural.

It had locals doing local things. They were playing cards, singing, working out, heck some were even playing hacky sack. This felt like a typical Sunday afternoon.

So we saw all the sites, yada yada yada.

When we were walking to the Echo Wall (which is not even a wall) this rural looking gentleman came up to me with his camera and stared speaking Chinese.

Jarod, in all his useless glory, didn't know what they were saying, but it soon became clear.

He was asking me to take a picture with two of his friends.

I laughed, put my arms around them and took the picture.

I am pretty sure they thought I was Halle Berry, but no one believes me.

Except my ego. It believes.