China Trip: How much for a Gremlin?

Hello Everyone! I'm back! I didn't do a blog yesterday, because it wasn't that exciting. Today was a big day out and about town. I've included a few pictures. I'll keep posting more each day from the ones that I took on this day of going about town. I was picked up this morning by Vivian who works for Rockwell. She was my guide today. The funny part is that she's only been in Shanghai for a year. She hasn't seen a whole lot, and she's my guide! It was actually pretty cool, because she was just as interested in going to see the city as I was. Plus, she is Chinese so can instruct the taxi drivers to destinations.

This first picture is for Dad (And all McConnell's). These guys were pounding some kind of stuff in a perfect beat, back and forth. Just like in Ben Hur...RAMMING SPEED! It was pretty funny!

We left the

hotel and went to see a Tao Temple. It was on the Puxi side of Shanghai, which is the west side. (Again Shanghai is cut into two sections by a winding river called Huangpu Puxi [Poo-she] to the West and Pudong [Poo-Dong] to the East) We took a cab there and made our way inside. It was pretty cool, there were tons of people there. There were so many shops, they were all selling little souvenir trinkets. Plus, everyone was trying to sell you knock off watches. You couldn't walk three feet without someone offering you a knock off watch.

We walked around the Temple stores looking at several different things. I really didn't want to buy anything because I was going to have to lug it around for 9 more weeks. However I did want to try out my bartering skills. Everyone that's been to China has told me about this process. You don't pay full price and you really have to chop the price. I was looking at a little painting I thought was sweet, when I saw in the corner a guy selling these little statues. So I wandered over to see what my man had going on. They were actually little statues that he carved stamps into the bottom. He would make a stamp out of the bottom that put your name in English and Chinese. I thought that was worth trying my skills on, because I didn't care if I got it or not. If I did get it, it would be a cool little joke souvenir. So I started looking through the little statue guys: Dragons, Tigers, Ox, people....all kinds of different styles. I found a sweet one that looked like the guy that sold Gizmo in Gremlins. I saw it had a tag for 150RMB (Roughly 22 dollars). That price was ridiculous, I don't think anyone would pay that price. So I asked him how much. Here's a play by play of the bartering:

"You want to know how much? I give special discount to you." He now pulls out a calculator and multiplies the price out to make it 90 RMB. He also does the look both ways gesture, like everyone is going to flood his booth if they knew I was getting this discount.

I say, "20 RMB"

The look he gave me was priceless. Like I just didn't understand this fine piece of Art in his hands. "These 20, anyone you want" pointing at a pile of junk with no carvings at all.

He then starts to tell me about how long it will take to carve my name into the stamp. I see a sign that says (In English) "Guaranteed Carvings in 5 minutes". I point at the sign and say, "5 Minutes."

He says, "You get for 60, best offer".

I say, "30"

He says, "No." So I start walking away, he yells, "Comeback, comeback!"

So I come back and he says, "OK, 40-OK?"

I start walking away again, then he yells, "Comeback, Comeback American"

I came back and got my little Chinese guy for 30 Yuan. He gave me a name book (A real one) that had English to Chinese translations for names. Vivian and I found mine, and he carved the stamp into the bottom. (30 Yuan is 4.38 cents) I'm not sure if I got the best price, but it was good practice and I would have paid four bucks anywhere else. The statue guy is sweet looking.

After that we continued to walk around, then I heard this loud racket of clanging symbols and drums. This guy to the left was making all the noise. He was awesome! He wanted 5 Yuan to look at some kind of crazy picture machine. It looked to be a novelty maybe in 1920. He was clamoring on with his drums and symbols yelping the whole time. I watched him go for five minutes. (I took this pic for BK, I thought he might get a kick out of it) After we walked around for a while longer we had lunch, dumplings and soup. It was pretty good, but I've had better dumplings. I'm glad that Vivian was there to order food, because there was no English on this menu.

After that we went to 19th Street. This is also called, The People's Square, if I'm not mistaken? It was a massive walking street of stores. This is where most of the Western stores are located. They have everything you could imagine, mostly American or European. All the prices were very much Western also. This stretch of shopping is so long that Vivian said we should take a little train cart. This was a great idea because it was a sea of people. I mean A LOT of people. This thing took us to the other end of the shopping aisle (Also note the guy on the left side in a cart. He was a beggar and he wouldn't leave me alone, so I turned my camera on him. Everyone started laughing, so he tried to hit me with his stick in a joking manor, he smelled REALLY bad.) The area was enjoyable enough, I think Vivian liked it more than I did. It was OK, but I mean, I didn't come to the other side of the world in search of a Ralph Lauren store. I think the Chinese like to look at the Western styles and culture. I also saw the 4 stories McDonald's! We were in the cart train, so I couldn't take a picture...moving to fast. It was hilarious though...and PACKED!!!!

After that we walked another mile or so (A lot of walking today!). We then came to the Bund,

which is an area that you can look at the PuDong side from. It was really cool to see. I imagine it's even better at night! Seeing the skyline lit up. This is where I took this sweet picture! This guy was an important Marshall/General at some point. I thought it was an awesome statue, just in the middle of this area. The statue is pretty big. I'm still in search of my first Chairman Mao statue. The guy has eluded me to this point.

I took some pictures from the bank looking at the PuDong side. There were tons of people taking pictures there. It was fun to watch. A lot of the girls would try to pose in front of the skyline.

They would pose like they were giving a far away sophisticated look. It was a pretty good time watching that. There were couples having their pictures taken as well, but it wasn't as funny as the posing. It is a really impressive skyline to see up close. The tall building with the round ball is called "The Oriental Pearl". It is a TV broadcasting station built by the government. It is tall, I'm not sure how tall. I asked Vivian if it had an observation deck, she said yes. So we went and checked it out. We went up to the second pearl. It was a great view! There will be some pictures at the bottom that are taken there. There was one problem. The elevator down had a huge line to get out. It is not fun to be crammed into 70-80 people. That part sucked! Once we were done there, we called it a day. You have to remember that both sides of this city are just MASSIVE!

Here are some more pics. I'll post more later.