Shanghai

So, I left Matsue at 10:30 last night on the overnight to Osaka. I arrived early this morning at Umeda and promptly caught the on-time limo bus to KIX. That airport is hugely neat. It's like a big tent, complete with sweeps of something that looks from the ground like fabric, arcing across the width of the vaulting ceiling. The flight was uneventful although at the Japan end the order of the airplane announcements was Japanese, English, Mandarin in contrast to the Mandarin, English, Japanese at the Shanghai end. I was pretty excited about just being in China for the first time, so I didn't even realize I was probably the only native English speaker on the plane. I've never been the sole white dude on a plane before. It was... interesting.

Anyway, it rained all day in Shanghai. I mean all day. It's cold, although not as cold as it should be for this time of year, so the wet is that much more difficult to deal with. It makes sight seeing a little difficult, but I managed a bit of interesting looking around by walking with some students through some mazes of back alleys and other people's buildings in this weird, public-private seemingly boundaryless warren of a city block. There were plants growing where you wouldn't expect them, laundry hung all over the place, despite the rain and people watching TV and smoking in what appeared to be actual residences half sectioned off from the places we were walking through that acted as garages for bikes, storage areas for mounds of stuff and hallways between people's more private places, like the plastic walled little rooms full of smoking men watching television. Very strange, very sureal, very much a throwing out of all my ideas about living spaces, utility spaces, public and private spaces and more generally boundaries like inside and outside. Wildly weird.

So I managed to find this place called the Captain's Hostel after about an hour of looking around in alleys and stuff. Turns out it was on a main street, so it would have been a breeze to find if I wasn't expecting it to be difficult. I was propositioned by four women in a little skilled massagi team at one point. They beckoned me across the alley and me, being still a little naive went over to see what they wanted. The weren't dressed very provocatively and there was an aquarium full of fish in their window, so I thought they were probably trying to get me to come in and eat. I figured I'd see what was on the menu. Well, a quick demonstration of the technique of massagi applied to my upper arm and I understood a little better what was on offer, being fairly certain at that point that it wasn't going to be black mushroom with garlic flavour and young corn. The one woman who grabbed my arm was being assertive and saying massagi and then sticking her tongue out like she was licking something... at that point I figured it was time to go. It was more difficult to leave graciously than I would have liked as four attractive women trying pretty persistantly to pull you into their shop is a little... well, lets just say it makes you wish you didn't have morals or a brain.
I found the hostel, and it's description as Art Deco is quite apt. at 60 RMB a night in the dorm, it's a bargain in comparison to the rest of the places in town. There's an Aussie, a Japanese guy, an American and a Chinese kid who doesn't speak or doesn't like to speak any English, French or Japanese. Conversations have been pretty good. I had dinner with a middle aged Taiwanese woman doing some backpacking on her own and she had some pretty interesting stories to tell. She'd lived in the US in Minnesota, New York (city and state), Canada, Brazil. Pretty interesting dinner conversation over some flaming hot beef, some garlicky beans and a nice fish soup. After that I went for a walk on the Bund and took some neat shots of the colonial facade and it's upstart counterpart across the river. Impressive and gaudy. People keep trying to hauk me pictures, umbrellas etc... it's kind of annoying, but I haggled with this one woman for an umbrella using fingers. I whittled her down until I saw pain in her eyes and then coughed up a little extra... ;o) I'm only kidding, there was no pain asside from her embarassment over the umbrella not actually opening.
Anyway, I find myself here at the end of the day, paying far too much for internet access and an espresso. I'm turing in soon and will hit up the Shanghai Museum tomorrow before I try to catch myself an overnight train to Beijing. Anon!

Shanghai: one of the many old alleys from which the spires of modernity erupt...