July 9
With no work on Friday and having a train ticket at 9PM (bought when I expected to go to work on Friday) I was lost for things to do, so I decided to sleep in (which was a great decision as I appear to be battling sleep debt). After a late wake up I watched some TV and went for a run. I'm really, really glad I decided to bring my running stuff because it has been a wonderful way for me to get away from my apartment complex/office and I'm glad that I have a way to expend excess energy that would otherwise drive me stir crazy.
After my run and a little bit (okay, a lot) more TV I started to make my way to Hangzhou city from Xiasha. I waited for the K865 bus outside my apartment for about 15 minutes before one of the guys I work with, Hart, came by and we started chatting. He told me that the bus only comes by about once an hour and that I was better off taking a taxi, which I ended up doing. I got off at No. 3 Road and No. 6 Road, where I expected to catch the K525 bus straight to the Hangzhou Railway Station, but the bus stop was nowhere to be seen. I walked a block in every direction, but kept striking out. After about 45 minutes of fruitless searching I gave up and walked about a mile to the B1 stop (B1 seems to be the only bus I can consistently take in Xiasha), where I boarded the next bus and made my way to downtown Hangzhou.
When I got off the B1 at Wulin Square I did the same thing I've done every time I've been to Hangzhou city, walked down Yan'an Road for awhile and then cut over to the West Lake. I decided to have a late lunch at the French bakery Phil and I stopped at last weekend and then get a coffee to kill time until the train (I still had about 4 hours to kill). After only being able to muster an hour and half from a single cup of coffee I opted to leave and take another look around the West Lake. Today it was absolutely gorgeous, unlike the other times I'd visited. There was almost no haze in the sky and the clouds were uncharacteristically cooperative. I could see all the way across the lake for the first time, where I saw some beautiful mountains I didn't know existed. When night fell (after I stopped at a second coffee shop to slowly sip a coffee and enjoy their comfortable chairs and air conditioning while I read), I walked over to the West Lake again and it was even more gorgeous than it was in the afternoon (albeit, more difficult to photograph. Starting to appreciate the beauty of Hangzhou, I made my way over to the railway station to meet my friends and ride the well maintained, if slightly boring, train to Shanghai.
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| The West Lake during the day on Friday. It was gorgeous, I could see across the lake and I saw those mountains for the first time. | The West Lake at night on Friday. It was beautiful, but the pictures did not turn out as well, unfortunately. |
When we got to Shanghai I was utterly amazed at the sheer scale to the main railway station. It is a sleek, modern building, but above all it is huge and the crowds are some how even bigger. After passing by what seemed like 100,000 people, we got to the metro station to ride to our friend Susan's apartment. In addition to being fantastically crowded, the Shanghai metro is incredibly clean and well planned and technologically advanced (although transferring between two lines takes at least 15 minutes due lines being at least 1km apart). The Shanghai Metro is making a very strong case for my favorite metro.
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| Almost every station I saw on the Shanghai metro (and I saw a lot of them for just one weekend) was designed like this and they were all this clean. The door style reminded me of the Jubilee line in the London Metro | One of the many, many underpasses I walked through to transfer between lines in the Shanghai Metro. I think there might be more mileage covered in these tunnels than inthe system itself. This reminded me of the underpasses connecting terminals at O'Hare |
Once we met at Susan's apartment, we decided to go clubbing (I had mentioned that I'd like to see some nightlife, which is sorely lacking in Xiasha). We ended up at a club called Ricky's (or possibly Richy's, that is still being debated) that was utterly packed (elbow to elbow for the entire floor space of the club). Ordering drinks at a club is not easy, regardless of whether you speak the language. Not only do you have to fight the crowds to get to the bar and get the bartender's attention, you have to fight the internal contradiction about paying for one drink the amount that would buy you an entire bottle somewhere else. Perhaps you are paying for the lifestyle, but it just reminded me why that is not my scene. With some liquid courage, we hit the dance floor to clear out some space for ourselves and show how Americans party (side note: the entire club seemed to be smoking. The stench hung thick in the air and, later, I could smell it on all my clothes. It's a miracle that I made it out of there without any singed clothing or flesh). I don't know how it happened, but we ended up staying until 4am, when we finally realized the absurd hour it was and that we had to be up at 7:30 the next day.
July 10
After far too little sleep, we get our act together and head out into the city for a tour of Google's offices in Shanghai. But before we get there Alex suggests that we stop at 85˚C, a Chinese coffee shop/bakery, which sounds like a brilliant idea, as everyone knows that coffee is a legitimate replacement for sleep. I noticed something on the menu that made no sense, but was alluring at the same time: sea salt coffee. I ordered it and it was exactly what it sounds like, sea salt on coffee (although this wasn't a coffee I was expecting; it was about half warm milk and half drip coffee, like a very weak latte with salt). It was a strange taste at first, but after a few sips I really got into it. I might have to try to recreate this at home.
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| The sign indicating the Google offices at Raffle's City. | One of the things I bought on the street for breakfast. It was a deep fried square of rice that looked and tasted a lot like a hash brown. |
We took a quick trip on Shanghai's beautiful metro and we arrived at Raffle's City, the amusingly named mall/office building where the Google offices are located. When we got to the offices Yuke, a Stanford CS alumnus, showed us around their offices and gave us an introduction to what he does, primarily managing corporate social responsibility for Google China and managing the Shanghai interns. After a brief schpiel (which was surprisingly corporate, not what I was expecting from Google) we were introduced to the Google Shanghai interns and split up into teams to go explore the city before meeting up in the afternoon to make pottery (just like fourth grade art class). My group decided to take me out to an authentic Shanghai lunch and they were quite surprised to see that I would eat everything they ordered, including eel (which didn't faze me thanks to my last authentic Shanghai lunch). During this meal I recognized the Chinese proclivity for proclaiming almost everything as famous or authentic, at least to me. After lunch and some scavenger hunting we ended up at pottery, which was a total disaster for me. It's funny how I'm usually very good with my hands, but I become functionally retarded when you put clay in my hands.
After saying our goodbye's to Yuke and the Google interns, we retired to Susan's apartment for a nap, as we had all been running on fumes for the past 10 hours. Well, it turns out that I was the only one who actually napped, but I enjoyed it. My nap was ended rather abruptly when the rest of the group decided it was time to go to dinner (and I couldn't be mad as I'd asked them to wake me up for that). We walked a few blocks to a Uighur restaurant creatively called Uighur Restaurant. The food was fantastic and... different, like a strange fusion of Middle Eastern and Chinese food (although, given the history of the Uighurs, it was not a huge surprise). We had some Xinjiang beer that looked rather menacing in it's bottle (the English label said "Black beer"), but ended up being rather tame when you started to drink it. I have to say, I've been rather disappointed by Chinese beer, it's rather weak (and many of the brands taste indistinguishable from the cheapest American beers). In the interest of having some good beer, and a night less crazy than the previous one, we went to an expat bar called Kaiba. Walking in was like walking to a different continent: there were English signs and familiar beers everywhere and we were surrounded by other expats. In short, it was fantastic. I had a Veddet white beer (quite tasty, good for prolonged drinking) to balance out my Xinjiang black beer (weak sauce) and Chris and Alex each had a Pink Killer (the beer of the month), which tasted like a Smirnoff Ice. If not for the costly beer (I know imports are expensive, but I can dream) and the fact that the bar is 100 miles away, I could seem myself there 3 times a week.
July 11
No big plans for the day, I have a late train home and Chris and Alex were planning on leaving in the early afternoon, so we took it easy. We slept in, which was sorely needed, and made another trip to 85˚C, which was just as good as the previous day. We went shopping at a knock-off market where Alex was looking for new glasses and Chris was looking for shirts. I didn't need anything in particular, but then I realized that I could use new belts and slippers. I found a couple of belts I liked, but the guy wanted almost 90 dollars (580 RMB) each for two "real leather" belts, which I absolutely balked at. I started to walk away before he dropped his price 100 RMB. Eventually I negotiated him down to 125 RMB (about 20 bucks) and he even re-sized the belts on the spot for me (I'm sure most people treat "real leather" like that). Even though there are most certainly not leather, two belts for 20 bucks is not a bad deal. After making that purchase I looked in my wallet to find much less money than I expected to and I went back over my ATM withdrawls in my head and realized that I'd already spent half of my first month's salary before I even received it (not boding well for my plan to end up in the black this summer). I decided to put new slippers on the back burner until I at least get paid once, preferably twice.
Post shopping, I accompanied Alex and Chris to the train station to see them off as they returned to Kunshan and to see if I could get my train ticket changed to an earlier train (I had 5 hours until my train), but I was unsuccessful. So, I opted to take the chance to do some exploring by myself and I got on the metro headed for Century Ave, where I planned to see the new Pudong skyline and go to the new Apple Store that had opened the day before (to make Dean jealous, naturally). However, I misread the map that directed me to Century Ave because I ended up nowhere near where I wanted to be. I could see the Pudong skyline off in the distance and I started to walk there, for lack of a better idea. The buildings were much farther away than I expected and the rain got worse, which made for a dispiriting walk, but it's not like I had anything better to do. After getting thoroughly lost and having to rely on some rather dodgy signpost maps, I eventually arrived at the new Apple Store. It was complete chaos, the most crowded I've ever seen a store. I was disappointed to not find anything special about the Shanghai Apple Store, but it was very much an Apple Store, for what it's worth.
After my much too long excursion in Pudong, I headed to Shanghai South Railway station to have some dinner and wait for my train to return to Hangzhou. After wandering through the attached mall twice (Why does every train station and every other subway stop in China have an attached mall? It's like the took the suburbs and dropped them inside each transportation hub), I settled on a little Indian place deep in the bowels of the station because I wanted to skip the western food and more of the same bland, easy to prepare Chinese food didn't appeal to me. The chicken curry was rather forgettable, but the naan was fantastic. The cook made it fresh for me and he served it still dripping with oil. It was thin and fluffy and fantastic and I was stuffed for my train ride.
As I waited for the train in front of the boarding platform I kept looking over for our train, apparently nervously, because the girl sitting next to me asked if I was alright. It turns out that she (her English name was Amiga, so really it was her Spanish name) had just returned to China after finishing her masters at SUNY Binghampton and was going home to Hangzhou after an interview in Shanghai. I told her my "adventures" with Hangzhou public transportation and she offered me a ride from her mother to Wulin Square, where I could catch the B1 (aka the bus that I can ride competently). I thanked her for the offer, but turned her down because 1) we were sitting on opposite ends of the train and would likely never find each other, 2) I am stubborn and committed to riding a bus other than the B1 to get back to Xiasha. That may have been a foolish plan, however, once I got to Hangzhou Railway Station. The boarding area for the K525 bus was a complete free-for-all. There was pushing and shoving and posturing before there was even a bus. There was a bus there just as I got to the stop, but I just missed getting on to it because it was packed to the gills with people, so I waited for the next one. The next one came 15 minutes later, during which time about 200 people were waiting for a 50 person bus. I ended up in the middle of a huge mass of people that was trying to game it's way onto the bus quickly to secure a seat. I got lucky and was pushed towards the doors, where I had to do some pushing myself to avoid being trampled, but was able to secure a seat. It was actually very much like catching the Samtrans bus in middle school; however these people couldn't use the immaturity excuse. I do suppose the unpleasant notion of standing for an hour long, sardine packed bus ride does merit some additional effort to secure a seat.
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| The inside of the mall where the Apple Store was located. I've never seen a single more concentrated display of conspicuous consumption in my life. This place made the Stanford Mall look like a dollar store. | The Apple Store in Pudong. You can see the crowd lining up outside, but it is 50 times more crowded inside. |
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| The Shanghai World Financial Center, or as it was later dubbed "The Bottle Opener." It looks like something out of Gorillas in the Mist or Into Thin Air. | The Pudong skyline. Almost every building looks like it should be inhabited by a Bond Villan. Except for the one with the three balls, that's a Soviet Steampunk Rocketship |
July 12
Back to work, not much happened today. I found out that Thursday is pay day, which is good to know. I also found a manual for milling operations, so I'm making some progress in my CAD/CAM work, but I would like to get a change of pace soon, perhaps some time in the shop.
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