China - Day 59 - The Expo and my best weekend yet

This was a positively fantastic weekend, the most fun and most entertaining weekend I've had in China. This weekend perfectly encapsulated the travelling/expat experience I wanted to have this summer; I'm very happy that I got to and very thankful to those that helped make it happen. Now, on to a more detailed recap.

August 13
Picking up from my last post, I got into Shanghai fairly late by my standards (around 10:30PM. The difference between my standards of time and Shanghai's standard of time would be a recurring theme of my time here), but thankfully the metro was still working. As much as I love the Shanghai Metro system (I think it might be my favorite in the world), the one thing that I absolutely can't stand about it is that it shuts down so early; external lines start closing around 9PM, central lines stay open until 10:30-11PM. This means that anyone trying to have any semblance of a nightlife has to take cabs everywhere (not that it's an issue to find cabs, but I'm a huge believer in the use of subways and subways are much easier to use when you don't really speak the language). While I was on the train I spoke to my friends Alex and Chris about our accommodations for the weekend; apparently their friends Rachel and Cindy were staying in a huge apartment in Shanghai and Alex and Chris suggested that we cancel our hostel reservation to stay with the girls. When I got to the apartment (an adventure in and of itself, as no cabbie had apparently ever heard of the street it's located on) we realized that "huge" was a relative term and that it was time for us to grovel our way back into the hostel (which we did, thankfully). As much as I appreciated Rachel and Cindy's hospitality, one of us would have had to sleep on the dining room table and another in the bathtub, which was just not happening.

After getting settled at the hostel, we headed out to begin our nightlife at 12:15AM. I'm used to seeing things begin to wind down around this time, but the energy of the group was infectious and I just went with it. After a few false starts (at clubs that were rejected for one reason or another) and one very tense argument with a cabbie, we ended up at a club called Muse where we proceeded to party and dance until 3:30, which is when things apparently begin to wind down in Shanghai. Either way, I was just thankful for sleep at that point.

The beds in our hostel room. It's a good thing none of us suffer from night terrors because I very well could have punched Chris in the face as we slept.	The bathroom in our room. While it was a very efficient use of space it was a complete and utter design disaster. I ended up locking myself in there by placing my backpack in the wrong place and blocking the sliding glass door.

August 14
The first thing on the agenda for Saturday was brunch with my mentor from Stanford, also named Alex. I had invited Chris and Alex, student, to join us and to pass the invitation along to Cindy and Rachel. However, the late night we had the previous night caused Chris and Cindy and Rachel to choose sleeping in, so brunch became me and the two Alex's (Alexi? Alexes? Alexs?). We were went to a restaurant in Xintiandi (a expat oriented shopping complex) called Kabb that allegedly served the best brunch in Shanghai. The restaurant definitely lived up to its reputation; I had a delicious spinach and feta fritatta that very well could have come from a cafe on University Ave. or California. The only thing that disappointed me about the restaurant was the minuscule size of their coffee cups (closer to the size of a double espresso). After a delicious meal we had a fantastic debate about the political, economic and social differences between the US and China. We decided to continue the discussion over a beer at the German beer garden, also in Xintiandi. While we were enjoying our beer outside (a foolish decision as the fans were not nearly as powerful as expected), who should walk behind us but Chris, Cindy and Rachel, who had come to the same shopping complex for lunch. They joined our party and we made plans to get take out for them and then to retire to Alex's, the mentor, apartment to continue the discussion and make plans for the day. Alex, the mentor, bought us some champagne to celebrate the trip to Shanghai and the fact that we were going to make it through this internship program in China. I begun to feel bad about the excessively nice treatment Alex was giving us, but he was genuinely enjoying it and it was his way of paying it forward, so that we would also be gracious to future Stanford interns.

The time in Alex's apartment was mostly spent getting to know Chris, Cindy and Rachel, but it was a huge success for me because the food they brought included chashaobao (BBQ Pork Steamed Dumplings), which happen to be one of my favorite types of Chinese food, which I have been completely unsuccessful at finding in China (Chashaobao is a Cantonese dish, which is common around Hong Kong, but not found in other styles). We also discussed our future plans for the day, with the main focus being the fact that Chris, Alex and I were planning to go to the Expo. Cindy, Rachel and Alex, the mentor, all railed against this idea, saying that it was over-hyped and that we should avoid the crowds and skip it all together, but we persisted that we were going. After eating and drinking, we left Alex's apartment and made a short visit to Yuyuan Gardens, which has a famous shopping street attached. The shopping was pretty good, although the shopkeepers were surprisingly difficult to negotiate with. As the worst Chinese speaker in the group, I relied heavily on my friends to do the negotiating for me, but I struck out on the one thing that I actually wanted to buy as a gift. I was about to concede defeat when Cindy played the "He's an American college student and buying a gift" card, which was surprisingly effective. Apparently all of these factors made me a more sympathetic character, which is strange because I'm not used to being a sympathetic character at home, rather, I'm usually suspicious. I rather like this about China.

The Expo itself is unfathomably huge and it would be quite difficult to write a cohesive narrative about my experience there, so I'm going to resort to bullet points and pictures:

• Getting into the Expo is an experience. Coming out of the metro station you think that you will walk right into the park, paying on your way in. But instead you have to walk about half a kilometer to the ticketing booths, then walk another kilometer to the entrance before you have to wait in the security line
• I think we really made the right decision to come in the afternoon/evening. The temperature had dropped quite a bit and the crowds seemed smaller than expected. However, that also meant that the security line was understaffed, which was frustrating.
• The Chinese Pavilion is positively massive. You can see it from all over surrounding the park. It seems that the Chinese people are taking a huge pride in this being their expo and they are supporting their own pavilion accordingly.

Me with the China Pavilion in the background	Chris, Alex and I at the first pavilion we visited: Mongolia.

• I wouldn't count on the people in charge of pavilion layout having a sense of humor, but there were a number of pavilion combinations that I found amusing. See pictures below
• The Expo park is huge, it puts Disneyland to shame. It took us more than an hour to walk from one end to the other and we walked at a pretty brisk pace.
• It was infinitely easier to get into the smaller pavilions than the large ones. It seems that the crowds were generally concentrated around the Western European pavilions and, surprisingly, Poland and Australia.
• The crowds were almost entirely Chinese. I'd heard reports that less than one percent of the visitors to the Expo were foreigners, which I didn't believe until I saw it.
• There were a ton of free water stations spread throughout the park, which was kind of surprising given the huge presence of a certain red soft drink vendor. Having been warned about drinking Chinese tap water, I was skittish about drinking the water, but I haven't gotten sick yet, which is a good sign.
• Visiting at night made the weather much cooler, but it also ruined a good number of my photos, which was bittersweet, but I think the experience of being there is definitely more important
• The pavilions look so much more impressive when they are lit up, but they are difficult to capture if you don't know anything about photography, like me.
• When we stopped for dinner I got food from Sichuan province, which is another style of food I've had difficulty finding, but I can now cross it off my China bucket list.

Amusing observations of pavilion placement:

The huge imposing China pavilion is watching over the Taiwan pavilion, which is pretty flashy itself.	North Korea and Iran are located right next to each other, making visiting the Axis of Evil one stop shopping.	Reuniting Czechoslovakia?

And now for some pavilion impressions:

• I wanted to go to Kyrgyzstan for the sheer novelty of it, but I actually quite enjoyed their presentation. They are very much into hydropower.
• I was unsure how to feel about visiting the North Korean and Iranian pavilions. The North Korean pavilion was sufficiently whitewashed, unsurprising of the Hermit Kingdom. The Iranian pavilion focused on Iranian culture and industry, which struck me as very much like Soviet industry in the 80s. Shocking.
• New Zealand's pavilion was one of the prettiest and definitely had the best combined use of indoor and outdoor space. Rather than having reading material and exhibits, they had a walkway that showed examples of life in New Zealand inside using video and still pictures, before progressing outside to showcase New Zealand's natural beauty.
• Malaysia's pavilion looked like a casino, and not a good one at that. Unfortunately, none of my pictures of it turned out. Alex likened the streets of the Expo to the Las Vegas strip, dripping with Neon, but with buildings quite a bit shorter.
• Portugal was surprisingly unpopular with the Chinese, perhaps due to the fact that the Portuguese introduced Europeans to China during the time of concessions, subjecting the Chinese to foreign dominance (They don't like that). Strangely, the Portuguese pavilion played up the long time Portugal-China connection which clashed with their post-modern movie presentation and building made of cork
• Finland had a weird pavilion. It was shaped like a giant bowl with the presentation inside the walls of the bowl and a large, echoing walkway up to the presentation from the ground floor. Inside the presentation reminded me of Ikea (which is Swedish).
• The Netherlands Pavilion was frentic and energetic and definitely the most fun. It was constructed as an open walkway with presentations along the path and lots of open space. Children were running everywhere and quite enjoying themselves. There were a lot of people there, but no one seemed to be waiting in line. The Dutch women working there were very friendly.
• The Western European pavilions (UK, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, etc.) looked pretty cool from the outside, but the lines were positively huge. Having visited most of those countries, I wasn't too broken up about missing those pavilions, but I was curious to see if they lived up to the hype.
• We didn't see the movie at the American Pavilion, but we did sneak into the gift shop and other exhibitions, they were disappointing. It seems that every inch of the American pavilion that could have been sponsored by a corporation was sponsored by a corporation. I did think it was funny that Pepsi was the drink sponsor of the US pavilion while the rest of the Expo was sponsored by Coke.
• I got propositioned to have my photo taken a number of times, especially near the American pavilion. Surprise, surprise.
• Most of the African and North/South American pavilions were closed by the time we made it to that side of the park. Another disappointing fact about visiting the Expo late in the day. Brazil looked pretty from the outside, kind of like a glowing forest.
• We watched a Fijian dance at the Pacific stage at a point during the night. The Chinese seemed to be positively fascinated by the Polynesian dancing style.

The other pavilions we visited, in order:

Kyrgyzstan	Tajikistan	North Korea
Iran	New Zealand	The Philippines
Portugal	Slovakia	The Czech Republic
Finland	The Netherlands	USA

After the Expo we met up with Cindy and Rachel again to have a much more relaxed night out on the town. We started at a bar called The Fat Olive, where we shared a bottle of malbec syrah on a sixth floor roof in downtown Shanghai. We had a beautiful view of Pudong and a nice breeze off the river. We regaled them with stories of our trip to the Expo, despite their warnings. After we finished the bottle, we shoehorned the five of us into a cab to head over to the Hyatt on the Bund to have a drink at their 32nd floor rooftop bar. Unfortunately, the bar was closed by the time we got there, but the view was still there and it was fantastic. We could see the entire city lit up (and the smog that settled over the city, but that's less fun). After missing last call at yet another downtown bar at 2:00AM, we decided to call it a night and retire to an after hours desert place serving various kinds of sweetened ice, kind of like shaved ice. We ordered chocolate, mango and peanut, and they were all delicious (especially peanut, to my surprise).

August 15
Sunday was a much more low key day than Saturday. Despite sleeping in, I woke up exhausted but satisfied. My only plan for the day was to meet up with Ricardo to hang out before our train back to Hangzhou, but that was contingent on getting in contact with Ricardo, as we had parted ways on Friday. I accompanied Chris on a quest to find new reading material, which he ended up finding at an English language bookstore in the basement of a mall in Xintiandi. I debated buying a book before seeing that the prices were twice what I would pay at home. I guess importing a niche good is expensive. While Chris continued to look, I called Ricardo and we made plans to meet at the textile market where he had been hunting for a very specific fabric to have a suit made. I parted ways with Chris and crossed the city to meet Ricardo. I got to the metro stop Ricardo told me to come to, but I couldn't find the textile market to save my life, so I swallowed my pride and hailed a cab, who got me to the market in less than 10 minutes. Ricardo was looking at fabric when I arrived, and we continued to do that for the next two hours. The materials all seemed to be more or less the same to me, but people watching in the market was a lot of fun. I thought it was especially interesting to see German tourists trying to communicate with the Chinese shopkeepers in English, another small world moment. I don't know how it came up, but about halfway through our shopping trip, Ricardo realized that I could speak Spanish, which would allow us to communicate without having the shopkeepers understanding us as they did when we spoke English. This proved to be a lot of fun, especially when Ricardo and I switched back and forth between English, Spanish and Chinese in front of some German tourists. They seemed quite surprised that we were capable of speaking a language other than English. I do love destroying preconceived notions of Americans. We left the market after a while and headed straight to the train station to get some food before catching our train; having had only a donut and coffee, I was quite glad to eat a meal. When we got to waiting room for the train I told Ricardo that we should eschew the available seats in the back of the room to instead stand by the entrance to the platform. We boarded the train fairly quickly and Ricardo commended me for my skill at avoiding lines and navigating public transportation quickly. I always thought these things I do were fairly neurotic, but I'm glad to see that they are appreciated by others.