Jin tian hen leng

Today was the coldest day I’ve experienced in Shanghai making the streets unendurable for me. I spent a good two hours warming up in Coffee Bean at Xin Tian Di with my Tito and Eribelle but it was just a little too cold for us.
Yesterday, we visited the Shanghai Museum and I think I expected more in terms of architecture and content. The establishment was structured, organized and offered mediocre use of technology – there were four floors with two-three exhibitions per level (not all were open) and visitors can opt for the audio tour, wherein a bulky radio-like piece is given to you and every time you stop in front of a piece, this device will play-back a pre-recorded English message about that piece, explaining what it is, what it exemplifies, etc. Pieces of ancient Chinese seals, paintings, bronzes, ceramics, furniture and sculpture were simply glassed up and on display, which was quite bland for my taste. Walking around made me feel like I was skimming through my Great Asia History textbook from 10th grade; nothing I saw was new, contextualized, or at least placed in a historically artificial environment to make me appreciate it or feel as though the creative process behind the pieces are relevant to Ancient Chinese history. Nevertheless, this is what the museum looks like, and a favourite Chinese sculpture Buddha and its followers.Next stop, we visited the Oriental Pearl Tower, 3rd tallest Radio TV tower in the world. Not that spectacular especially if you’ve visited taller towers.After lunch, we decided to scout for cheap finds and first visited the popular Yu Yuan Bazaar. The place is aesthetically pleasing, the environment really touristy thus walking around really invokes feelings of being in a completely different world.Bargaining is a little more difficult in this area because it is a place for foreigners. But, I did get free stuff because I lied and said it was “my birthday”. LOL. There are a lot of things to do apart from shopping, like watch locals make arts and crafts, eat, and watch this heterosexual male Shanghainese do someone’s hair. Seriously. It’s actually pretty funny watching all these girls line up to get their hair done in beautiful buns that end up looking like a lotus flower or a four-leaf clover.

However, the place is overrated and cheaper, more interesting goods can be found in Qi Pu Lu. It’s this chaotic place surrounded by what looks like a war zone area because of the demolished houses, filled with stalls and stalls of clothing, goods, food, etc. It’s unsafe and local merchants are on the constant look out for foreigners, like myself, and every turn you make, a group of guys will mob you and offer you everything from Chinese vegetables, pirated dvds and rolex watches. And, it’s not like they stop when you ignore them or tell them to go away, they will follow you around and keep nagging you, making the experience of discovering something cheap and beautiful, disappointing and unbearable. In fact, I was stalked. In attempt to get away from this seemingly nice man who initially led me to his store, I ended up spending 20 minutes in distress, brisk walking and turning into random corners to get to our van. It actually is very scary, especially if you’re convinced he has lost sight of you and then next thing you know, he is standing a couple of feet away from you screaming he loves you and wants you to marry him. It's probably my karma because I lied and said it was my birthday. :(

Come evening, we had a pleasant dinner at Chinoise Story restaurant. Being in cold weather, tendency is to eat more, so that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. No regrets. Yet.Then we watched the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe and I could not get my bee-hind to sit still. Seeing these young boys and girls who are probably at least 10 years old, jump from poles, contort their bodies, lift each other with their foot, upside-down, with one hand will make keep you on the edge of your seat. No kidding. I had like a cycle of only 4 repetitive reactions: (1) “Oooooooh!” – with mouth and eyes in a perfect circle (2) “Wowwww!” – looks at any person next to, behind or in front of me, in a are-you-fucking-me-did-you-see-that-is-that-shit-real???? sort of way. (3) “Aaaaahhh!” – with one hand covering my mouth, other hand tightly grasping the arm rest, eyes unblinking. (4) “OMG” – shakes head from left to right in disbelief. Too bad my camera died.

After dinner, my friend Dennis picked me up from the hotel to do some catching up.He took me to this “elite” club called Muse 2 or M2 at Henlong where the DJ spun trance and people danced with firesticks (I actually don’t know what its called, but they look like fallen fireworks) instead of glowsticks. It looked pretty dangerous, but I guess people were just used to dancing around with it and it didn’t last very long anyway. I tried timing the life of a lit firestick and it lasts for less than 2 minutes. Such a waste of money. After a martini and brief attempts to speak over the music, we decided coffee was the way to go as we updated each other on whatever things.