Random Musings and Nicknacks

After a nice, long sleep (and noticing that I woke up a bit later each morning – I was almost adapted to the timezone now – in bed by 9, up by 6.  Just in time to go home and become jetlagged once again), we repeated the regular morning routine of making coffee, getting on the computer to check things at home, and hanging around waiting for the hotel cafe to open for breakfast.  Finally it was late (early?) enough to have breakfast.

We wend downstairs, and walked in.  Before being seated, we had to give the hostess our room number.  Flush with the success of the last two days, I confidently walked up and said “shi se ling san” (fourten-zero-three).

She started at be blankly.

I composed myself, tried to make sure I concentrated on the tones, and repeated “shi se ling san”.

She started at me blankly, and asked to me to repeat it again.

Deflated, I said “one four zero three”, and she led us to our table [1]
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Well, it turns out I was awake to ring in the New Year after all.  At some point during the night the constant explosions achieved a crescendo that reached down into my dreams and dragged me awake.  It sounded to me like World War III had broken out – loud explosions, quiet explosions, machine gun style explostions – and flickering light coming in through the heavy drapes.  I woke up enough to check my watch to see what time the world had finally ended – 12:01.  Oh – not World War III, merely the height of the fireworks frenzy celebrating the actual midnight.  I drifted back to sleep satisfied that at least now the fireworks were done with.

We woke up at 5 – our usual time, to a continuing sound of fireworks.  They weren’t done.  Ling explained to me that this would continue until the 15th day of the New Year, and not only that but it might get louder – when businesses open for the first time in the new year they will set off firecrackers outside their front door for luck and fortune, and they would want to make sure the firecrackers were big enough to ensure a lot of both.  Sure enough, there was not a time during the entire trip we didn’t hear them going off around us.
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We had a full house on New Year’s Eve – Ling and I, of course, Ling’s Mom and Lu Gang, Simon, Lu Yan, and Lu Yan’s husband Pei Ming. Oh and Do-Do, Lu Yan and family’s toy poodle who took a strong dislike to me 2 years ago and seemed to have carried it into this year. As soon as I stepped in he started barking like mad and ran for cover behind friendly legs.

There was a cacophany of noise – people talking, the TV was on, playing what looked like a CCTV children’s show prelude to the evening’s celebration, the dog barking and growling in the background, and the constant percussive bangs of firecrackers outside. This was the busiest I had seen the house in well, ever. The sisters were busy in the kitchen chopping and preparing dinner, so I settled down to watch some Mandarin TV and try to win over the dog.
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Well, this is it – the day of the big night. The Lunar New Year celebration in China, with the year of the snake coming in. A time to eat, drink, and spend with family. But that’s tonight. Today it’s time for a newer tradition – frenzied consumerism that rivals Christmas back home.

Today started in its normal way – we got up, had some coffee, forced our way onto Facebook (this hotel has “local” internet access, not the expat level we had in Shanghai, so we had to jump through some hoops), a workout, then to the Cafe Berlin for the hotel breakfast.

Over breakfast Ling and I discussed and decided that we wanted to walk to her mom’s place – it would give us a bettter feel for where we were in the city. We had some struggles with Google / Apple Maps on the iPhone (not knowing exactly where her place was on the map makes it difficult to find), but figured it out – the estimate was about a 40 minute walk. It was sunny, but chilly (a bit below zero), so definitely doable. We put together our day bags, including two bottles of wine to bring for dinner tonight, and set out to walk through the city.
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I started to compose this last night while sitting in a German bar in a hotel with a Russian name, in China while listening to a Fillipino girl band (live) singing Stayin’ Alive while also watching a Michael Buble video on the TV. So please excuse me if today’s article seems a bit weird … It’s certainly feeling surreal for me right now.
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My impression of Shanghai is that it is a city unique from the rest of China. I understand that this is reflected in the Shanghainese attitude toward the rest of the country, and the country’s attitude toward them.

Some if this is certainly due to its history – like Macau and Hong Kong it felt the sting of European colonialism. Unlike those cities though it managed to remain part of China. I think that last part is the essence of its nature.
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I had a completely unique experience today. Sitting in a restaurant, in China, we were unable to get rice. We ordered it, then reminded them to bring it. Then asked again, and again, and again – it took over an hour before they finally remembered to bring it. It was a nice restaurant, I think that rice in a Shanghai restaurant is that unusual.

Today is a walking day. Which could be interesting because the forecast is for rain, and maybe snow later. It’s supposed to hover just a few degrees above freezing.
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Never underestimate the utility of having a native speaker with you, even when on English speaking tours – that’s something I learned today. We decided to take one of the hop on hop of tour buses around the city – actually it was a network of buses. The people working on the tour spent an amazing amount of time helping Ling go over their maps and work out the best path for us to take. Of course it helped that we practically had all the buses to ourselves – between the weather and the holiday this city seems nearly empty – even by Vancouver standards!

Shanghai is divided by a river into two halves – the west side (where we are) is called Puxi, the east side is called Pudong.  Pudong is the Shanghai with all the sky scrapers you see in the movies (including the famous signature building the Pearl Tower). It is the financial district, and the financial capital of China – so I was stunned to discover that when Ling lived here it was marshland. Dozens of skyscrapers have been built since 1999. That’s China’s economic engine at work.
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bit of a word about our morning routine. It feels odd to be sitting in a high end liquor store (which is the translation of the Chinese term for a hotel) boiling all water like we were on a campsite, but that’s the way it goes.  I was a little bit rusty, since last time we had access to filtered water, but I’m back in the groove now. The kettle has exactly enough water to brew a pot of coffee, with enough left over to rinse the press and the mugs afterward. Meanwhile we have extra bottles for cooling, so I get up, boil water for coffee, then boil a second pot that gets poured into our “cooling” nalgene bottle, so it’s ready for drinking in the afternoon. 

Today we woke up at 2:30  (in the morning) so it was a two pot morning.
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It is 3 AM local time as I write this. We came back to the hotel at 2 in the afternoon for a nap, which extended to 2 in the morning when we actually managed to wake up. That’s jet lag.

First a word about our hotel – we are staying at the Radisson New World, which is right in the centre of everything. Our room is quite nice, and very conveniently located. This is the second time I’ve stayed in a hotel in Shanghai, and both have had a window between the main room and the bathroom – I have no idea if this is something specific to Shanghai, or if both hotels used the same designer, but it is definitely a unique feature.

The hotel offers a breakfast for a mere $30 per person (I will quote all prices in CAD for simplicity).  We decided to eschew that, and went outside looking for a breakfast. Stepped out the hotel, turned right (random choice) and about a block up found a fast food place where I got a bowl of congee and two small pork buns for $3 – yup, hotel prices are the same everywhere in the world.
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