Day three started off at the Jade Budda Temple. We got there on the first day of the new month (in the chinese calender) so it was absolutely packed with people. There was a huge lineup, and at first we thought it was to get into the temple, but we later found out that it was actually a lineup to get free soup (The things these people would do for free food). So 20 yuan later (3 buckaroonis), we were both in the temple, absolutely blown away by the beauty of the ancient chinese architecture and the massive buddist statues. The way they prayed and worshipped the statues was very different from anything we were used to seeing. Check out the video and you'll get a better glimpse of what were talking about.
After the Jade Buddah temple we cabbed on down to the riverside Bund area of Shanghai. The Bund area consists of buildings with architecture from different eras of Shanghai's history. The cold weather mixed with our serious lack of attention spans allowed us to move quickly down the stairs into the Bund sightseeing tunnel. This is a train that goes through a tunnel, beneath the Shanghai river to the Pudong area of the city. The tunnel has lights and music and is pretty much a huge tourist trap, but for 50 yuan ($7.70) you really can't go wrong. The next video was taken from the tunnel and shows the lights and the beautiful face of Jay.
We came out of the sightseeing and strained our necks to see the top of the Oriental TV tower. The building was massive, and reminded us in alot of ways of the CN tower back home. After a short walk, and 120 yuan ($18.50, the most 'expensive' attraction of our trip) we were on the way up the elevator to the middle observation deck. Not gonna lie, it really wasn't anything special having been on the CN tower many times, but it gave us a new perspective of the sheer size of Shanghai. When you look out (and you can kind of see from the video, however the smog over the city makes it hard- thank the 20 million people living there) there are buildings as far as you can see in every dirction. We proceeded down one story to the amazing glass floor - way better than the one in the CN tower. It circled the entire building, and the walls enclosing it were made of glass too, giving us an uneasy feeling when we first stepped onto it. Unfortunately the weather up there was freezing, so we decided to head down and back to the main area of Shanghai. Before heading back we stopped for some real Shanghanese food (jokes, we ate Subway Sandwiches) and got a little bit lost trying to find the Shanghai sex and culture museum.
That was about it for us for the day, we were exhausted, and decided to get some rest for the next day of our adventure.
Wednesday, January 12th 2011.
Today we woke up at about 6AM because we still couldn't adjust to the time zone. We headed over to our hotels "Western" style breakfast at 7Am and were out and about by 8AM. Our first stop was the Yuyuan Garden. This Garden must have been the nicest garden we have ever seen. The garden was surrounded by rich chinese huts, loads of chinese shops and ofcourse a Starbucks (must we point out that the Starbucks was only full of tourists). Watch the video and you'll get a better taste of the Yuyuan Garden
After a day full of pictures, roaming around the garden, eating delicious spring rolls and bargain shopping we decided to head over to the Jewish Center of Shanghai. The funny part was that no one knew about this area so it was quite a risk we were taking. We got our hotel concierge to write down the address in chinese, which we thought would take us to the right place. On the way to the center we stopped at a Starbucks to get a hot drink and warm up. While Mirelle was ordering her drink, a man next to her was getting extremely mad at the other cashier and slamming his visa card on the counter. Now you have to understand, we have no clue what is going on because we cant understand what there saying. The next thing we know, this man is yelling at the cashier. The cashier retaliates by WHIPPING trays at the guy! The man fights back by slapping him. If only we got it on video. We got a kick out of seeing how chinese men fight. It was more like a bitch fight, than a fist fight :). Long story short we never ended up finding the Jewish center. It practically didnt exist. But we did walk in a random city that had no tourist in (again).
Anyway, we took the subway back to the main city sqaure and walked down Nanjing road to find a place to eat. Leave it up to the Canadians to choose McDonalds in China. This part of our trip was deffinetly video worthy... and plus Mirelle hasn't had McDonalds in AGES so we had to document:
Stuffed from McDonalds and exhausted from all the walking we headed back to our hotel for a quick nap. That night we bought tickets to the Haungpu River Cruise. Basically this is a cruise that takes you around the city of Shanghai by water. It lets you see all the buildings lit up at night time. It takes about 45 minutes to go around the entire river. It was really beautiful, but extremely COLD! (Sorry for recording such a fast video, it was SO cold I couldnt bare to end it):
Thursday, January 13th 2011.
This was our last day before we headed over to catch a flight toMelbourne, Aussie. We woke up pretty early and decided we were going to go back to the markets by Yuyan Garden. But on the way there we ended up getting lost in the most INCREDIBLE market ever. This market went on for miles and miles and had no tourist in site (other than us). Here's where we did some WILD shopping! By this time our bargaining tactics were down pat! This market had everything for SOOOO CHEAP - so obviously we went absolutely crazy.
The Bargaining Rule:
A step-by-step guide
1. You ask how much.
2. The Chinesians will then give you a ridiculous price simply because you re foreign. They will then ask you to type in (everything is communicated by a calculator because they dont speak a word of English) your offer.
3. Instead of typing in your offer you motion then a thumbs down. Tell them to go lower with their offer. They will start going lower and eventually stop at a (still) ridiculous price.
4. You then offer them about 60-80% less of their price. Thats when they laugh at you and say NOOO!!!
5. You say ok, thats too expensive and walk away. I can garauntee that 100% of the time they will chase after you (we were already on the other side of the road and got chased after).
6. After they call you back into their store they still try and bargain and once again you say No, give them your offer and start walking away. The next thing you know, the "Foreigner" (that's what were reffered to in China) has won!
Here's a video of how we did it:
After a full day of bargain shopping, we headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags. We cabbed over to the Maglev train. The train took us back to the airport where we started.
Goodbye Shanghai, Hello Melbourne, Australia!
sick Chinese accents guys! loved the bargaining skills!
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