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It’s been a seriously busy eight days since my last post. Last week I had serious studying to do for my Midterm. Then had a long weekend, which I spent traveling around in Hangzhou—very different city from Shanghai but I’ll get into that later. And then this week, which I’ve just been seriously behind in. Tomorrow I leave on a four day school trip with my entire program.
So first off Hangzhou. It was a serious pain haha. Meaning our days were great, our nights not so much.
My friend Carlos and I bought round trip tickets to Hangzhou on the bullet train, which goes about 350 km an hour. Ridiculous. We got to Hangzhou in 45 min. We didn’t realize how fast it was going to go so we both fell asleep on the train due to a long night the day before at the club. We were both pleased and disappointed to find how quickly we arrived.
From there we made our way to the Hostel we were staying at. The hostel was really nice and in a decent location on Hefang road, which is a pretty big market type of area. We spent most of that day just wandering around there and then moving more into the city area—no such thing really since the whole damn place is city but still. We did do some seriously touristy things. Checked out some pagodas and some temples etc. Got dinner and headed back to our hostel to get ready to go out.
First off. The cabs in Hangzhou are awful. They rarely stop even if they’re empty, even for the Chinese. It wasn’t just cause we were foreigners. And if they did stop they frequently didn’t know where it was we wanted to go. Even when we had written addresses down in characters.
Needless to say trying to find clubs late at night was impossible. The cab drivers would drop us off at random places that were not correct. The Chinese aren’t that into clubbing… at all… so asking people on the street was impossible. And following people who say "beautiful girls" is a risky business because, while sometimes it does mean “disco,” it also means brothel. So while we debated pursuing some of these offers we decided it wasn’t worth the risk.
We ultimately went on this wild goose chase till around 3 am trying to find this one club G+. The biggest, very popular, and supposedly a great club. Went to a hotel where it supposedly was they gave us a card and sent us away. Gave the card to a cab driver and he dropped us off at some random bar.
The night wasn’t a total bust. We went into the bar and asked one of the waiters to teach us this dice game that EVERYONE plays in all the bars and clubs.
Next day involved some serious hiking on the north side of the West Lake in Hangzhou. It was gorgeous and hot as hell. It was all giant staircases on this mountain leading to old shrines, temples, various caves etc. We then wandered around the city for the rest of that day and made a second attempt at finding clubs that night.
Again we failed miserably, though worse than the night before. This time we actually made it to G+ but it was horrible. Crappy Black Eyed Pea’s impersonators on stage and the room was solid tables filled with all Chinese. That’s really a good thing except they don’t dance particularly when there are lots of tables.
So with our heads hanging in defeat we made our way back to Shanghai. Me without my cell phone—it was stolen, Carlos without his sunglasses—left in a cab— and both of us several hundred kuai less. It was a rough weekend.
But we began this week with high spirits vowing to make up for our failed weekend.
Monday night we took the adventurous route and ate some intense street food. Kao rou… or in English... stuff cooked on sticks.
At the back gate of ECNU, every night huge stalls open up selling all kinds of meat, shellfish and crayfish.
So with our heads hanging in defeat we made our way back to Shanghai. Me without my cell phone—it was stolen, Carlos without his sunglasses—left in a cab— and both of us several hundred kuai less. It was a rough weekend.
But we began this week with high spirits vowing to make up for our failed weekend.
Monday night we took the adventurous route and ate some intense street food. Kao rou… or in English... stuff cooked on sticks.
At the back gate of ECNU, every night huge stalls open up selling all kinds of meat, shellfish and crayfish.
Perfect.
We each played it safe at first in terms of what we ordered. A couple pijiu 啤酒(beer), three lamb, three beef, one chicken, and some mushrooms. Well, after running into some friends who pulled up stools at the tables that were set up, our food arrived. It was amazing. And seriously dangerous haha. The meat was pretty much raw. The surface was cooked but the inside was warm and maybe you would say rare. I couldn’t quite figure out if it was rare or just plain raw… under cooked was a definite understatement. But hey it tasted damn good.
So we went back up got more pijius and ordered several of everything: lamb, beef, chicken, pork, squid, octopus, this foot long fish that is just skewered and grilled and about three other meats we don’t know what they were. We wanted to head to the shellfish cart but after all that we were not only full but might be pushing our luck. Some other night hopefully.
And by god’s good graces we woke up the next morning with only mild stomachaches. In my mind, that’s a serious win. The whole night cost a total of 75 rmb or $11 usd.
That was Monday night. Tuesday night involved studying and tonight is packing. Tomorrow we leave on a four-day trip to Jinggangshan 井冈山 regarded as “the Cradle of the Chinese revolution”.
It should be interesting. This city is where the Chinese recently celebrated the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party and, less importantly to them at least, the 100th anniversary of the Republic of China.
As my professor keeps telling us it’s going to be really cool for us as Americans because the locals will love it. “Oh look! The imperialist Americans have come to pay homage to Mao and the communist party.”
Super excited.
I’ll go back through and post pictures later. Probably when I return. My friend has most of them on his camera is why.
Anyway…
So long Shanghai. Hello Jinggangshan!
-Colin
We each played it safe at first in terms of what we ordered. A couple pijiu 啤酒(beer), three lamb, three beef, one chicken, and some mushrooms. Well, after running into some friends who pulled up stools at the tables that were set up, our food arrived. It was amazing. And seriously dangerous haha. The meat was pretty much raw. The surface was cooked but the inside was warm and maybe you would say rare. I couldn’t quite figure out if it was rare or just plain raw… under cooked was a definite understatement. But hey it tasted damn good.
So we went back up got more pijius and ordered several of everything: lamb, beef, chicken, pork, squid, octopus, this foot long fish that is just skewered and grilled and about three other meats we don’t know what they were. We wanted to head to the shellfish cart but after all that we were not only full but might be pushing our luck. Some other night hopefully.
And by god’s good graces we woke up the next morning with only mild stomachaches. In my mind, that’s a serious win. The whole night cost a total of 75 rmb or $11 usd.
That was Monday night. Tuesday night involved studying and tonight is packing. Tomorrow we leave on a four-day trip to Jinggangshan 井冈山 regarded as “the Cradle of the Chinese revolution”.
It should be interesting. This city is where the Chinese recently celebrated the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party and, less importantly to them at least, the 100th anniversary of the Republic of China.
As my professor keeps telling us it’s going to be really cool for us as Americans because the locals will love it. “Oh look! The imperialist Americans have come to pay homage to Mao and the communist party.”
Super excited.
I’ll go back through and post pictures later. Probably when I return. My friend has most of them on his camera is why.
Anyway…
So long Shanghai. Hello Jinggangshan!
-Colin
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