Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

4/5/2005, China trip day 13: Train to Shanghai, shopping, buy gifts and souvenirs

The trip was winding down.  My flight was early on day 14 from Shanghai.  The trip from Hangzhou to Shanghai can take a long time if things don't line up or if there are problems.  So, we went to Shanghai from Hangzhou as early as possible on day 13.

We met this guy at the train station and ended up talking to him on the train, the whole way to Shanghai.

In Shanghai, we had some trouble getting into a hotel.  The first place we tried was too expensive.  There were a couple guys outside who wanted us to go to their hotel, which was out of the way, but cheaper.  The price was good, but they kept raising it.  First, they told David $15.  Then, they told me $17.  I questioned them about it but ultimately said okay.  When we got there, they tried to add on another fee.  Bear in mind, in Chinese currency, these amounts seem a lot bigger.  And, they are bigger in the context of an economy where everything is cheap.  So, David "negotiated" vigorously about it.  Ultimately, we got them to cut the second rate hike and we checked in.  But, this stuff was interesting.  Apparently, it can be necessary to argue about things sometimes in China.

In Shanghai, we saw this funny barbershop.  A man has a chair set up under an highway overpass with cars zooming by.  For a fee, he'll cut your hair right there.  Strange, huh?

We did quite a bit of shopping in a tourist shopping area.  Almost everything was negotiable.  Many people would tell you as you walked in that they would give you a 50% discount because "they like you" or something ridiculous like that.  In most cases, I got things down to half the initial price.  But, when I started to get better at it, I found I could get it down to more like a sixth of the original price on some things.  Since David and I had gone to the wholesale market in Yiwu the day before, we knew perfectly well what these people had paid for the stuff.  That was helpful in making my budget last.  I had a set amount of money.  It was just a matter of how many little gifts I could bring home for the money.  In the end, it went quite far.  At a certain point, you do have to consider the morality of bargaining with poor people.  But, this was a semi-fancy place, comparatively, so I didn't feel too bad.

We took a dinner break and had dim sum.  Various dumplings and stuff.  It was quite delicious.

After shopping, we walked home, 2 or 3 miles, as I recall.  We had been walking for a few hours while doing the shopping, so I for one was pretty tired.

These Häagen Dazs bars were 30 yuan or about $4.  They're about $2.50 or $3 in Japan.

The Häagen Dazs cooler at the convenience store.

As we walked, we went through a prostitution area.  Like Japan, prostitution in China is technically illegal but ubiquitous.  Brothels usually are lightly disguised as barbershops with barber poles outside.  The windows are always pink.  Through the windows you can always see younger (20's, 30's) women, fully dressed like anybody else.  (For the record, I did not set foot in one or do anything other than look from the sidewalk.  That should go without saying.)

Brothel in Shanghai.

Brothel in Shanghai.

Brothel in Shanghai.

We ate dinner near the hotel.  David really wanted to find a place that was no higher than $1.25.  That's usually possible in China.  But, that night, it was hard to find a reasonably-priced place that was clean enough to trust.  Finally we found one.  Beef noodles, or something like that.  About $1.00, as I recall.

The bathroom, however, wasn't quite so clean.

That's okay.  The food was good.  The eating area was clean enough.  And, the sink was decent.

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