Shanghai Noon! Well....10minutes after noon!

Sunday Sept.24th.... I woke early to find that I had to take a shower in the dark because the bathroom light was broken in the hotel. I did fine. I didn't break anything, including myself. Took the 7 am. shuttle bus to the Narita airport and had a McD's breakfast there waiting for my flight.

I took the 10am. JAL plane to China! I arrived at around 12: 10 pm. Not quited Shanghai noon!!

It took awhile to get my luggage and then Eway and her dad came to pick me up at the Pu Dong airport in China. I was so glad to finish carrying her text books!

We immediately went to 'old town' to tour around the gardens. It was very crowded, but the gardens were very beautiful. There were lots of German tourists around. We ate McD's for dinner and I had a Taro pie. It was awesome!!! The pies in Japan and China McD's are great! I thought the McD's in Asia are awesome! So far the McD's furnishing has been best in Japan. They have leather chairs there and wireless for internet there.

I had a bit of a culture shock trying to take in my surroundings. Shanghai is very different from Japan. Shanghai was very dirty. People (men) spit on the ground. Bathrooms are difficult to find and very dirty. You are fortunate to find toilet paper to wipe with in these bathrooms. It's good to carry stuff with you all the time. Japan is a very polite society and the manners in China are quite different. It's "every man for themself". "Get out of my way!". I found myself in Japan excusing myself if I bumped someone or stepping aside for someone else. Then, in China, no one steps aside for anyone. They were bumping me all the time. Then, this Big Chinese Girl from Canada raised on steroid, hormone injected meat, decided to stand strong and then anyone who bumped me would bounce off of me. I decided I would not move for anyone!!! The Shanghai spirit took over and I got back to my Chinese roots! The old aggressive Rachel was back!!!

The traffic is extremely different. In Japan, pedestrians have the right of way and in Shanghai, the traffic will cut you off, even if you have a green light to cross. A car will squish his way through. There are bicycles, scooter, and motorbikes on the sidewalks. I've noticed with traffic that if someone wants to pass another car, they will honk at you to let them in. In a weird way, amongst this chaos there is a system of traffic rules. People will actually let them in! Amazing! Now I know why they are bad drivers in Canada. Because they have different aggressive rules that they bring with them here. They are actually good drivers in China. Now I understand!

I know there is a God too!!! Intersections are filled with cars going all different directions and coming very close to hitting each other and yet no one hits and they come so close. Amongst this chaos there are no accidents. That, my friends, is a miracle! An act of God!!!! A huge example that we have a God!!! I should have seen an accident or someone get hurt! But, I didn't!

Anyways, after the gardens, Eway and I take a cab to go downtown to the river to look at the view of the Pink Pearl tower. We waited as the sun set to see this section of the city to light up. We got impatient and left. We found this tunnel exhibit with 4 different shows. It was cheap and something to do. Each exhibit was about 10-15 minutes long.

The first was a light show. It was a glass car that takes you into a tunnel with lots of lights with a couple of balloon people in the tunnel. The second, was an underwater exhibit. This consisted of various aquarium tanks with animals. Not too exotic. The third, was a sound exhibit with us sitting in a medieval-ish decorated room. We sat with earphones (I'm not sure if I wanted to put them on my head! Yuck!) and they turned the lights off. They tried to make it scary, but I couldn't understand any of the whispering. It was all in Mandarin. Eway was really scared. We were holding each others' hands the whole time! The 4th and last exhibit was a sex exhibit. It was supposed to be about sex in China five thousand years ago. They showed old scrolls of nude people and sex poses. I just think it was some of the earliest recordings of pornography that they found!

I was really tired when we finished this whole exhibition thing. It was about 9 or 9:30pm. Eway's parents were both playing MaJong until midnight or later and were not ready to pick us up yet. I was so tired I just wanted to go home. I didn't care how much a taxi cost at this point. It ended up about $10 Canadian to go home.

Eway was also tired. I couldn't shower because my stuff was in the Eway's dad's car still. Eway had a snack before crashing. She's addicted to these packaged Duck wings and feet. She's such a poser!!!

After the snacks, Eway went to bed. I just laid on my bed and fell asleep. I woke up at about 3 am., when Eway's parents got home with my stuff. I got changed and went into bed!