DATELINE:SHANGHAI - China's Modern Metropolis

It is currently Sunday night, here’s the recap of the past two days. Saturday, June 28 We awoke at our hotel in Guilin, 2nd day there. Hopped in the bus (a little late!) and motored down to the riverboat tour, Li River – a 4-hour tour (no Gilligan’s Island Jokes please). The boat ride was quite pleasant, very mellow. It was a dinner vessel, not what you’d call fancy of course – they managed to squeeze a good few tour groups per boat, dining hall downstairs and observation deck (open air) upstairs. The weather was considerate, neither rainy nor hot and humid – it was just right, helped on by the breeze. Fortunately not excessively mosquito-y either (though my feet did get a good bit chomped up). We loaded up, sat downstairs for a spot of the tea, then as the tour began we moved upstairs to enjoy the air and the view. Not too too much to look at (more of the same – just a lot of bizarre hill formations and things, which seem to be the main draw) but what there was, was fine. I still do appreciate the surreal landscape – it was nice, and relaxing, though it was nice once the boat ride ended and we got back to land since there was a bit of that waiting feeling sort of permeating the whole thing. For me, the highlight was the “hookers” that would be in the water (no, not those kind of hookers!) on little bamboo rafts, or whatever.. as the tour boats passed by, they’d ride up alongside and literally hook right up to our boat, then the two riders would climb up to the very-thin outer edge of the boat and knock on the windows to get passenger attention and hawk their wares (the usual merch.. little statues of fisherman, lowgrade jewelry boxes, et cetera). It might not sound like much on paper, but it was something to see – those guys are nuts! They’d do their business, then dispatch and head to the next vessel. Their little raft would be tiny (maybe less than 20 feet long, and 4 feet across – and looking like it was always nearly about to collapse and fall in the water anyway, their feet would always be under the water). Nuts, I tell ya.
The ship’s crew would cook our meal at the back of the boat (outside), and after eating and the ride wrapped up, we sleepily exited into the Guilin town of Yangshou (pronounced “yahn-soo”) to check into our next hotel. We walked through a whole downtown tourist district, which was as happening as any we’d seen before (in other words, quite!) to get to the hotel. Checked in, we unloaded our crap, then as my girlfriend passed out I headed back to town (I saw a little local pizza place there, and being a little homesick for American-style grub I couldn’t resist!) They were playing some really chill, mellow music and there was a nice seat right on the sidewalk (AND they were serving some good looking selection of liquors to boot) so I said thanks very much and sat down with my book and ate some ‘za and watched the crowd for a few hours. It was really nice, really relaxing! After a couple of hours of that, and being harassed by the occasional local merchants (no thanks = “boo-ya”) I headed back to the hotel for some dinner (as usual, no big deal) and plans to go out and see what the local flavor enjoy for their Saturday night. Well, I kinda passed out hard on the pillow after my dinner, and we had to be up early the next day for our flight to Shanghai..
That brings us to today. We got up after 6am, shower and etc – something was leaking in the bathroom so as the water ran it got smellier (ewwww) so we kinda hustled. The bus dropped us off at the Guilin Airport, we boarded and flew to Shanghai. Ate lunch on the plane (some beef w/ rice, a couple of veggies, a piece of bread, some warm soda). Disembarked off the plane, walked outside to our waiting bus – we walked by a McD’s, my heart sang (in a gross way, I suppose) but there was no time to sidetrack so we boarded the bus and began our new phase of the journey.. yes, again.
We got over to the Shanghai Ancient History museum, to hang out for a couple of hours, check out the exhibits. Place was packed, mid-day – we waited a good 20 minutes to get in, they ran every entrant thru a metal detector (like entering an airport!) even made us through away liquids. Whatever.. anyway it was pretty hot and gross outside, so it was nice to get in there. But honestly the museum didn’t do much for me, particularly at this point in the trip. I can be a bit of a museum nerd, under certain conditions (well, almost never, I suppose) but the ancient history, while interesting, is not something I care much for browsing in person – I’m happy enough to read about it and scan some images, old-ass vases just get extremely redundant to me. Yeah, I know I sound like an uncultured Philistine (there’s irony in there, see?) but to be fair I did well as an art history (minor) student, I just have my preferences and this period doesn’t do much for me. It’s repetitive. It’s repetitive. Ancient history is repetitive. We looked at some interesting calligraphy and older Chinese brushwork thru the different dynasties, of course that’s way newer than the ancient vases and pots/pans/etc – again, this stuff doesn’t do much for me either. The modern world considers it to be fairly elegant and classy, I suppose, but for me – it’s alright, a lot of it looks rushed and unfinished and redundant. Once in awhile you’ll find a piece that is brilliant with detail, with rhythm, and I can’t argue with that for a second. But a lot of it just feels simple and cluttery. Hey, I am allowed to have an opinion! My impressions are that of a spoiled modern-day student, with exposure to several periods and a hugely vast vantage point. Then again, what I’d call “Art” which comes outta me, most would consider some kind of trendy lackluster boring prostitution. This is another discussion for another time, probably.
We left the museum, ate another dinner (started out alright, got kinda gross) and walked over to a huge shopping area, Nanjing Road. Kind of like the 3rd Street Promenade or Newbury Street of Shanghai, sorrrrt of. Lots of malls and overpriced boutiques and all sorts of crap… lots of cute girls. Didn’t get to hang out too much, but it had a little of that Harajuku feel, I guess, is the closest way to describe it. After this, we caught another theater show, the final of the trip – we were all a little burned out on these by now, but whatever, it’s Shanghai, let’s indulge them I suppose (though I think many of us would have been happy enough to lounge around the shopping district and enjoy the local flavor instead). The “acrobat show” did turn out to be worthwhile after all, they truly threw in “everything but the kitchen sink…” It was remarkable, I wish I could have got some pictures for posterity. We had more of the “folding people” we’d seen the night before (the folks who could contort their bodies into outrageous positions, while balancing atop one another) – then a bunch of fellows dressed in suits and top hats doing crazy juggling/catching stunts.. a couple of body builders doing wild feats of strength and balance – girls spinning plates on poles, while moving around an climbing one another – girls balancing and climbing while bicycle riding – a magician (with birds, sword-through-the-box, sleight-of-hand, etc) – a cheesy laser light show to techno music, and then the finale was one of those giant caged domes with 5 motorcycle stunt riders careening around inside the small enclosed area. Yeah, it was pretty impressive!
After this our group retired to the hotel, a few of us young’uns were itching to investigate the night life of this crazy city however. We got a tip from the concierge to solicit the Xin Tian Di district, hopped in a cab, and then walked around, eventually we followed a German dude who was in turn being led into a disco by some slutty looking Asian chicks on his arm (yeah, very wholesome, I know, what d’ya want). But it worked, we found a cool little spot, the music was booming and the layout of the place was pretty neat. It looked kind of like a lair from Tron or something, very angular and heavy on the shiny black plastic/bright neon panels. It was rather early, on a Sunday night, so not very wild inside, but there was definitely some energy and a couple of maniacs on the dance floor. We had a round of drinks and I got to exert some energy (yeah, I actually had some left!) and did my usual routine, it had been awhile and it felt good to let loose. The drinks were quite expensive, it was fortunate that I was the only boozer in the crew otherwise it would have been damaging on my wallet! Anyway half of our crowd was quite young and not used to such atmosphere, and everybody was generally quite beat from the trip at large, so we just hung out for a spell and then cabbed back home to our hotel for some shuteye. I was happy to find another club right here in our hotel, though the music booming out of it was quite large and invigorating, the interior was the biggest of no-no’s (that is, utterly dead) so I immediately turned around, marched upstairs and passed out in bed, next to my sweetheart.