Sensory Overload in Qi Pu Market

(written for a school blog, so a little wordier than usual).

No longer content with Cloud Nine mall’s conservative clothing (love its restaurants though), and eager for an authentic Shanghai shopping experience, I called up JiaoTong student Rose Hwang on Saturday and asked her where I could go to find a bazaar that would meet my simple demands. She suggested I pay a visit to Qi Pu Fu Zuang Shi Chang. (Qi Pu clothing market). Intrigued, I brought Connor “Foreign” Foran with me and took the metro to East Nanjing Road, then cabbed it from there.

This Qi Pu Fu Zuang Shi Chang is a multi-floored market inside a giant, dusty as hell building. It looked quite old and has yet to see a building inspection this century. From the outside its hard to tell what the market has to offer. We walked in and saw an endless maze of stalls and vendors. There were hundreds of shops on each floor, well over a thousand in total. It was tightly packed with no air flow, basically the largest fire hazard in all of shanghai (yes people were smoking inside, right next to highly flammable cardboard box shreddings and old receipts no one botherd to dispose of). Risking our lives and holding our belongings with a tiger grip, we ventured deeper into the chaotic shopping scene, bracing ourselves for all kinds of crazy we might run into.

Vendors sold their flashy D&G shoes, fancy hipster t-shirts and sunglasses, knock off bags, jeans, skirts, fake watches… it was all so much to take in. And thanks to Mr. Foreign’s presence, the store owners were chasing us in droves shouting in English, “COME TO MY STORE WE HAVE EVERYTHING YOU WANT! SUNGLASSES? GUCCI? JEANS? T-SHIRTS?” We were dragged, grabbed, beckoned, heckled, and tossed around. Certain vendors wouldn’t take no for an answer and stalked us from floor to floor. We were creeped out at first and feared for the worst, but finally took a look at what they had to offer (which of course was the same shit that everyone else had).

I picked up a couple t-shirts, including one of Doremon, whom local student Courdy concluded would be a fitting moniker for me for the duration of this semester, and one of a baby wolf from Jolly Sheep and Big Big Wolf(the cartoon our Chinese teacher said her 3 year old niece watches obsessively, though not a single student in our class could understand a word of it, despite a median age of 20).



mah shirts...

Connor Foreign took interest in a pair of really nice sneakers, and the salesman hastily threw them into a bag to hand to him. Connor opened the bag and upon further inspection realized the two sneakers were not of the same pair and in fact a half size apart, but they still fit anyway and for less than 200 kuai he decided it was a good deal. We walked out satisfied with our purchases and left the Qi Pu bazaar in high spirits, ready to leave behind the noise, the bargaining, the harassment, the stuffiness, the misspelled English printed on shirts, and everything else in between.



connor "wai guo ren's" shoes, size 11 and 12 respectively!

Shanghai!!!

I've settled into Shanghai for about two weeks now, but (for the 2.5 people who read this) blogs, facebook, photo sharing sites, and youtube have all been blocked in china. oh xinjiang province uprisings! (not to mention the recent 20th anniversary of tiananmen sq. and 60th anniversary of the founding of the communist party.. or something of that sort)

anyhoo, Shanghai has been fantastic and so different from anywhere I've been to in the past. living in china off of American $$ makes for very easy living! for the same price as a tiny room and airplane sized bathroom in london, I get a three bedroom, two bathroom, full kitchen, living room, etc etc

the food here is great (they even have schwarma reminiscent of the London late night delicacy sort), the women are incredibly fashionable thin and tall (and pale because its beautiful to be sickly white in this half of the world), and public transport is convenient and clean. Korean BBQ and hotpot, once saved for celebrations in new york, have become nightly outings for us.

its still difficult to load photos but i'll add them soon hopefully. so far, so good!

More Summer

2:00 AM. and im hungryyy... so im posting pics of some of the better meals ive consumed the summer. not an accurate representation of my regulary eating habit... which is mcdonalds, subway, takeout and iced coffee. ah, the life of a student!

BBQ from the middle of summer. yum!

mac and cheese from s'mac! great specialty eatery in east vil. the place only serves mac and cheese!

chicken and waffles in harlem! this was from sylvia's, but i daresay ive had better at Amy Ruth's also in harlem. people think its so bizzare to eat fried chicken and waffles together, but it makes perfect sense to me. hot sauce on the chicken, syrup on the waffles.. wash it all down with sweet tea =). its an artery clogger on a platter but as with all good things in life, i wouldnt have it any other way

Fellow globe trekker Stef in front of a restaurant in chinatown. we are preparing our senses for shanghai! looks like it'll take her a while to embrace entire fowl hanging in window fronts. if you've every had the duck though, you'd know its pretty good and worth dangling in everyone's faces

and algae from central park? nah we werent that desperate, though algae has become the new "it" source for biofuel this past summer. im really excited to see what scientists and startups can make of it in the coming years. energy independence by 2020?

Much belated New York Post

so i've been in and out of nyc for the past.. 11 weeks now? i've been busy doing everything, nothing, and not posting on this blog. so heres some fun from new york

view from the pier at hudson river park. wonderful weather (rare for this summer...)



gina and i clearly know how to pick the most popular films in new york...

the queue, waiting in line for some chicken n rice at midnight.

chicken and rice the most delicious stand in new york!

requisite shot of times square at night. really sharp picture thanks to nikon s560 camera!

Last of London!!

Last bits of fun from London! It was a great experience (at times too cloudy, rainy, and i-have-too-much-free-time-should- have-volunteered for my taste), but I made a group of great friends, many of whom will travel to Shanghai with me in the fall.

I was also fortunate enough to meet some wonderful Brits that completely changed my perspective on life, camaraderie, indoor picnics, and everything in between. As expected my GPA took a pretty bad hit but I got to explore much of London and Europe so it was definitely worth it!

Regent's Park! It was pretty impressive, one of the larger parks in and included a man-made lake, which is perfect for...

Boating with your new bffs & favorite student life advisor! As usual, the guys had to do all the work

...though this was not the case in some other boats.

The park also had some really impressive gardens. Glad I got to see London in full bloom

Next: Camden Town, where the young, hip, and rebellious gather for tattoos, piercings, and a heck of a lot of sodium-saturated Asian food.
also a great deal of souvenir shopping can be done in the area. After a semester of "souvenir shopping" throughout Europe, I've learned its pretty much a euphemism the girls like to use for jewelery shopping
me on Millennium Bridge on a sunny day
One last shot of London's icon, Big Ben! my parents wanted me to bring back a box of cookies that were unmistakably from London. I got two boxes; one was a double decker red bus with chocolates, and another of Big Ben and Buckingham Palace photos engraved on the top.

and thus concludes my semester in London :-) i'm anxious to go back and see what London is like during the summer, I'm sure it's incredible... and warm... and fun. Hopefully i'll find out sometime in the near future!

St. Paul's at night

around late april (so a month ago really) a couple of us headed to Shakespeare's Theatre to see Romeo and Juliet. we experienced it as the Londoners would have hundreds of years ago; this meant there were no seats and we stood for three hours! it was pretty intense and despite the decorative stage and interesting play, i couldnt pay attention and only thought about how much my legs hurt.

but on a higher note, when i left the show at 11 PM this is the view i was rewarded with. St Paul's lit up glowing against the Thames River.

Madrid

Madrid was the last stop for my 2009 eurotrip. i was completely exhausted by the time i got to the city: too much partying in barcelona, combined with the growing fear of not completing a deathly presentation for management class soon due put me in a pretty bad state of mind upon arriving in madrid. on top of that i lost my phone somewhere between barcelona and madrid (i seriously still have no idea what happened to it) which meant i wouldnt be able to roam around on my own like i had done in some of the other cities. but despite all this, i really did enjoy Madrid and will definitely go back in the future. now some pictures!

a TERRIBLE way to start things off... and by no means related to madrid at all... butttttt lindsay lohan found a way to make quick cash by modeling for fornarina! everyone's favorite former it-girl actress turned uninsurable, unreliable, unhealthy party animal still looks pretty good and fits right into the Calle de Fuencarral scene, a street full of boutique and apparel stores.

Palacio Real. we didnt want to pay the admission fee to go in, so this is the closest we could get. it was situated on a hill overlooking the city, and im sure during sunny days the view would be splendid.

puerto del sol. a statue of the bear climbing a madrono tree, the symbol of madrid. this was where our free tour should have met, had it not been shut down by other tour groups that charged dinero from las touristas. apparently the free tour impacted their revenues so much that they filed a joint complaint and suspended the free tours. we were lucky enough to run into a former tour guide that led the free tours, and he drew circled all the important stuff to see a map.

unfortunately, we didnt know the names of any of the sites we saw on this self guided tour. this was the view from a bridge in madrid...

getting up close and personal with a statue!

a lot of massive and decorative fountains are placed in the middle of major intersections in madrid, forcing traffic around it.


El Retiro park! and some temporary art pieces hangin around in the rain.

people selling flamenco and Toreador posters outside the Reina Sofia museum. at some stores you could get the poster customized with your name printed on it. i would have purchased one but there really was no room for it in our luggage. each time we flew, the airline's allowances for luggage weight kept dropping (somewhere around 23kg for British airways... down to 15 kg for ryanair!)
a garden by the Palacio Real. the rain gave it a very dramatic look.

some other highlights from madrid:
bocadillo de calamares: calamari sandwiches. i hate seafood but i actually did enjoy the calamari
tapas: we were surprised at how big the portions were for dinner. everything was super heavy and greasy though. sausage, mushrooms... everything was drenched in sauce
el prado: it was free for two hours before closing when we went. my friend and i ran through the entire museum to see everything. its a terrible way to view art but i did stop at velazquez's section to see his work though the explanation was all in spanish and far beyond anything i could make sense of.

Barcelona!!

We finally made it to Espana! i was looking forward to this the most, porque he estudiado espanol para seis anos en high school. i printed out 30+ pages of vocab, grammar, phrases and touched up on my spanish during the previous train rides and flights. turns out a lot of people speak english in barcelona... too bad...

anyhoo barcelona is a playground for the senses. everything looks great- the city is clean and green, lined with trees everywhere. there are so many fountains all over in plazas and near important buildings. and of course gaudi left his mark in barcelona.

the chicken paella was delicious! paired with a good sangria... mmmm
we lived right off of las ramblas, a famous street of performers, parakeet and other pet shops, and lots of pickpockets. fun fun!

las ramblas during the day. its a lil' sketch at night, swarming with prostitutes and undercover cops.
statue looking person. some of the other people looked rather terrifying

entrance to miro's park. we ultimately took a hop-on-hop-off bus tour of barcelona. i used to think it was for old people who were afraid of getting lost and having fun finding their way around... but bus tours are extremely useful especially for cities that are huge.
la sagrada familia! its enormous and something only gaudi could have come up with
still incomplete, but beautiful. cant wait till its completed, but these sorts of projects never make the expected deadlines.. i think its 2020 or sometime close to that.
parc guell, really crazy decorations and design. the girls spent a lot of time here, buying jewelery from numerous vendors. and yes i picked up something too =]
gherkin in barcelona? no.. its the torre agbar!


Casa Battlo. Didnt get a chance to go inside, but quite stunning from the street.
parrots flying around in parc miro
La Pedrera, another one of Gaudi's masterpieces.
and of course the beach, Barceloneta. it was rather chilly so we didnt get to go in the water, but still had a neat little picnic on the beach.