Old Shanghai

History Lesson Time:  When Shanghai was carved up by foreign powers way back when, one part of the central city (the first part to be settled) remained under Chinese law and administration.  These old back alleys eventually became notorious as a gangster- and opium-filled slum, and today the narrow meandering lanes and tiny pre-1949 houses are still standing.  The Old City seems to be the one part of Shanghai's metropolitan hodgepodge that conforms to romantic ideas of what China should look like.

Though the present buildings only go back for 150 years, the Confucius Temple is the most ancient site in the entire city center.  A temple was instituted here in 1294, probably when Shanghai was just a small fishing village.  My first challenge of the day was to try to find where to buy a ticket.  There wasn't a soul in sight, but a sign said "Do not enter without ticket", and I'm not exactly one to break the rules.  Finally, I found the ticket "hole" in the wall around the corner:

And with my 8 yuan ticket (about $1) in hand, I legally entered.  It was beautiful, and I practically had the place all to myself.

This rock is called "Cries of Dragons and Tigers".  According to the sign, the upper side of the stone looks like the deafening crying dragons and tigers, and the part near the water looks like dragons whispering.  Can you see it?

Exiting the temple, I started walking down the old city alleyways.  A common site were pet cages along the sidewalk, and these kitties looked utterly content.

But this one looked like it just had a bath and was pissed about it.

I almost missed the turn that the tour book noted because it was covered in laundry.  I though maybe that was on purpose (they had to get tired of tourists peering in their windows)...

But then I saw that there was pretty much laundry everywhere.

On an overpass going through the Old City, you get a glimpse of the old rooftops...

...overshadowed by towering high rise apartments.

Among the alleyways were small crowded rooms of people gathered playing mahjong.  It's that chinese game with tiles, sort of like gin rummy, but with major gambling.  I asked with a smile to take a picture of the inside, but the glares I got were so intense (the evil eye is the same in every language), that I quickly moved away and just took a picture of the outside.

Having had enough culture for one day, my tour ended at the perfect place - Din Tai Fun (an awesome chain dumpling place) followed by Dairy Queen and shopping for cheap tourist crap.  Shanghai fun!

Shanghai Blues

I was finally able to go to China to test my Mandarin skills!  David and I took a trip to Shanghai, the city which "If New York is the city that never sleeps, Shanghai is the city that never sits down."  I asked a friend what her advice was on what to do there, and she said, "Are you kidding?  Shop!"  I did do some shopping, but  mostly I just tried to cram in as much of the city as possible.  [Note:  If all my pictures look gray and hazy, it's because Shanghai is gray and hazy.  All the time.]

First stop?  Yu Yuan Garden.  Described in the guide book as "pleasant enough", this garden was built in 1559 by a local official for his father.  It's a maze of pavilions, rockeries, bridges and goldfish ponds.  Occupied and ransacked by the British during the First Opium War (1839), it continues to be in danger from raging hoards of local tourists.

But angle the camera right and it looks peaceful.  Below is the Jian Ru Jia Jing, or, The Corridor for Approaching the Best Scenery (that's really what it means).

This gingko tree is over four centuries old.

Being from Minnesota, I chose the Hall of Mildness...

A lot of the paths were Reflexology paths, meaning you were supposed to walk on them barefoot and give your feet a good massage.  Given the Shanghai penchant for spitting everywhere, I kept my shoes on.

At one of our last stops, our guide stopped us and said she was going to give us a test.  I immediately got nervous.  "Of these three rocks, which one is the most beautiful?"  I took a wild guess and answered the middle one, simply because it was in the middle.  "Correct!"  she said, and I felt smug, though I had absolutely no reason to, I had just chosen C on the multiple choice quiz.  Apparently there are different elements that make a rock beautiful, not that I can remember what any of them were.  All I remember is that I got the answer right.

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Shanghai is also known for it's silks, so next stop was a silk factory.  I knew silk was made from, well, silk worms, but I really had no idea how.  First step?  The worms make cocoons, which are made of one long string of silk thread.  But if they let the worms turn into moths and break out of the cocoon, then the silk isn't one long thread anymore, and it's no good.  So they kill the worms in right before they break out by baking them.  A little disturbing, but the worms probably don't feel anything, right?  Right?

A single cocoon has 1000-1200 meters of silk thread!  They have to find the end first, but they do that easy enough with a big brush.

It's too thin to make a single thread, so generally they use eight to make a full silk thread.  You can use more, the more threads the more expensive the silk.

After that the silk is dyed and woven just like any other fabric.  As with any tourist place, you have to go through a shop before leaving anywhere.  I did splurg and bought two silk pillowcases, but I'm afraid to use them because I know David will drool on them.

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The city of Shanghai is split by the Huang Pu River.  On one side is the older part of the city, where we were, and on the other is New Shanghai.

Since there's not much to do on the other side (it's mostly corporate offices), this is the closest I got.

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Next time, the Shanghai Old City, or Confucius Say:  Everything Has Beauty, But Not Everyone Sees It.

Mount Kinabalu 2010 - The Aftermath

After replenishing ourselves with peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and franks and beans, we didn't rest long at base camp before packing up and starting to head down the mountain.

The first hour was great!

The second hour was tedious.

The third hour was excruciating.

I thought it would just fly by - since it took us four hours to get up to base camp, it had to be twice as fast on the way down, right?  But like Everest, the descent is the most dangerous part.  Your legs are tired, your knees are stiff, it's slippery from the rain and cloud mists, so if you stumble and fall here you could find yourself tumbling down about a hundred steps.  Then they call in the helicopter to get you down, and as tired as I was, I would rather walk.

Finally finally finally, we reached the bottom!

(Check out our guide's calves - they're huge!  Also note that he did the whole thing in Crocs.)

We collected our "congratulations, you officially made it to the summit" color certificates (if you didn't make it all the way to the top, you only get black-and-white "nice try" certificates).  We made it back to the hotel just in time for our 90-minute hot stone massages.  Afterward, a fight broke out between David and I when he suggested that we dress up and go to the Indian restaurant at the hotel.  After over ten hours of climbing and descending, there was no way I was going to be talked out of sitting on the hotel bed in my bathrobe, watching bad cable TV, and falling asleep with a a huge cheeseburger and beer in my stomach.  I didn't care if that was boring, it was the only thing I had the energy for.

The next morning, my legs were really really really sore.  Like, I'm-not-sure-I-can-make-it-to-the-bathroom sore.  We hobbled down to breakfast, with the staff giggling at us and saying, "Oh, you must have climbed the mountain!"

As our last Borneo treat, we went scuba diving.  Though there weren't a lot of fish to see, the swim felt pretty good on our legs and the scenery was spectacular.

Thus ends Borneo Part Two.  And even though I couldn't walk right for days, I'd go back there again in a second.  To the beach I mean.  Not the mountain, are you kidding me?

Mount Kinabalu 2010 - Via Ferrata

Our to-climb-or-not-to-climb argument reached its climax when I finally found out what a "via ferrata" was.  David had described it as "like a ladder" going down, "with steps and things".  Then I saw the video.  Harnessed in, you crawl over cliffs and balance over wire tightropes, all with hundred foot drops in the background.  "Are you kidding me?" I asked, "I'm not doing that, I'm afraid of heights!"  "How are you afraid of heights, we used to go rock climbing."  "I only did that because I wanted you to like me."  I'm not so much afraid of heights, but they make me dizzy and nauseous, and then I picture myself losing my balance and toppling over, plunging to an undignified death.  So I just really try to avoid that feeling.  "The Highest Via Ferrata In The World!"  all the posters boasted throughout the base camp.  David had failed to mention this, too.

I also found out that morning that this ropes course thing doesn't take us to the bottom of the mountain, it just takes you back to base camp.  The long way around.  I'm doing this for David, I reminded myself.

That first step is a doozy.

David kept saying "Wow, look at the view!  Look down!"  I just responded with "No thank you", and climbed on, staring only at the rock in front of me.  Here was my view:

Or up, sometimes I looked up.

It was a moment like this when one of Jerry Seinfeld's bits comes to mind.  "Another great activity where your main goal is to... not die."

"Don't die, don't die don't die don't die, there's a tree there's a rock who cares don't die..."

Rest stop!  Starting to strip down the layers, it's getting warmer...

Notice David hanging out comfortably, and me clinging to the wall.

The last small hurdle was a balance beam.  Not a problem after the tightrope walking.

Almost there!

Another hour or so and we were back for our "western-style" Second Breakfast at base camp.  Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, this time with the addition of franks and beans.  What do these people think Westerners eat?  Though I've learned that a Western-style breakfast to Asians pretty much means "not noodles".

Next - Am I Doing Permanent Damage To My Knees?  Otherwise known as the final descent.