So it happened that the ash cloud entered my universe as well. I suppose with my travel dates, it was inevitable. My Easyjet from Lisbon to Rome was cancelled, preventing me from leaving the work city and entering the holiday destination. I have booked another flight though, so hopefully when this entry uploads to Finnworld, I am already flying over the Mediterranean and on my way to Italy.

And here I am still, in the land of endless fruit salads. Ok, I think I am going to start this post by talking about the ash cloud a little: You never think it’s going to hit you, and yet when it does, all you care is a) money and b) that you are stranded alone with no cool people around. Yes I’m happy my colleagues, all 44 or so of them got out. But why was it me left behind??? What I did immediately when I woke up to the realisation that *my* flight was canceled, I booked another one. Also on another airline, because the cheap flight companies are not willing to fly around the cloud. I am putting my pennies to Star Alliance and TAP Porgugese Airline and hoping it will fly… Around.

Then I changed my orginal flight to Tuesday, in case tomorrow fails. Afterwards I decided to see some Lisbon – fairly enough, I had never really been there on daylight. So I took the train to town, which is easy and very punctual. After that I walked around – it was a nice day, not full-on sun, but I managed to burn my nose anyways. One thing that all travellers should keep in mind: Pashminas save lives. I got mine from my mother-in-law and it is the best thing ever. Why? Because it can do the following: a) Keep you safe from sun (Islamic-style – the plus side is that if you wear a scarf around your head, they think you are a muslim and they really do not mess around with you, I mean not even TAT sellers!), b) it covers you from wind – good if you have a sore throat, c) it covers you for religious purpose – try to get to Vatican without shoulders covered!, d) it IS a blanket! It’s truly BIG and warm and still cool at the same time. I do not even think of travelling without a pashmina, they are that great!

Ok, so, I decided to check the castle. At first I was not impressed. You have to remember that I’ve been to some kick-arse castles in my time, specially the one in Shimabara. But this one DID have its characteristics. Yes, it was quite dull and towery, but there was plenty of it (not like castles in Finland which you can see in 10 minutes) and I spent two hours there. There’s plently of layers, and for some reason, plenty of cats and peacocks. Latter of which ‘MEOW’ loudly, in a way that you think it’s the cats, but realise that it’s some muppet tourists hazzling around the peacock not leaving it alone… Ok, fair enough I was one of those and it did give me the full closure of spread end… Fairly enough, that’s the most of arse I’ve seen in weeks… Do not pay attention to the writer’s twisted mind…

Anyways, lots of cats. Photogenic. And towers, and camera obscura to show the harbor. I thought they had been clever for their time. I finally disturbed a Portugese granny and bought one of the traditional creme brulee cakes with a cappuchino on my way out, stopping to eat it with an ecquisite vista. To be fair, I am stuck in Lisbon – which is gorgeous as hell. I should be ashamed of wanting to leave so badly. But to be honest, the only thing I want right now is to be with my family or with my husband. The first of which is still in Finland and the latter which is in Copenhagen. They might move closer tomorrow – my husband is due to fly back to London and my family is due to fly to Rome. Which ever I’ll reach first, that’s where my heart is. It’s difficult to enjoy something like Lisbon, when you know you did not plan this, but I managed anyways, so I am happy. The castle reminded me of the castle site in Sendai weirdly, as the park around it on the hill was quite similar. Something close to my heart from far, far, away.

When I got out of the castle eventually, I decided to walk around. Everyone is already preparing for the Pope’s visit in two days and there was a parade which closed some streets. It was also Sunday, which mean that only a limited amount of shops were open. Weirdly, United COlors of Benetton was open. I tried on some tops and a dress, but they were not right, so I dumped them. It’s amazing how this particular brand has never pleased me. Not even now. When I was leaving and got to the street to get to the big shopping centre – I met the Elephant man. I am NOT kidding. I jumped from the pavement without a controlled reaction. This was a man, trying to cover his head, with large, 30cm lumps of red big skin and fat falling off the side of his head. Truly I am amazed even now. Of the fact that I could not control my sense of jump and how I felt awful after it had happened. This is Lisbon – everything is possible.

Attack of Benedictus had hit the streets pretty bad at that point already so I decided to take the train home and try to get some sleep. Of course this meant that I was half the night online and trying to update my websites and so on. Tomorrow – hoping to get to ROme! Wish me luck with my TAP Portugese Airline!

Oh, I have to mention that I dined in Hotel Londres (14,9euros including a bottle of wine and water plus three courses) and I was there with Swedish grandmothers mainly. Of all the people in the world! Why am I surrounded by these swedes???

COuld be worse – the rooms in Hotel Londres Estoril are 66eur/night and the internet is free in the lobby. Which is three steps from my room door. YEs, I have to dine with Swedish elderly ladies, but it’s a relatively small price to pay. It really is.

Our last full day on the trip started out with a metro trip up to the 51^st street and Rockerfeller centre. 30 Rock of course is the home of NBC studios, which meant that finally my dreams came through with the perfect gift shop filled with by-products to all the NBC shows. There was a line of Nerf Herd hooties and Buy More mugs, House candy in the shape of brains and of course the fantastic line of t-shirts from Battlestar Galactica. And this was just the shows of my interest. There was course loads of stuff from Heroes, The Office and whatnot, but I was trying to keep it minimal… Somehow I still managed to spend 220dollars in this shop. The cashier man looked at me and said: Looks like you are buying for the whole of Finland…

In front of the Rockerfeller plaza, there is an ice rink – apparently one of at least three that exist in Manhattan. They clearly like the idea of skating. We walked down 5^th avenue, until we got to Grand Central Station, where we had lunch in an American diner type of place in the food hall basement. I then stalked some people at the main level of the impressive station. Behind the central station stands the Chrystler building, which was the tallest building of Manhattan for like two months until Emprire State Building rose above it. Both of them look pretty similar in style, so it’s not difficult to see they were built in the same era. Tall buildings are of course currently very unpopular ever since 9-11. Even in San Francisco, it so happened that no one wanted to work or live in tall buildings any more, so they are just sitting by.

Our 5^th avenue quest took us to the Emprire State building next, outside of which someone tried to sell the tickets with 47dollars instead of 20dollars that they actually cost inside. He said we’d get through the line – which apparently is 30-45minutes. We decided to take our chances inside and found out that this was a total sham, there was almost no one there. We walked through all the empty waiting areas, clearly this been at some point, a very popular stop for tourists… Could the effects of terrorism still be affecting the tourism at this extent? We saw the city from the 86^th floor and took appropriate pictures. The life makes your ears pop of course, but besides this – it wasn’t a particularly exciting journey. Even the tat shop couldn’t allure our money – We are starting to be ready to go home.

Walking downtown took us to Union Square, where we were originally going to search for the Forbidden Planet. Of course with the NBC shopping in our bags, this turned out to be a window tour of the shop which to be fair enough, didn’t exactly offer anything that I would have particularly wanted at this point. However the window display was worth a visit anyways. They had two people in it dressed as a zombie and victim with huge amounts of fake blood and guts. I suppose must beat a job of cleaning somebody’s toilet.

As sun was setting and we were back at Canal Street station, I let my husband go to our hotel to fiddle with the interwebs while I took my chances with Manhattan bridge city view photography. Perhaps it’s needless to say, but this part of downtown in particular is not what you would call ‘okay to walk alone at night’. And specially if you are a) woman and b) carrying a big camera. By this point of our trip, we haven’t experienced any muggings, robbery or pick pocketing. I doubt this has been an accident. There has been series of precautions done to assure the security of us and our stuff. Just to list some:

1. I don’t carry a camera bag. That’s a clear sign of ‘I have something valuable – please mugg me.’ Instead I have a ‘girly flower bag’, which in no way lets on that what’s inside is more than 2000euros of goods.

2. I carry my money, my passport, my tickets and other valuables like room keys or metro tickets – only in a small bag which is most of the time underneath my clothes, impossible to get to without me noticing someone fiddling with me.

3. We’ve used the hotel safes when accessible

4. I’ve got a copy of my passport and travel documents in my gmail account, just in case I’d loose it.

5. I don’t look people into their eyes on the streets of big cities.

6. I try to walk like I know where I am going, trying not to flash out a big map on an area with very little tourists.

7. Use ‘Mr. carrier bags’ (locals walking on the area) to walk after, if walking in the dark. This means that you should always have a native to follow, specially if you don’t know them. Pick one that looks like they know what they are doing.

8. Take pictures of your belongings in the hotel rooms – and hide them to the suitcase when you are out.

9. Do not stop to talk to the homeless. Do not pass money, but more importantly, ignore them so they don’t have a case against you. If they get you talking, you’ve already lost.

10. No victim behavior – if they can see you are afraid, you are an easy target. No reading of books or listening to iPods. Those will make them come after you.

There is just a few examples on how to deal with New York, but also the world in general. Might sound like overly protective antisocial way of looking at it, but I have decided to leave my gullible Finnish me home and expect the worst. Plus – it worked to the extent that no one mugged me, robbed me, pick pocketed me…

In the evening we saw one of our friends for a lovely Chinese in a place where we had gone previously on Sunday. He’s a real New Yorker and reminded me just how much the city was disturbed by the 9-11. It’s a blow that the whole western world felt, but of course it was never for us like it was for those who actually lived in the cloud of ash, saw people falling through the air or tried desperately call out for the loved ones through phone lines that were just completely shut. We didn’t go to Ground Zero, but I saw it from the Empire State Building Observation terrace. A spot on Manhattan which is considerably more low built than any other. For a sparkle of a second, you think: What is that… And then you remember.

We got up at eight and were by the Battery Park by nine thirtyish. You guess right, today was the time to do the boring sightseeing that all the tourists do. We had tickets for the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island cruise and went through the inspection (as tough as any airport customs) to get to the ferry in no time. It surely was not the best weather to see the symbol of freedom, but tomorrow it’s promised to rain, so cloudy Liberty pictures it was.

We decided to skip the statue itself, since there’s not exactly much to do there on the Liberty Island and just went straight to Ellis Island instead. This turned out to be a great move – Ellis Island has loads of history to see and we had very detailed audio guides once again to help us. I have come to appreciate Audio guides on this trip. They are really good for the museums as well as the visitors for several reasons: 1) You don’t need a tour guide who is yelling at a tourist group, 2) you can move along at your own phase and 3) you can skip things that might be boring to you, or 4) you can hear more about things that are actually interesting. 5) You don’t have to read, you can concentrate on the atmosphere and area and 6) If you are a museum, you can fit so much more detail, story and drama into the audio guides than you ever could to some wall texts that people don’t stop by to read anyways. Overall, whoever thought of audio guides was genious.

Ellis Island served as the immigration port for years and years of people immigrating to America. And of course, there was a lot of people. They were inspected in Ellis Island, to be fit to the society with their physical and mental health. If you were suspected to have a mental disease, you’d be marked with an ‘X’ on your jacket. If you had tuberculosis with ‘T’ and so on. The island also was a hospital to those who might get well and be fit to the society.

Looking at the exhibitions, I was surprised to realize how bad the life must have been in Europe, specially for those whose religion was not accepted. America served as the safe haven, the place where you are ‘free’ even if you do work 14 hour days, or even if you need to work as a child. Even now, sitting on the subway, it’s clear that this country is a melting pot of all the races together. No wonder they have issues!

I was touched by the gallery of ‘what did you bring with you’? The audio guide asks you, what would you bring if you only could bring a suitcase filled with things. Now a days it’s a very different matter, I feel. Memories and entertainment doesn’t have to take space. Clothes to me a quite irrelevant, as long as I’m warm or cool enough – it doesn’t matter. I bring my life on three different hard drives. All copies of themselves. All texts, all emails, all the pictures. Or better yet, access to internet gives me much more access to memories than any of these men and women immigrating had. Somehow seems more simple back then. At least they knew where the limits of the world laid.

It’s an interesting thought that America was something so much better than Europe. I’ve had Americans telling me on this trip that they should get out in the next ten years because it’s all going down hill. Who knows if that’s the way of the world. Perhaps our children will visit it with very different eyes. The current depression really shows on the streets with goods been sold in the internet more than anywhere. Unlike some, I don’t believe the postal services have come to their ends – I think shipping is a fair cost in today’s world. The Airlines are really pushing anything that isn’t the flight cost – as extra. Your luggage will cost. It’s still possibly cheaper than shipping, but for how long? I have faith in living in Europe for now. If there is one thing I’ve learned on this trip, it’s that I know where my home is and I’m pleased with it. Give me a couple of decades and I might even develop some patriotism…

We had some time after Ellis Island, so we took number 1 to 50^th street trying to get to the empire state building… Instead we stumbled onto Times Square. It was a slightly sad sight after the Virgin Megastore had closed. There was nothing I desperately wanted to shop – actually I’ve had that kind of feeling for two days now. New York crap is what you can buy anywhere in the world, so it doesn’t seem to attract me at all. Could also be that all that I’ve seen and bought on this trip has been so much more interesting… Or perhaps I’m simply tired of shopping. I certainly wouldn’t want a plastic statue of Liberty to my shelf.

It’s a great feeling to see that perhaps going home isn’t such a bad thing, I certainly have started to feel road-weary for a while now. Only one more day to go and then we are flying to London.

Day

After a full day of Piss down rain, we weren’t expecting much from Tuesday. It so happens that the Vancouver weather doesn’t exactly follow the forecasts, so we ended up having a sunny bright day of wonders. There is nothing like a miserable day to make you appreciate the joys of a great sunny day, that’s for sure.

We headed to the waterfront with the skytrain to sneak some pictures of the harbor. Since Vancouver is going to be the olympic city fairly soon, also the harbor was showing its very best side. The old area next to the harbor is called ‘Gas Town’, because it was the first to get gas on the area, to be lightened up by series of lightpoles. There is also the famous gastown clock, which is breathing smoke… It’s a great old piece, but hardly keeping the time now a days. Gastown is where you can find Vancouver’s most efficient (and cheap) tat shops.

We did our fair share of shopping and staring at art pieces out of our price range. The aboriginal art of this area seems to us perhaps even more appealing than the Asian art, and that’s saying a lot. So if we weren’t in debt yet, we sure are now… Canadian stuff is really cool. That’s the truth.

After wandering around the shops we stopped for an indian for lunch and then doodled towards the Chinatown. It too, had loads of shops. And if I hadn’t yet been to China and around three other Chinatowns, I would have probably been tempted by their cheap gowns and jackets. (None of which were as classy as the one I got from San Francisco Chinatown though…) We also observed that Chinatown is just around that area which has the least appeal in Vancouver. Lots of homeless people with their shopping trolleys.

We found a full on Chinese Garden on its Autumn blossom, accompanied by a lesbian wedding. We sneaked some pictures and I visited the 10dollars-visitor section, while my J and KG waited outside. No point in wasting money on what we already saw on the other side of the fence. The museum was of course closed – it was Monday.

On our walk back to the city central, we run into a road of white trucks. This means something was being filmed right there. The TV/Film fan of me decided to find out if I can telephoto some pictures and find out what the series was. Luckily my husband has the best memory in the world so he recognised it as the TV-series ‘Fringe’… We didn’t really last long after the pilot on that, so I had no clue who the Blond lead was. Vancouver being the major film city though, this is very normal.

We treated ourselves to a Chinese meal at the end of a good day of picture hunting and shopping. Sun makes all the difference when you are judging whether you like a city or not… Vancouver is looking pretty good to me.

Day 46

After hopping onto the tram from Carl Street to downtown, I decided it was a good idea to get coffee. We stopped at a takeaway shop in the tram tunnel of Embarcadero. This was probably the worst coffee experience I ever had. I ordered two regulars with milk, but never received them… After fifteen minutes of standing by, I went to ask for them and got a surprised woman, who had seen me stand there for fifteen minutes without the coffee which she happily had taken money from. The coffee tasted really awful and I spilled it when walking around the harbor. Not the best morning ever.

At Pier 33, I realized that our tickets were for Friday and not Thursday, which didn’t really improve my day. I was convinced that we couldn’t get on, since they seemed to be very strict that the next ferry free was the next day. However the woman at the counter was nice enough to change the tickets for a half-an-hour later than the one we should have taken, so we only missed a little time.

It was a great mist in the crispy California air that morning, even with a sun shining through it. Once we were on board the ferry, we couldn’t see infront of us… While we were on the ferry back, two hours later though, we had brilliant visibility. That’s San Francisco weather for you.

Alcatraz is an island that has a long history, but of course it’s most famous for the thirty or so years when it served as the maximum security prison. It was also the only one of its kind back then in the time of Gangsters – 30’s to 60’s. The prison was determined at 1963 for being too expensive.

Visiting the prison is a spooky, but great experience. They have come up with an award-winning audio tour, which includes inmates talking of the time they served in Alcatraz, and they demonstrate and visualize the places where the most famous events happened. They show you where the Battle of Alcatraz started – where the inmates killed the guards, where the marines came in with hand grandees (see the holes in the floors) and where the three inmates climbed through the ventilation pipes to freedom.

Of course you’ve seen bunch of the films about this place, and at least the Sean Connery one… It’s great to stand there and feel how it must have been for these men… Alcatraz clearly was no way the place where you wanted to be. It must have been constantly cold and damp, with wind blowing through the bars, without the possibility to ever be warm. The prison was also built in a way that the inmates could see the city from their outdoors area – perhaps even hear the voices of the city. It must have been so close, yet so far.

They believe that no one ever successfully escaped the Rock. 36 prisoners were involved in 14 attempts, two men trying twice; 23 were caught, six were shot and killed during their escape, and three were lost at sea and never found. So technically, three of them might have survived, but the chances are minimal. It’s not only that the water around is so cold that it kills your body temperature in only five minutes, but there is also loads of sharks, so the chances were very small indeed. But who knows, if you are an optimist, you can always think they did escape.

After reaching San Francisco again, we took the historic tram to Embarcadero and then went back to the corner of Carl & Cole, to look for a post office. We’ve now posted out so many packages from this trip, that we’ve lost the count of them. Some are on airmail, some on sea mail, some on surface. It’ll be a treat to get them while the long winter evenings start flying by in Finland. Our quest of the mail lead us to the hippie movement area, in Height Ashbury, which even by San Francisco standards, is a free and flower power area even now. There is plenty of small shops to buy clothes (the most weirdest clothes you might ever want), books, dvds and whatnot.

Halloween is coming and in America they take that very seriously. There is at least one costume shop in every block. There are areas to carv pumpkins in. All the weird inflatable witches that you’ve seen in the tv-series… well, they are all true. Halloween is at least a two week event for Americans… We think we’ve inherited it in Finland, but it’s no way near as mad as in here. I mean, our houses are not covered in spider webs three weeks before the actual date on the 31^st of October. Luckily my husband and I will spend that night in a plane from Vancouver to New York, so there is no trick-or-treating threat… Or is there?

We were early in Civic Centre, wouldn’t want to miss our appointment with our Asia specialist at ten. So I suggested we’ll have some coffee, which lead us into stumbling to him by the corner of the museum. The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is opening a new exhibit today: The art of Siam and Burma. It all came from a private collection of Doris Day who had spent her honeymoon in that area, collecting artifacts that would have now been eaten by the climate had they been there… Instead she brought them to US and had an indoors tennis court filled with these wonderful and mystic things.

We went through the whole museum though, with our better than excellent guide. It starts off with India, Cambodia, and such and moves through China, eventually reaching Japan. Beautiful things, some of which I hadn’t seen anywhere else. For example the jug made of human skull was particularly appealing to me.

We then managed to somehow keep the interest of David, who took us for dim sum in Chinatown. This is where he crew up in, on the times when the Chinese wouldn’t be allowed to leave the area. San Francisco Chinatown is on a great place in the middle of downtown, placed on the up and down hills as can be expected. They had wanted their doors not to open to the big streets so there is a lot of alleyways, which no one cleans apparently. It was much more clean than I had ever seen in China though…

We visited a couple of temples and popped into a fortune cookie factory, in which I optimistically bought a bag of fortune cookies. The idea for those was invented in San Francisco, I bet you didn’t know that… Finally, the last item that David showed us was the god of Democracy.

China town is also filled with great shopping opportunities. My husband bought himself some t-shirts while I put my eye on a Chinese jacket, which they had in my size – this is America! I then had to drag my husband along lovely tat flee markets where I would have happily spent hours browsing all the weird and cheap stuff. The historic California line took us to Embarcadero, from where we then walked throughout the harbor area and its 50 piers.

Alcatraz cruises start from Pier 32, which is where we booked tickets for tomorrow. You can’t get them for the same day, not that I would have had any energy to go today anyways. Asian Art, Chinatown and shopping completely weared us both out and we decided to take sushi back to the flat for dinner. Sometimes it’s good to have a night in…

Okay, the morning after you’ve been to Dracula’s, you are going to feel in your head. You might have vague memories of having started your own dance styles in the late morning hours and definitely you’ll feel like it was time to stop drinking before 2am.

In any case, I think my personal Yimly and I are so pathetic alcoholists now a days that we had it much better than the native Yimms. Our brave host took us for a tram ride to town to pick up his wife’s car as well as to pop at the Victoria Market to do some grocery shopping for the barbeque in the evening. Even the guidebook to Australia that we bought said that the native specialty food-wise was barbeque.

Victoria Market is a huge complex of all kinds of food and tat sellers hurdled up on its own large block of space in the centre of Melbourne. There is a vegetable and salad open air market and the lovely butchers’, cheese and olive sellers are in a hall market. All that beautiful and exotic food, none of which I can particularly get away with bringing home… Yimms bought me some Kangaroo salami, so that I could have a taste. Kangaroo tastes pretty much like a richened beef – quite chewable, but my husband complaint of the smell of it. We had lovely big bratwursts and sour kraut for lunch and then when it was finally time to pop and buy me a pair of shoes, I was attacked with the Australian Fashion police, who commented on my shoes:”I like your shoes” (I was wearing socks and sandals… Thanks to it being bloody cold and me not having real shoes with me) “All Europeans wear shoes like this, it’s the newest thing”, I said and went on to buy a pair of trainers. A month without socks had ended.

We then took ourselves and the groceries back to the lovely family Barbie, in which all the family was invited. I had been told a lot about the Borensztejns as well as the Tomlins, and they turned out to be a lovely crowd, filled with laughter and children running around. Dani had been cooking all day and the feast was very deligious. I got to meet Mrs. Borensztejn who told me of her trip to Poland, which had not gone so well… I got thought what is the difference between football and Rugby by two younger Borensztejns. I talked with Mr. Tomlin the elder, who looks scarily like Dumbledore from films 2-> when he speaks at you. And most of all, it felt like being with my own family. It’s incredible to discover the warmth of such a big number of people, on the other side of the world, all curious to meet you, like I was suddenly coming into the family. And I was. The Tomlins will always be our family.

Day 22/63

Third day in Shanghai.

We decided to take it easy today, which for our standards means that we do more like a 7hour day than 10 hour day out of the hotel room comforts. This decision was based upon the fact that I seem to have made some of my muscles on the chest ache when I walk – I imagine this was due to at least five hour walks that we’ve now done for four weeks and possibly the 7-10kg of camera gear that I carry on my right shoulder. This is only a right side issue, so I can see a connection there. However, I really don’t want to be one of those broken tourists that can’t walk anywhere, so I am trying to have less walking and more doodling in museums and so on.

So our plan was to head underneath the construction site of Death, which is the Pund at the moment. There is a whole space-like tunnel that goes underneath the river Pu and takes you to the tourist attractions on the other side. Better yet, it’s about five minutes walk from our hotel. This is of course if you can get past the traffic of Death, which goes on the side of the construction site.

We first got to our bridge of choice only to find not one, but THREE wedding couples getting their pictures taken on the bridge with Shanghai behind them. It’s Saturday in China… Everyone wants to get married in hotels here, so this is why also there was a wedding going on in the breakfast room of our hotel when we came back in the evening.

After skipping our near deaths by following what we call ‘Mr. Carrier Bag’ (any local person who is crossing the road, probably knows what they are doing. If they are carrying a carrier bag, then they are probably locals as well, hence the name) over the Zebra crossings of Death, we got into the sightseeing tunnel. It’s quite a Science Fiction ride with flashy lights going around – my camera really loved that tunnel as you can see.

On the other side you find all kinds of attractions like the aquarium and the TV tower. We were not interested in any of those, but the museum which was at the bottom of the weird looking tower. This was the museum for the history of Shanghai. It was done in a form of miniatures and puppets, but like everything that the Chinese do – they had put some serious man power into it. Perhaps the best miniature/puppet museum that I’ve ever been to…Beatles museum had nothing going on in comparison to this one, sorry Liverpool! This certainly told the story of the city very well, made it even look much more interesting than it actually is.

I suppose the most significant turn in the history of Shanghai are the Opium wars in1839-1842 and 1856-1860. See, Her Majesty the Queen Victoria of Great Britain ruled the world back then and Britain had a problem. The British wanted Tea, which the Chinese had. British were exporting tat to India back then from Britain, and there was a flaw in their chain of exports – China didn’t want anything that the Indians would have had. However, Indians were producing a lot of Opium, which in the minds of a super power looked like: Let’s make the Chinese drug addicts, so that we can get our Tea… Sad but true.

After the Opium wars however, Shanghai opened up to the foreign influence and all of the powers back then got their own little shares of the city to live on. This is why this city is so much more foreign like built, specially the Pund area. Sadly I have to say, that I prefer areas of China and Japan, with lesser influence from the foreigners and more from the locals. I can get someone speaking English to me back home…

After the museum, we wondered around in a shopping mall filled with stores that you’d get back home in Europe. We had lunch with a view over the river and the Pund on the sixth floor and then listened to a rock band, which had not really gotten their sound-checks right before starting to play because their back-up went in the middle of a song, several times. The ground floor also had some men dressed as big pieces of President cheese, which was excitement to me, even though they seemed to just scare the children.

Back through the shuttle of lights lead us to the Nanjing road of tat once again and we were lured into one of the underground shopping stall-installments. Any label product of sun glasses, jeans, watches, bags and belts – you name it. And they’ll sell it to you really cheap. Are these fakes or are we just paying stupid prices in Europe – I have no idea. But I also have no problem of my husband paying a third of what a pair of Hugo Boss jeans cost in Europe, when they look exactly the same. I broke my 10euro sun glasses that I bought from Japan, so I bought a pair of 2euro Calvin Kleins… They perform the same function after all.

After some work back in the hotel room, we gathered ourselves and wandered on the North side of the hotel… The Chinese close their shops and restaurants by eight a clock, so if you want to eat out, you better be quick. We did surprise a local food establishment by turning up at 7:45pm, but they did give us enough food for four people for just 2,8euros (including 0,75litres of beer for each of us)… It was a purely functional and useful day in Shanghai. All we could ask for and more.

Day 21/63

I fucking hate Shanghai. I know it’s a personal opinion, but that’s how I feel. And I am a person who *loves* China. One of the greatest experiences I ever had was in Xi’An and Beijing, but this city makes it impossible to enjoy oneself. Even when the prices are ridiculously low.

Today we had a nice breakfast in the hotel’s 2nd floor and had an hour of typing before leaving the room at 11ish. We took a taxi to a park in the French Concession for more shopping opportunities. This got immediately some ‘hello lady, do you want a watch?’ types on our face, even before standing up from the taxi. My husband calculated how many times someone came up to him trying to sell something today and that was 19. Could be worse, I suppose. We saw some pajama practice and sword action with grannies, oh and some people hugging trees in the park. Always a good show the Chinese parks in the morning.

Our walk in the French region took us through shopping streets of dress-makers and all kinds of tat and it had just started to rain when we happened upon this small, cat-pee smelling junk shop, which seemed to sell DVDs of tv series, which is what I was after anyways. Let’s just say that I went slightly mental and purchased the small amount of 11 entire series (some of which have up to six seasons) with a fair price.

When it was time for lunch, we seemed to be on streets that only sold overly priced food for foreigners. Those places are often also tasteless, so I suggested we try to find a small place somewhere and as a miracle, an off the road restaurant came along. Our three course meal and two bottles of water was the whole of 25 quai, (2,5euros TOTAL) and it was really good. That’s the only thing this city has going on for it: Cheap food, cheap shopping.

After some more walking around in the area, we decided to get the metro to People’s square to see the Shanghai museum. As far as museums go, this was a quality visit. Lovely, western style bathrooms, clean exhibition halls, good access, no admission fee… However, the collection didn’t really show us anything very exciting that we had not seen before. Specialy as the one section of minorities that we were there for anyways – was the only being renovated and re-shaped. In any case, this well-air conditioned oasis in the middle or the people’s square was the high light of my day.

The weather had been piling up onto a hard, thick mass of humidity and as we walked out of the museum, we could not see the buildings around very well. At this time in Australia, there has been a massive, red sand storm – this was nothing like that, but we are certainly keeping our eyes open. We had dinner in a kind of a tunnel of fast food, but for the locals, so it was once again really good but really cheap. The Whole of 2-3euros / plate.

It’s the getting home from the city what kills you at the end of the night. The taxi drives really do not know where they are going they have no idea where the area of the hotel or anything is… And they are really not stopping for you, even if you’d be standing on the taxi station. You do get offers from dodgy cars pretending to be taxis, but I’d rather keep my life thanks. Two motorcyclists even offered to take us home, but after an hour of trying, I decided we’d get a metro for one stop onto the Pund and by some miracle we did get a taxi from there. Okay, this one was old, deaf and not knowing where anything is, but after about 10 minutes of negotiations and map showing, he managed to recognize the Russian consulate right next to our hotel. So conveniently, we got back.

The streets of Shanghai make you really angry. I think perhaps that’s why the Chinese are always yelling and pouting, because their living conditions are so fucked up… I am glad that I have had lovely two weeks in other parts of China, because if this would be what I got to my face first, I’d never come back. Doesn’t help that the Pund is a construction site – they are trying to make it beautiful for the Expo next year, so this year everything is even more horrible than it’d normally be.

What can I say: Shanghai is a cock and a half. Nothing personal, just the way it made me feel.

Day 20/63

We left Japan expecting it to be a culture shock. Even as we’ve been to both countries, we’ve never gone from one to another. We got the Maglev train from the Shanghai airport to town. This is a bullet train that goes 300km/hour, just because there are no rails, just magnetic tracks where it floats on. On curves, it goes kind of sideways, which is very spooky. The train journey to Shanghai only takes eight minutes, which my husband decided that we’d spend in the first class, as it was the whole of 10euros each.

We got a taxi from the other side of the river ‘Huang Pu’ to our hotel, which is the Astor House hotel, the first luxurious and modern hotel in the city, right on the Pund. The Pund is the area where the British settled down after the opium wars and eventually all the other foreign powers such as the Germans, the Americans and so on joined them. However, the French couldn’t live with the British, so they have their own area ‘the French concession’…

Our hotel the Astor House is rather impressive. Even as they are over 160 years old, they have gotten the hang of modern days. There is internet installed in the rooms for a small fee (very slow connection, but anyways) and the bathroom has hair dryers, the light switch is on the door so that you keep your key in a safe place and so on. The room reminds me of the room I stayed in Athens, wooden floors, huge bathroom… All very nice. You could even stay at a celebrity’s room, meaning where someone famous stayed like Charlie Chaplin, Bertrand Russell or Albert Einstein. What is more attractive to me though, is that in three metres out of the door, you get to a bridge which gives out the classic view over Shanghai with the television mast building. I’ll use that for some photos later on for sure.

Of course when you step out of the door, the misery of life in China immediately begins. You get the herds of ‘Hello Lady’s excuseme, would you lie to buy some tat?)… In here they are mostly pushing to buy watches.. Perhaps that’s the thing, certainly not postcards like back in Beijing. The best way to look at pushy sales people is not to give them an eye of any kind. You put your ‘ignoring’ face on and move along. I have been surprised on how they do come to you in English, rather than in Chinese. But I suppose this is the foreign area.

You can also see the foreign area in the prices of tat. We know that there are places, quieter streets, where the prices are about 20% of the prices here on the foreign area. We had a meal for 10euros, but we know, that is rather expensive for what we got, even if it was really good and three dishes with two teas. They have looked at the foreigners around and come to the conclusion that they *will* pay more. So why not charge more.

In any case, for our first day in Shanghai, we went walking around, shopping and photographing. I bought some really nice pashminas and we went a bit mental in a bookshop that had a DVD floor. The Chinese really like awards of all sorts, specially the Oscars, so they have fifteen different kinds of Oscar box sets, oscar films in different covers and so on. I recently watched all the best Picture winners, some of which were quite hard to find. Here they were all… Even “Wings” from 1928, for 1 euro… I bought some that I had not seen and some that I’ll rewatch, like “Mrs. Minniver”, which is a great film btw. These were not illegal copies of the films, even though those are also easy to get from the streets – normally with English and Chinese subtitles… We had earlier come across to one seller, but they have already gone to Blue-Ray… What kind of world is it, when the pirates have a format that you cannot play???

We eventually walked as far as the people’s square and then home again, through a detour that seemed to take forever. The pushy-yelling Chinese tired us out so much that eventually we got into a ‘Family-Mart’ (Japanese 7-11 chain) and got salad and sushi for dinner in our hotel room… This is how much we missed Japan! China such a difference to Japan, where politeness is *everything* and here you are expected to be as agnry, impolite, rude, shouty, pushy and merciless as possible. You should spit on the streets and lie and cheat. The whole consept of the society is so different… It’s like my husband pointed out. You feel like you are in Japan, but it looks like everything is falling apart. When you come back to your hotel, you feel like you are never going to wear your clothes again, because they are so dirty.

I think for tomorrow, I need to learn how to bargain and cheat… We are going shopping again in the French concession.