Today I am at an all time low with my adrenaline, and am starting to feel that even though I am super excited to be here, I’m running a bit low on the energy it takes to explore a foreign city on food. It doesn’t hurt that I’m also feeling a bit crappy from eating all the rich food from the hot pot restaurant and our rich French dinner from Jade on 36…it was worth it though.
The Great Jade Bracelet Find
Our entire time here Jenn and I have been coveting the beautiful jade bracelets sold on just about every street corner. Since we know nothing about determining whether a piece of jade is good quality (or even real jade), we made a point to ask sales people about jade while in higher end shops. Most real jade bracelets we have found that look like good quality have thus far been very expensive- like $500US or more, but today we found a Fodor's recommended jade store near our hotel called Shanghai Antique and Curio Store that sold jade with prices regulated by the Chinese government. We have read that most moderately priced jade is appraised at a much higher value in the US, so we are pretty excited about it!
Tailors and the Silk & Cashmere Market
One of the things that Jenn and I really wanted to get were some traditional Chinese dresses at the silk market, as well as some silk for making dresses and pillows for our condos back home. I found a blue and taupe silk dress off the rack at a stall right away, and as we began to bargain with the tailor it became quite clear that Jenn is much better at haggling prices with the Chinese than I am…I just want the goods, and I am terrible at remembering to walk away. Their little comments like, “you kill me lady,” “these prices wholesale,” and “I get in trouble at that price” really work their magic on my conscience! Somehow Jenn can give them the “Chinese bargain shopper eye” and get them to agree to fantastic prices. Since Jenn is a bit taller than I am, she ended up getting hers made overnight and dropped off at our hotel the next morning.
Jenn tries on dresses at the silk market
We are super excited about our traditional Chinese dresses!
Our “English speaking” hotel bellhop tells the taxi driver the wrong place to go and we have no idea where he has dropped us off- thank god for the Ipad2 and the China Unicom SIM card Jenn got in Beijing, it has truly been a huge time saving tool! Although we definitely try not to pull it out unless we are in a pinch, because again, we draw a ton of attention to ourselves!
Flies for Lunch?
We find a random local place to eat lunch and are a bit nervous about the accomodatyions. The menu is of course all in Chinese so we use the handy “point and pray” method for choosing our dishes. For $5 it really wasn’t too bad!
I would tell the name of of this restaurant but your guess is as good as mine..
Spicy tofu with rice
Cold Cowbean Noodles
The Search for Dongtai Road Antique Market
This street cannot be found on any tourist maps. We walked for over an hour in circles to find it…it ended up being an anti-climactic excursions since we only found a whole lot of propaganda (and I mean strange propaganda, not cool kitschy propaganda…I bought 2 Mao posters while in Beijing) and a whole lot of broken junk for inflated prices. But it was fun and I’m glad that we finally made it there.
views of the city from our ramblings
Shanghai Opera
Wares from the market
My 4 year old nephew Evan would love this booth! Choo-choo’s and cars!
The Bund Sight-Seeing Street
Since I’m running on fumes today and becoming a crappy travel partner, Jenn and I decided to take a relaxed stroll on the Bund sight-seeing road within walking distance to our hotel. We snap a few pictures of Pudong and the Oriental Pearl tower across the river and then head back to our hotel for a cocktail and some WIFI downtime.
Jenn makes ANOTHER friend...
The Bund
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