I am feeling dumb now. I didn't bring my camera's USB cable and my uncle didn't have one, so I can't upload any pics I took. Oh well. It would be nice to show some photos along with the trip. I mean, I think blogs are always more interesting and appealing with pictures. So, I'm posting a couple of the pictures taken by my uncle. These are the night views next to my mom's apartment. As I'm blogging, this is what's happening by my window.
Today I took the Shanghai subway for the first time. We took #1 and went from Xu Jia Hui to People's Square, then we moved to #2 and went to Nanking East Road. The one thing I realized even better than yesterday was there were A LOT of people in Shanghai. I was constantly and consistently amazed by the amount of people we encountered going in and coming out of the subway. I had been to NY's subway and a big busy city like Manhattan, and they couldn't even compare. When we were walking down Nanking East Road, we were swamped and almost disappeared into the biggest crowds I had seen. Inside the shops, outside on the streets, and everywhere in between, more and more people kept coming and going. It was mind-blowing and overwhelming. I am not kidding.
I also realized there were many many many shops wherever we went. Never-ending retail stores followed one after another, from inside and out, from this building to the next, soon I became disinterested, and in a sense disconnected because they were just the same shops but in different buildings. Also, I would say almost everything in these stores were way way overpriced. A shampoo that would cost $1.99 in a regular American supermarket, in Shanghai it could get marked up to about 4 times as much, and that was very normal. If an item was deemed a luxury product, then the sky's the limit. It could go up to as much as 6 - 10 times over! Even something as simple and boring as black peppercorn could be 3 times as much as what you would pay for in the States. I was shocked and appalled. I thought the shops here were over-grown, over-saturated, outrageous and over-the-top. Then I saw all these people, walking, smiling, shopping, so what do I know? Some of them must be paying. How else could I explain this phenomenon.
So far I also noticed another thing while dining out in Shanghai. After we sat down, the wait staff would always bring a seat wrap or cover and pull it over your jacket if you happened to hung it behind you. This would keep your jacket from receiving accidental spills or absorbing grease and smell while you ate. I thought that was a very considerate gesture. However, it was only for your jacket. If the waiter happened to spill the soup all over you, or you happened to eat a very smelly or greasy meal, you and what you had on were all on your own.
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