6 November 2011
Guitars and home made dinner
I set out to get lost. I succeeded more than once.
At one stage I was between a river and an industrial complex of some kind, I had to double back, thats the worst kind of lost.
Another time I came out from an underground passageway that snaked around, and had no idea what way I was facing, I couldnt see any big buildings due to the highway overhead. It took quite sometime to get my bearings.
Earlier on, I also got teashop scammed! Well, I didnt fall for it, but the attempt was made, and my defance was very effective...heres how it goes.
2 cute young girls approached me and told me they were university students wanting to practice their English skills, why dont we go for some tea and a chat? At which point one of them even tried to hold my hand.
I already knew this was the famed teashop scam, I was in a very crowded spot (see photo below), so risk to me from being an asshole was 0.
I said, wow that sounds great! I have been wanting to talk to some locals, we will go get some tea for sure, but first let me give you a quick English test!
One of the 2 girls responded, with a bit of hesitation 'OK....'
I tell them, repeat after me 'We are from China....We like to find foreign men....And ask them to a teahouse...So we can chat with them....whilst a few tough guys arrive and wait to steal all their money.'
At which point they stopped chatting to me in English and started yelling in Chinese and ran off!
I was taking this photo of an inexplicable huge crowd when the girls approached me to try the tea scam.
Really? New Zealand cuisine? Thats slightly more ridiculous than Australian cuisine. I guess they have bottles of L&P and packets of pineapple lumps?
Tonights garish lighting is brought to you by Louis Vuitton
Every city seems to have a times square mall. I wonder if someone actually owns it as a brand?
I found guitar street. In good news, they had many nice guitars and amps and stuff, comparable to the range found in Tokyo. I got bored after 3 stores but I suspect there were at least 10.
In bad news, more expensive than Australia.
Between guitar stores I found a tescos. I knew they were here, but havent seen one before now.
Bonus guitar store photo.
This is 'food street'. It is mostly places that do giant hot pots. I tried my luck as a solo diner at 2 before giving up all together. They did not want to know me unless I was at least 4 people.
A redundant photo of non chinese looking architecture.
Back on Nanjing road pedestrian street, and everyones trying to hand me cards with photos of naked chinese girls (that look like 10 year old boys) with a phone number, and asking me if I want a massage, special massage, happy massage? etc. The best guy said, 'Special massage? pretty girl! very flexible! good stamina!'
In addition to massage, theres also the watch sellers, my tactic of firing back at them with 'you wanna buy a kangaroo?' stopped working, cause one guy said 'hey! lets team up, we can sell lot if work together!' So I have found myself a job in Shanghai.
...my new tactic for the watch sellers is to answer with the noises R2D2 might make.
I decided to look for a supermarket (well, something bigger than a convenience store) nearby. This area had 3, as well as a few street stalls.
Street stalls are very rare in Shanghai, unlike Korea and Taiwan where they are absolutely everywhere.
I decided I should make my own dinner at least once since my hotel apartment has a full kitchen. Dumplings and noodles it is!
My dumplings werent exactly as I expected, they were open at the top.
Not bad! Very tasty. I love MSG, I know you can get it in Australia, the chilli bean paste I am using I also get from chinatown in Adelaide, and after chilli, beans, vegetable oil, the next biggest ingredient by percentage is MSG. However people in Australia seem to have strongly held beliefs that MSG is made from a mixture of ricin and anthrax.