Day 10 – Geri and Penny

I hadn't eaten yet all day, thus I'm binging at the lounge.


The sequence of events so far:
0. Sleep in.
1. Get my hair cut.
2. Say bye to Sara.
3. Taxi to Maglev.
4. Maglev to Airport

So on my return flight, I'll be flying First Class on AA. I got lucky and scored a good deal using my miles. This will be my first time flying a "Premium" class. I wish it was on Cathay...

When boarding, the Flight Attendant tried to direct me to Economy. I showed her my ticket and she omg'd a bit. First Class is a bit silly, the seat spans about 4 windows (which is a pain in the neck to close) and eating snacks before the plane ride was a noob mistake. Apparently there's a 5-star restaurant and junk food bar onboard...

^step 1, table cloth and china.

^starters were smoked salmon.

^then salad. Note the tiny bottles for the dressing!

^DUCK!!!

^ice wine and ice cream pairing!!!

Day 10 + 3 hours
The seat lies flat?! alrighty, bedtime!

Day 10 + 10 hours
I was awoken for breakfast. Apparently I had slept through the dim sum service :-(


^Unfortunately, Lucky Charms or Count Chocula were not options... They had omelettes, but I have this weird fear of cafeteria eggs, thus, I do not trust airplane eggs.

Day 10 + a lot more hours
Ok, there's only 1-more hour til arrival. One thing that I do miss up here is chatting with people. I’m not sitting next to anyone, everyone flies in suits and minds their own business, and lastly, AA has the worst movie selection ever... However, I am absolutely pwn'ing at FreeCell!!!

Day 10, I think
oh.em.gee! I'm back in 'MERICA


So flying FC, internationally, will get you not into the AA Admirals Lounge, but their Flagship Lounge. This place is silly but fancy. There's a guy who MUST be an oil tycoon from Texas, and he's chatting with guy who MUST be an oil sheikh. I want to butt in and say, "hi," then ask a jillion questions.

I’m also getting weird looks from the old folks in suits (which makes up 99.9% of the population in this smug place). This may be due to my continuous hoarding of the free food in here. I’m not going to take pictures for fear of further judgment.

Now let's see, all of this travelling has made for great people watching. For today's installment of Overheard at the Airport:

TSA guy: Hi where's your boarding pass?
Lady: Oh, my husband just took it!

(Note: The husband was not in line...)
TSA guy: um, okay. Step to the side please.
Lady: Why?

Human on phone:

You know how the tv’s on the planes can tell you how cold it is outside? Does Fahrenheit and Celsius become the same when the temperature goes negative?

My brain nearly exploded, and yes Xing, you're correct... but that's not what she was asking.

Oh yea, Geri and Penny were my Flight Attendants!

Day 9 - Hangzhou

Hangzhou. Marco Polo considered the city, "beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world." Many artists and poets have lived and worked in this inspirational city...

So, after four hours of sleep, Sara and I caught a bullet train to see what it was all about.


O-M-G it's mad early and I don't know why we have chosen this ridiculous hour to start a day trip. Nevertheless, we trudge along with the masses....


I swear, as we're walking out of the train station it starts raining... we decide to half the day and check out the touristy portion, West Lake.


Sara can't quite stay awake so she bolts for a Starbucks while I hang around the lake for photos.


After some time, we meet again and decide it's time for lunch. After much interneting and discussion with some police officers, we chose a hole in the wall/mom and pop restaurant for the local cuisine: Beggar’s Chicken, which is wrapped in fresh lotus leaves and baked on fir.

^it was AMAAAAAZING. and we headed to a Taiwanese cafe afterwards for drinks and dessert to wrap up the binge eating.

After we satiated our appetites we still had a couple of hours before our train so we checked out the China Academy of Art.


Where there were copious table tennis tables.


After scoping out the campus directory...


We checked out the illustration studio


Where students were working on a "quit smoking" campaign for the city:


Students in the sculpture studio


Were busting these out:


We then found ourselves in the gallery, where we had to sign in:


and were informed of some rules:


Painting #1


Painting #2


Painting #3

^which summed up what we wanted to do...

We wandered around some more, tried to find a donut shop, stopped at a bao-ze shop, bought souvenir foods for our offices, and then bolted for the train to grab some glorious nap time.


We finished the night by trying out a Chinese Pizza Hut. All Pizza Huts in China are MAD SWANKY.... and have ridiculous flavors:

Day 8 - No plans whatsoever

I just woke up and realized it was nearly noon. Sara was already at work and Alicia and Sam were on their ways back to London. With nothing planned, I lounged around, caught up on the news (bp spill) and tried to facebook to see what would happen:


^Photo hunt item #8, "An example of censorship."

Now this brings up a rather interesting point. Yes, Facebook is blocked in China, yet I would not consider it censorship. 'Merica absolutely LOVES making China look like the oppressive bad guy, but I would disagree; China is merely protecting its own interests. China has its own version of Facebook, and the following:

Blocked sites Chinese variants
Facebook RenRen
YouTube Youku or Tudou
google Baidu

China is simply promoting it's in-house products (yes, by blocking competitors) but we have done the same in the past (remember the Ford Motors employee parking hoopla?) and are doing it now (USAF Tanker contract anyone?). And if one REALLY wanted to access those sites, he/she could easily get a VPN account in order to do so (China isn't actively stopping those services). I won't get too deep into this, just some thoughts...

Anywho, after bumming around for a while, I went back to the market where I got my glasses to explore the camera market.

^the subway station had put up a new ad. I like their logo better.

The photo market is pretty much two floors of shops jam packed with new photo gear, used photo gear, vintage photo gear. Essentially, I wanted to buy everything.

^I held out and left the mall with just two pairs of glasses... wait what?!

Yes, while at the market, the saleswomen recognized me from the other day and pounced on me. We chatted about life in the US, life in China, my horrible chinglish and all sorts of other stuff. I ended up with another pair of glasses and sunglasses for 220 RMB.

^photo hunt item #1

After this, I headed for 1933, a slaughterhouse (built in 1933) that had been recently refurbished into retail space/restaurant space/gallery space. It was getting late in the day and the light was getting nice.


Now, 1933 is a multi-level concrete structure with large amounts of detail. The place as a restaurants/gallery area is already kind of spooky... I can't imagine what the place was like when it was fully operational.

^I wonder what they did here...



The large spaces from the photos above broke off into smaller rooms:




The top floor had a glass floor:


Looking down into the building... there were many chutes for transport of parts... and drainages for managing the blood...


After getting my architecture fix, I had to get back to the city center for dinner...


I stopped for photos and wound up late:

(I also stopped at uniqlo but did not document that)



Tony and his friends had planned this big dinner at a Taiwanese restaurant. I was able to eat many things I have not had in a while (kong ching tsai, refried yo-tiao, etc).

^dessert was the BEST part.

Afterwards, we went to a wine bar


and ended up at a bar on top of the Shanghai Hyatt (conveniently named Vue).


I got sleepy and took a nap in the lobby

Day 7 - Return of the Expo!!!

Alicia's contact at the UN had given us passes to the Expo so we planned to go the next day (which was also Alicia and Sam's last day in China). Beforehand, I made my way to Nanjing Dong Lu to see what Uniqlo was all about.

&-O-M-G.

Why on Earth have they not settled down in the US?!? Yes they have a store in NYC, but I can see them providing clothing to skinny Asians and hipsters across 'Merica. They could probably obliterate the Gap and take some of Urban Outfitters' market share of skinny jeans and flannel.

Anywho, I got some jeans, a dress shirt and a jacket (for only $62) and headed off to the Expo. On the way I found bao-ze vendor and started the laddering process. They had an mahn-toh which that had a egg based crust which was AMAAAAAAZING.

I eventually ended up at the Expo Station.

We had agreed to meet at the UK Pavilion and it took a while to walk across the site to get there. Alicia and Sam were already inside so I took my place in the queue. Then this guy with a huge camera then came barreling through the line cutting in front of everyone. I was standing behind a family that was kinda took up the whole width of the waiting lines so I stepped in to close the gap. He proceeded to hover over me for the rest of the wait... annoying...

The family turned out to be the family of the architect that design the Israeli Pavilion. The mom told me that it was supposed to represent the Yin and the Yang; which upon further review, it does!


After around 20 minutes, I finally got my turn to step inside the UK Pavilion. OMG it is nice. The design consists of thousands of acrylic rods that transmit daytime light into the interior of the pavilion. At night, interior lights are switched on which then are supposed to make the pavilion glow in the dark. It kind of works.


Each rod contains a seed, hence the pavilion being named the Seed Cathedral.


Exterior shot with the Lupu Bridge in the background.

We enjoyed the time inside the pavilion and took silly photos.

people stared.

Sam snuck a Big-Mac in.


At Holland's Pavilion, designers had created a park-like area filled with fiberglass sheep:


They ran rampant.


Pro rest position #02


Pro rest position #42


After eating some waffle things, we left and started exploring other areas. I forget which pavilion this was... but the material was foamy and probably slightly toxic.

^I was surprised to how much we could get away with...

Norway's Pavilion had a drinking fountain. Below is their filtration equipment.

All the locals were amazed at how clean the water tasted. Expo Officials had an water sponsor that provided filtered drinking and water bottle filling stations, except the water tasted like chemicals... It still amazes me how potable water is so scarce in developed cities.

We made our way to the Danish Pavilion... Most pavilions would have displays of products from said countries, or they would have interactive exhibits on what daily life is like. The Danish chose to flaunt cycling.


So we followed the blue painted path!


...that spiraled to the roof:


The path to the top also had one continuous bench


Which was also ergonomically designed:


To hype up their pavilion, the Danish brought the Little Mermaid


Next up was the Finnish Pavilion


Nokia had a photo booth that would take a series of 5-photos and plaster them over hundreds of little cell phone screens along the walls on the interior.


looked like a trap.


We got stopped for taking silly photos and were given mandatory community service...


STRESS CONCENTRATION FAIL:


I need to go to the Monaco GP next yr...


Serbian Pavilion. Do not climb.


The Canadian Pavilion was on the best we saw. The exterior design collects and recycles rainwater. The interior is very interactive and has a stage for Cirque du Soleil.


The Canadians also had American food.

After our bbq/breakfast US/CAN extravaganza, we met up with Miguel and walked around to take photos. Miguel had needed to buy some souvenirs that Alicia could take back his wife in London.

The Italians dazzled with translucent concrete.


India and Saudi Arabia by night


Chinese Pavilion and Conference Center:


China overlooking Nepal.


There were these light up checkerboard sidewalk paths that reacted to your steps.


It started to drizzle a bit soon after

At around 10pm, things started closing. We said our goodbyes and went home.