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.

Day 6 - Shopping Continued...

7:00AM Early morning snowshoeing trip.

9:00AM Breakfast at Carrefour.
10:00AM Dropped off keys
10:06AM Cab to the tube.

10:30AM Meet Alicia.
10:42AM Head to clothing markets.

11:00AM Realize that I suck at negotiating.
11:24AM Spot photo hunt item #10.

6:00PM Stop shopping.
6:08PM McDonalds cones.
6:42PM Head towards downtown.

7:30PM Dinner and drinks with the Special Assistant to the United Nations' Commissioner General Expo 2010.
1:00AM Called it a night.

Expo part deux tomorrow!

Day 5 - Suzhou

We had a 630am wakeup call due to us needing to catch the train to Suzhou this morning. We left at 700am, grabbed coffee/breakfast and met Alicia and Sam at the train station.


I managed to step on some gum which wound up on my foot. NASTY. Also nasty? The number of chain smokers, smoking next to an air vent...

Did I mention this was on China's newer bullet train???


During the trip, we hit 180km/h and were wonderfully serenaded by locals trying to sing Jay Chou songs, only to realize they didn’t remember the lyrics.

^This is Jay Chou. I wish I had a tape recorder.

This is what it sounded like:


Upon disembarking the train, we hung out for a bit on the platform.


Turns out that Alicia and Sam are into photography! Sam had taken GSCE courses on photo and Alicia is just creative. We decided to walk around the city and made our ways through some local streets.


I was able to find scavenger hunt item #3



The first stop was the Suzhou Silk Museum. They had actual silk worms and the exhibit outlined the entire process of how silk was made, harvested and woven. The looms were ridiculous. They said no photos in the room with the looms.

^so I took non-silk related photos...

Afterwards we found ourselves in front of a bao-ze vendor and we ended buying at least 20 bao-ze at 70-mao each.


After purchasing bags of bao-ze's, we sat ourselves down in a shady park and slammed our faces til we ran out. We decided to work off the binge eating via climbing up the Ruiguang Pagoda.

^view from the top.

Graffiti littered the walls of the pagoda:


There were temples and gardens in the complex as well:

^also at this site, kittens & folks making out. HAWT.

I liked the bricks:



Afterwards, we started exploring the town on our way to the Suzhou Museum (which was designed by I.M. Pei).


Suzhou is a great place if you like doors:



^hipsters would LOVE that vintage bike...

When we got to the museum, we were informed that only water was allowed in (we had to drink or ditch our "colored drinks")... I.M. Pei grew up in Suzhou so the museum project was extremely important to him. I liked his work, and loved the fact that the place was free and had A/C.

^looking up in the lobby

Apparently, I.M. Pei is a fan of transformers...


We liked the stairwell. The trim on the glass was a seamless piece of polished steel. We thought it was extruded, but it was too long. We later found weld marks on certain areas...


Couples took turns on Velociraptor watch:


Alicia and Sam had been doing a series of cartwheel pictures, so we all took part.

^locals stared. we did not care.

We tried to exit the museum but found that it was part of a larger complex... which took us through many other buildings and rooms... we got lost for a good half-hour...


Sam declared beer-o-clock after we escaped the museum (apparently this is what the English do), and we found a convenience store that had "Texas Grilled BBQ Flavor" chips!

^UK flavored drinks + TX flavored chips = best allied combo ever

We then strolled around town until Alicia and Sam had to catch their train back. Suzhou is littered with doors, graffiti and couples getting wedding photos done...

^sharpies > spraypaint

The train ride back was uneventful and we endured the mass exodus to the metro station to meet Alicia and Sam for dinner.


We ate at a Taiwanese restaurant and ordered 5x dishes and 3x desserts (peanut bing, sweet potato and taro bing, and almond jello). The towering treats were amazing and in our haste to consume them, I forgot to take a photo...

^but I got one of the aftermath!

We decided to call it a a night.

Day 4 - Hitting the Markets

I enjoy shopping. Sara doesn’t.

Luckily, my sister’s best friend from home up flew in today and we had pre-coordinated a massive multi-day shopping spree. Here’s an excerpt from previous email communications with her:

"Oh! I want to buy glasses too!! Maybe we can go together and haggle a good price for both pairs? I want to get a regular pair that'll be really different from my main ones (I'm wearing a super retro looking pair these days) and also some prescription sunglasses. (I'm pretty good with negotiating...but you've probably learned a trick or two from your dad...) ... Am definitely up for shopping - need to update my wardrobe with more artsy/design stuff and less corporate looking stuff. So, can I propose that we try shopping on Monday?"

This is how I felt after reading her reply:


Meet Alicia:

^'MERICAN

Alicia grew up in my neighborhood and I've known her for as long as I can remember things. She's an Architect who's currently a student at the Royal College of Arts for their Innovation Design Engineering program. Super cool, eh? She's basically doing what I want to do.

Meet Sam:


Sam is a Mechanical Engineer from Bristol, UK (not Tennessee). He's also in the RCA IDE program. He has a yellow and pink hat, orange pants and is basically awesome. He could probably dunk a basketball over LeBron based on my assessment of this photograph. He's doing exactly what I want to do.

Alicia and Sam (A+S from now on) had just flown in from Beijing; where they were working on a class project. We meet at the People's Square metro station and ventured off to the glasses market.

Our objectives:
Alicia’s: Artsy glasses and sunglasses
Sam’s: Color contacts.
Mine: Artsy glasses and sunglasses.

The glasses market was located inside a mall outside of the Shanghai Rail Station. The glasses market was situated on Level 5. An electronics and photography equipment market occupied Levels 3 & 4, respectively. This place was basically like the Singapore electronics market I visited last year; multiple levels of sweet sweet temptation... I viewed this place as one huge test of self restraint...

Upon setting foot on the 5th floor, we were immediately bombarded with hawkers trying to sell us glasses, fish, and firecrackers (actually they only sold glasses). We started off in the back of the building and sifted through 4 or 5 shops. We eventually found a shop near the center of the complex and dug-in for the afternoon.

Alicia found her two pairs pretty quickly although color of frames became a hot topic. I found a pair of aviators pretty quick and had some trouble finding a pair of regular glasses. Sam found some blue contacts but they couldn't order them in quick enough :-/

After what felt like a few hours of denying initial offers, some yelling/arguing, futile attempts of begging/pleading, and a few hurt feelings, we were able to hug it out and agree on the following terms:

Alicia’s total cost: 280 RMB for glasses + sunglasses ($40 USD)
My total cost: 200 RMB for glasses + aviators ($30 USD)

Kübler-Ross was onto something...

Afterwards, we met up with Sara and Tony to go to baller Sichuan restaurant. We got to the place and there was confusion over our reservation. We got it sorted out and were sat in a private dining room. We immediately started ordering food since no one had really eaten the entire day. Tony was a bit bummed that they had changed their menu a bit...

Then he exclaimed, "OH CRAP, THIS ISN'T THE RIGHT RESTAURANT!"

Having visited a Ninja Academy earlier in the day, we stealthily escaped our mistake while our servers were out, and we headed to the correct restaurant (one floor up) via fire escape.

Actually, we apologized profusely and ventured to the correct restaurant. This place had a minimum order amount which was fine by us. We were in "face-slam" mode and were just ordering anything and everything possible. We eventually figured out we had ordered too much food (although we had to do this to meet the quota).


^Luckily this meant leftovers for Sara and Tony.

With a daytrip to Suzhou the next day, we called it a night and caught cabs home for the night.