A Holiday, No Internet, Shanghai, & Other Lame Excuses

I am sorry I've been out of commission for the past week or so- a lot of stuff came up. I'll be back next Monday, when I finally have free day. 

In the meantime, enjoy this collection of photos of only-slightly-more-dense-than-normal crowds of chinese peeps from the fun Ministry of Tofu, "What tourist attractions in China look like during the National Day holiday."

Nanjing Sign Roundup & Adventures in Chinglish

It's mine! All mine!! Mwahahahahahahaha!

You'll have to enlarge this one. [Gram, click the photo, then when it opens, click it again.] 

My fav: "No frolicking." 

lonely coffee

"No rubber solutions allowed." Say what?

There's one more, but it's a little risqué and my gram sometimes reads this, so it's after the jump. I think the photo is SFW, but the commentary might not be?

Shanghai Sign Roundup & Adventures in Chinglish

 cute graffiti

Only ¥16 for a latter coffee!

mmm...vanilly.

Well, yes... but, no...

in front of an out-of-order escalator

I like how much character this icon-man has.

 Huh?

The Bund, Shanghai

The Bund is an upscale area on the west bank of Shanghai's Huangpu River, famous for its old European architecture, and for the dramatically contrasting modern buildings on the opposing bank. Tiffany and I were in the area Monday morning, so we wandered down to take in the sights.

The fog made for some pretty unexceptional photos, causing us to decide to wait and see if it would burn off.

Tiffany in front of some building.

cool globe building

The fog never did really give way to the sun, but after dinner we decided to come back and see The Bund at night, per the recommendation of a friend.
 

It was, like, a jillion times more interesting than during the day! All lit-up and pretty:

 

 

 

 

PS: Here's the link for a cool photo of the entire Bund at night, from Wikipedia. Make sure to click on it with the magnifying glass, to enlarge it a bit.

Shanghai Rainbows

 Tiffany and I went to Shanghai this weekend.

 

Nantong Sign Roundup & Adventures in Chinglish

appropriately translated, this should say, 

"Be Careful: Travel Slowly"

 

 amenities sign

 this is a super-cool (to me) sign for a seafood restaurant

What is a "Decoration Residence," I wonder?

meanwhile, in China

 China Citic Bank? Pardon?

When literal translations go weird...

Scott and I had a drawn-out debate about whether "vitamin functional drink" was grammatically incorrect. I still think it is.

The literal translation does not match the English, and it also does not make sense, so I don't really know if this advice is accurate or not.

DON'T forget your passport when you're traveling in China

'Cause I did, and it wasn't cool. Tiffany, Scott, Stuart, and I took the train to Nantong, a nearby city with a international chain store that's kind of a cross between Costco and Cash & Carry. Also, it has a US cuisine restaurant that is a wooonderful treat!

The train attendants always seem to hock stuff during trips. I have no clue what these were, except that at one point he pulled out a lighter and put the flame against the non-flammable part. Later he pitched socks and belts.

Scott giving me the evil eye

Stuart

We got into town around 13:00, and immediately went to lunch. Then we tried to check into a hotel. It's the law in China that foreigners MUST use their passports to check into hotels. I had forgotten my passport at home---Stuart: "I thought about texting everyone to bring their passports, then I thought, 'we're all smart enough to remember them'''---and only had a photo copy, which the receptionists wouldn't accept. We tried everything: getting them to call managers; calling my boss to work some guanxi-magic; calling Scott and Tiffany's boss to do the same; trying to convince the recptionists to pretend they didn't know about me; looking pathetic. After twenty stressful minutes, we finally gave up and went to a different hotel, where I hung out on the street while the other three checked in. When I walked in with the group later that night, no one gave me a second glance. And, the bed Stuart and I shared was way bigger than the bed in the first hotel---this one could have fit all four of us, but in the first, Stuart and I pretty much would have been on top of each other, something which would have sucked majorly considering I discovered he is a wicked restless sleeper.


With the anticlimactic conclusion of that debacle, we went for groceries, got dinner, and had fun on a short channel tour in a little, plastic, rented boat.

Scott with a "margarita"

Tiffany

in the boat

My small point-and-shoot camera is absolutely fabulous in all things except night shots; in the dark, it sucks big time. Still, with persistence, I managed to get a couple nice photos: