1.
Shanghai is gorgeous. Hundreds, probably thousands of high-rise apartments and
office buildings that all seem to glisten and glean.
2.
Shanghai is clean. At all hours of the day you see city workers cleaning the
streets. They walk around with
brooms made from branches and leaves, constantly sweeping the streets and
picking up after everyone.
3.
And by everyone, I mean everyone. It feels like everyone on the planet
lives in this city. There are so
many people. This can’t be
emphasized enough. And to think I
have only seen probably less than 1/10th of one percent of the city
so far. It is absolutely mental.
4.
People drive anywhere and everywhere. Sidewalks are fair game for
motorcycles, bikes, heck even cars sometimes. Crossing the street is like some screwed up version of “frogger”
where the game is completely stacked against you. The cars and the logs and
everything come from every angle. The traffic lanes have no meaning or purpose. Green lights for pedestrians are more of
a suggestion on when you should go, because motorcycles and bikes are more than
happy to run red lights and to duck and dodge between pedestrians. Again, cars sometimes choose to do this
too.
5.
Shanghai is very modern and westernized. Foreign people are everywhere.
6.
Every time that I have seen a police car in
motion, the lights are on. Every
time I have seen a police car parked, there is about 5 cops inside sitting and
doing nothing. Actually that is
not entirely true, they may be smoking.
7.
Most of the Chinese are very, very nice. They smile and wait patiently while you
try to figure out the price of something, or what in the world something is
that they are selling. The
few that have been rude so far though, are pretty damn rude.
8.
Banking in China is complete madness. Grab a ticket and expect to wait a long
time. Probably doesn’t help to
have to wait for the English speaking teller, however there were plenty of
Chinese waiting for a long time along with me.
9.
Banking part 2. People deposit huge amounts of cash. I saw two separate people deposit
multiple bricks of 100 RMB notes.
Probably upwards of 100,000 RMBs at a time. I would have taken a picture but I don’t know if that is
cool to do in a bank.
10. Prices
on things seem completely random.
I can buy an iron for my clothes for 39 RMB, while one Tsingtao (Chinese
beer, so not imported) at a bar will set you back (depending on location)
somewhere between 30-50 RMB. The metro is exceedingly cheap, only about 3-6 RMB
per trip, while some cheap plastic 2 USD sunglasses being sold in the metro
station can set you back up to 100 RMB.
Addendum 8/19/12: Six of us were able to eat at a traditional
Chinese restaurant and all have tea for 105RMB. And there was food leftover. For those keeping track, 105 RMB is equal to 16 USD
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