Shanghai? Yeah, we've been there

Chris and I spent the last three days having a blast in Shanghai. Here are the highlights: More Chinese Language madness Chris is allergice to cashews, so he asked me what the word for cashews is so that we could make sure that we did not get served them in restaurants. So I pulled out my handy-dandy electronic dictionary and looked it up. Me: "Um, you're not going to like this" Chris: "What?" Me: "Well, the Chinese word for cashews is yaoguo. The problem is, 'yao' also means 'I want' and 'guo' means 'nuts'. So the word for cashews is the exact same as saying 'I want nuts'" Chris: "This language sucks." Me: "Yeah, you're pretty much screwed" The Fake Market Near the Shanxi subway stop you can find Xiang Yang market where all sorts of fake goods are sold. North Face Jackets, Rolexes, and Puma shoes are all available at the many stalls. To call the shopping and the sales agressive is an understatement. I literally was grabbed in the arm by two woman who attempted to drag me back to a stall after I had walked away from a fake rolex watch. When bargaining, they always start ridiculously high, and so you must start ridiculously low. Gradually bargain up, and pretend to walk away several times. It's quite an intriguing game. I am dying to know how low they will go, and how much profit they are actually making on a jacket. Every single stall sells the exact same thing, yet the prices are ridiculously different. I ended up buying a North Face jacket for 140 yuan ($20US) and it seems really nice. At worst, it'll be better than a cheap jacket from Walmart that costs $60. The price took some hard bargaining - at one of the stalls the sales woman actually told me, "Fuck you" when I went to down to 130 yuan and wouldn't bargain anymore. In all though, it's hard to find good things at the Fake Market. (Despite the sales woman's claims of 'Best Quality'). I'm not a fan of brand names - I just want good stuff. And to get fake brand name goods that is obviously low quality is just ridiculous. I don't think I want to go into an interview with fake Boss shoes that have painted on leather bottoms. Hitting the bars Monday night Chris and Bill (a Stanford guy we met at the hostel ) decided to go out on the town. First we enjoyed 20 yuan drafts and got destroyed in darts by a guy from Thailand. Then we went to another bar and lit up the dance floor. Bill put on a show, taking over everything with his break dancing. At one point we went upstairs to use the bathroom and found a quiet restaurant above. Bill asked the girl at the counter how much the water was, and she said 10 yuan. Then Bill and I began yelling in Chinese, "10 yuan that's so expensive! My friend needs water he will die! You don't want him to die!" Bill then fell to the floor, flailing his arms, saying, "You're killing me!" The girl was cracking up, but didn't give us the water for any cheaper. The bar district is actually a little hard to find. They don't have neighborhood bars, or bars integrated in with the shopping and restaurants downtown. Also, it seems that the bars are mostly aimed towards vistitors and expats. It may just be that this area was aimed towards expats, but it seems that there is much less of a night scene than in the U.S. or Europe. Looking like a million bucks On the recommendation of another student in the hostel, we went to the garmet district to a tailor named Joyce (booth 77). We asked her if they could make a suit for us within two days. At first they told us that it would take four days at least, but after some wrangling and a few phone calls, they told us that they could do it. We were a little nervous about how they would come out. We were buying from a random tailor in Shanghai and giving them only 2 days to make a custom tailored suit. But for a $100 we thought it would be worth the risk, so we got measured. Two days later we returned. Amazingly, we had run into a New York fashion designer in the hostel (named Laura). She designed children's clothes for Walmart and other stores, and had come to Shanghai to check on the production. She had been to the garmet district everyday, and was excited to come with us to pick up the suits. We arrived at the tailor, and they were done as promised. We put them on, and Laura told us: "They look beautiful! They don't even need to be altered. That's amazing!" Two days. $100 US. A New York fashion designer things they look beaufiful. This city is ridiculous. We liked the suits so much that we decided to get one more. We bargained this one down to $90, plus $25 for shipping to the US. This time, we even had Laura to help us pick out the fabric and the design.