Date: March 5, 2007
Location: Shanghai, China (Day 2 of 4)
Next Port: Hong Kong, China, March 10-11
Quick Summary: Karen wanted to enjoy some shopping (and haggling) opportunities in this huge city, so we decided to have a free day from organized activity. We had a ball. In the evening, we attended an “acrobatics show” which turned out to be much more than that!
Report: The port terminal beside our ship is still under construction, so we needed to take a shuttle bus into the downtown. For those of you who have been here before, you would expect this to have been to the Friendship Store. But, that has closed and its vendors have been moved further out of the city. Instead, our shuttle bus took us to the Julong Handicraft and Silk Exhibition Hall, Dagu Lu. It’s just a couple of blocks from People’s Square (more about that tomorrow).
We cruised through the silk and handicrafts store, but didn’t purchase anything. We were able to exchange some dollars for Yuan (7.50 Yuan to $1) there.
We joined Mary and Vic, who were on a similar mission, and headed out to find the center for “knock-offs” – Taobao City. After getting confusing directions (and feeling very cold), we found the huge JW Marriott Hotel and hailed a cab. After about a 10 block drive, costing just the minimum 11 Yuan (less than $2), we found “nirvana.”
Taobao is thee floors of small individual merchant stores selling everything imaginable in the areas of clothes, bags, suitcases, shirts, jewelry, souvenirs and WATCHES. Everyone wants to sell you a watch…no matter what else they sell in their shop. Also, every time you stick your head outside, they try to sell you some more. (The watch best price Larry encountered in Shanghai was getting on a departing excursion bus and a vendor finally offered 4 for $10. He still didn’t buy any!)
We will keep our knock-off purchases secret because we intend to present “lavish” gifts to our family. J But let’s just say, the whole process is quite an operation. One offers 10-15% of the stated asking price and works from there. In many instances, it’s all done by handing a calculator back and forth with latest offers. It works just as well in Yuan or US dollars…but one has to be sure which currency is quoted! Sometimes it’s hard to tell…something that’s $125 in the U.S might just sell for 125 Yuan (or $17)! Many of the vendors took us into their hidden backrooms where they had additional items. It was all very exciting!
Needless to say, Karen and Mary spent a couple happy hours on the three floors of Taobao City. After the first hour, Larry and Vic enjoyed a beer along with several members of the crew that were hanging out there as well.
We then took a taxi to Old Town for lunch and a walk through narrow walkways of this ancient shopping area. We ate in a small soup and dim sum place which was a very interesting experience. We just pointed to what someone was having and then paid for it. Our choices were then delivered to our table. The hot won ton soup was delicious on the bitter cold day. Old Town has covered and open walking streets lined with small shops of every sort. All the colorful Chinese New Year’s decorations were still on display. There were different types of silk/paper lanterns strung everywhere and large cartoonish figures and animals attached to the sides of buildings, on balloons or on rafts in a stream. It reminded us of the explosion of Christmas decorations at home in the city during December.
We returned to the ship for an hour or so before heading out to the evening performance of Shanghai Circus, an Acrobatic Show. This was a complimentary Regent event for everyone on the ship (we had a choice of one of two evenings to attend).
What a world class show! The cast was probably 25-30 people who put on an arena type show that is hard to describe. The Chinese have been doing such performances for more than 2,000 years and it shows. Chosen children come to the city to live and to go to school while learning the arts of the circus, some beginning as young as four-years old. The different acts were a combination of gymnastics, ballet, street performance, magic, juggling, balancing and daredevil motorcycle riding. (I guess the last hasn’t been practiced all those 2,000 years!)
To give you an idea, maybe you can visualize three acts:
· A large man tossing a typical ceramic blue and white porcelain flower pot high up in the air, catching it by the lip, rolling it from fingertips from one hand across his neck to the fingertips of the other, spinning it on top of his bald head and then tossing it high in the air and catching it on the back of his neck. He repeated these sequences several times before moving to a similar pot three times as large. Everyone held their breath.
· A ballet/gymnast pair using long streamers from the ceiling and wrapping themselves up and doing an aerial ballet as they spin in circles. At one point, the man balances the woman across the top of his foot as they soar in circles 30 feet above the floor.
· Visualize a large mesh globe. One motorcyclist enters through a door in the side and begins to ride around the equator of the globe and then around the poles. He is subsequently joined one at a time by four other cyclists. Now there are five of them whizzing around the global cage on their lighted cycles. It is unbelievable that no one runs into one another…or that they don’t get dizzy and stop. And just when you wonder how much more they can take…three more motorcyclists enter the cage. Now there are eight of them charging after and through each other. One sneeze or hiccup could be disastrous!
Those were just three of the 12-15 acts. It is easy to see where the creators of Cirque de Soleil got their inspiration.
A very successful first full day in Shanghai!
Larry
Photos of our cruise are available at the web site:
picasaweb.google.com/larryworldcruise
Photos of our first full day in Shanghai have been added. (No photography was allowed in the Circus.)
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