Shanghai - Day of the Rocket

hhhh…. So nice to have my own shower! Could have stayed in it for an hour, except that the extremely chlorinated water made me kind of feel like I was showering at a public pool.
Met up with the boys and we headed to Carrefour for breakfast. I was really excited to go cause we study it so much and I’ve never seen one in person! Turns out to be a pretty good store. Got some food court snacks and headed downtown to the fabric market. I eventually picked a tailor, got measured and gave her some magazine photos of items I wanted. Then I left with my fingers crossed. The boys only lasted a couple of minutes inside, so I went and found them perusing the LP outside.
Headed over to the French Concession to see the site of the first Communist Party Congress. Man, Mao would be spinning in his grave… the house is surrounded by restaurants and shops, all geared towards tourists. Very, very capitalist! The area is beautiful though, and completely unexpected for me. I really thought mainland China would be ….Chinese….
From there, went over to Fuxing Park, where all the old timers play cards and checkers all day. It’s a beautiful place and I was standing by myself taking a photo when an old man approached me. My first thought was that he was going to yell at me in mandarin for taking photos… I don’t know why I thought that… but instead he said “Hello. How are you?” in English! Turns out he listens to the BBC and Radio Canada quite a bit. We chatted about the park and he told me about his commute there everyday. Suddenly he noticed Dennis taking our photo and couldn’t get over the fact that Dennis could LOOK Chinese but in fact BE Canadian. I wanted to talk to him more, but we had places to go and people to see!
Took the subway over to the Pearl Tower, and I have to admit, I wasn’t super stoked about going up. I’ve been to towers before and usually find that after 10 minutes the view loses its appeal. And so it did…. But we found a fantastic museum full of miniature historical scenarios in the base of the tower. And even better, we found a lovely patio with nice washrooms and a seemingly good stock of Tiger beer. We drank all their Tiger and Dennis learned some more Spanish. I then decided that if I were to have a music video, it would be performed on the neon steps of the rocket (tower). I may or may not have performed some dance moves. I looked gooooood.
Back into the subway to Indian buffet at Carrefour! Mmmmmmm…. Indian buffet! And for appies, lamb on a stick! I asked the kabob vendor at the subway station if I could take a photo with him, and suddenly he had his arm around me neck and was trying to kiss me on the cheek. Thankfully, my reaction time was good and I avoided it!!! After that, his buddies came over and were speaking Mandarin to us… not that I could understand, but Dennis told me that the other guy was telling me that he was way better looking that my kabob boyfriend. Hilarious!
Couldn’t stay out too late – Saturday we planned to take the train to Hangzhou!