China on Skates/SHANGHAI

China was next on the itinerary, where we would meet with some friends of ours in Shanghai.  After checking out of the hotel, we wait at a nearby restaurant for our ride, while I breakfast on yogurt and muesli.

Without a hangover to provide the proper self-punishment, I compensated with a bowl of flavorless uncooked oats.

Our van back to Vientiane is late to pick us up, and the drive is exactly as pleasant as you might imagine a budget ride across Laos might be.  What should have taken 3 hours instead takes almost 6, as the van stops about every half hour to grab more passengers, with new seats folding out of hidden compartments from seemingly every surface.  Soon the eight passenger vehicle is carrying a great deal more, and there's no room to do anything but sit as straight as possible with your baggage clutched close to you.  Sleep is impossible, of course, and fresh air becomes a cruel exercise in aversion therapy, as every stop we make to stretch our legs means picking up another human-sized body heat generator.  It got so hot and sticky in the van, and we were packed in so tight, from the outside it must have looked like the world's most polite and dead-faced orgy.

We emerge from the ultra-compressed interior of the van into the almost-completely empty Wattay airport in Vientiane.

There is a cat though, in the airport.  Some things really make you think, about terrorism and all.

Also, Ms KEK.  She makes me think about other things.  More confused, erotic things.

From Laos we fly to Shanghai (the one in China), but first a layover in Bangkok.  The layover is supposed to take 7 hours, but I'd been to Suvarnabhumi Airport before and remembered it be quite comfortable, so I wasn't too bummed out.  After all, I'm a classy traveler who knows the names of airports.

'Cause I'm smart.

It's an overnight flight, which means a great deal more sitting around and letting my greasy pores slowly cover my body in a warm filmy membrane.  By the time we land, my hands are so oily that when I clench my fists it sounds and feels like a wet swamp fart in my palm.

When we touch down, the first thing I do (after a quick hobo shower in the restroom) is test out an ATM, and find that my debit card is still not working.  I'm getting pretty worried at this point, and to that end I send off an email to my credit union, in the hopes that I might have access to money at some point in the near future.  For the time being, Sarah is gracious enough to cover our expenses and loan me some spare cash.

Airport Customs goes by surprisingly quickly, but we do find ourselves stopped by a broken subway ticketing machine, which takes an exceedingly long time and several ranks of bureaucracy to fix.  It's been almost 24 hours without sleep, and we still have 20 subway stops to go until we reach our digs in Shanghai.  But these were no ordinary stops.  For some reason, the train conductor could not start or stop the train smoothly a single time, and rarely could they stop the train in the right location.  This meant stopping, inching forwards or backwards slowly, stopping again, then inching a little more for good measure.  At one point the train doors opened and closed three times at a single stop, and these doors were not quick to do either.  I will say this for the subway, though, it taught me that old Chinese men love to sing to themselves.  Now you have that information, and can hopefully do more with it than I.

At least the train has a great view of the smog.

For our stay in Shanghai, Sarah had arranged for us to crash at her friend Mitchell's apartment.  Mitchell had previously worked at the same English academy in Korea as us, but broke his contract to move to China.  He's won't be back from Taipei until tomorrow, but we manage to sneak into the building as some other residents are leaving.

This fence(?) was standing in the lobby, presumably being all politically biased.

After a shower and a nap that wished it were so much more, we head back out to get dinner.  Even though Shanghai is a huge, ultra-modern metropolis, Sarah and I are still very much stared-at as we walk towards downtown.  The city itself seems perpetually downcast as a result of all the pollution created by rapid development and urban sprawl.

Pictured: That perfect moment when you realize the fog isn't dissipating, and also it isn't fog.

Street vendors harass constantly, trying to sell (counterfeit) designer bag, clothes, and iPhones.  Most of them have laminated cards they can shove in your face with pictures of all the Prada and Gucci and Louis Vuitton that can be had at "good pri' for you."  What was unnerving about a lot of the vendors I encountered were the light-up plastic wheels they were selling that strap onto your shoes.  I've got quite a bit of experience dealing with street sellers, but never ones on roller skates.  To turn away a haggler only for him to keep up with you without having to walk, red lights flashing under his feet, felt dreamlike, and not un-demonic.

Between the two of us Sarah and I probably knew negative Chinese, but we didn't let that influence our choice of restaurants.  We found a tiny hole-in-the-wall, pointed at a couple pictures of dumplings, grabbed some seats by the window, and hoped for the best.  Luckily, they understand "beer", and we're able to get a great big bottle for less than a dollar.

In fact, this entire spread cost less than 5 dollars.  Commies, you're alright.

While we were eating, we kept hearing this loud screeching coming from behind us, in the kitchen.  For a while I figured it was a broken appliance, or some sort of exotic and annoying cooking method I didn't know about.  That's what I figured until the screeching came our way, and my eyes traced the source to a giant rat above us, scurrying along the pipes hanging from the ceiling.

Remy's come a long way.

We're asked if we want any more beer.  I have to give them credit, the place did have great hole-in-the-wall service, in addition to the very real holes in the wall, one of which the rat was currently escaping into.  We finish the dumplings, leaving our bowel health for fate to decide.

On the way back to the apartment we stop in a convenience store, to stock up on beer and any random Chinese liquors that caught my eye.  There's a policeman by the counter, who thinks it is just funny as all get-out when I say "xie xie" to the clerk.  The cop offers me a cigarette and grins, revealing a mouth where teeth had long ago lost a terrible civil war.  I don't smoke, but I also learned I don't turn down toothless Chinese police officers.  For five minutes we smoked in the store, and he kept urging me over and over to repeat the only Chinese words I knew, which were "ni hao" and "xie xie".  He would say one of the words, I would repeat it, and he would burst out in a gum-filled giggling fit.  Over and over.  Finally I gave my best "well I'd love to keep doing this forever and ever until I die but you know" expression, and quickly backed out of the store, his laughter following us as we made our exit.

And for all I know, he's still laughing.

The next day we meet up with some other friends of ours from Korea, David and Amy (this is at nighttime, because apparently what I do during the day in a new country is eat KFC and watch bootleg DVDs, but in a cultural way).  Both were fellow English teachers, albeit for other academies, and now they worked at a Chinese university in Hefei.  Mitchell, back now, takes everyone to dinner at a Taiwanese restaurant.  He orders food for the table, which is all delicious, but I admit my memory is dominated entirely by the dessert of flan on a bed of shaved ice.

Like ambrosia having sex with your mouth.

Our group is led to a popular expat bar in the area called Windows Too, which follows the Asian tradition of sticking "Too" onto the end of a bar expansion's name.  Long Islands are five bucks here, which made me feel good about being thrifty while spending someone else's money, and made my liver sigh, lie back, and think of England.

Each of the tables had a set of dice for some sort of betting game that was a big deal with both the locals and the expats.  One of Mitchell's friends tried explaining the rules to me, but somehow despite four concentration-sharpening Long Islands I still kept losing.  With no other explanations before me, my only conclusion is dark, Eastern magic.

Put plainly, every Chinese person is clearly a powerful sorceror.

I don't want to say this statue of a nearby armored rhino is proof, but I also don't want to say it won't come alive in the light of the full moon and hunt down a magician's enemies.

We left Windows Too at around 1 a.m.  We could have gone home, but as I understand it, Chinese national law dictated that we had to first go to a karaoke joint and continue drinking and singing for at least another two hours.  Every song I sang was beautiful and perfectly in-tune.  There was a lot of canceling of my songs by the others, but that's just, you know, jealousy, and just sad for them.

I should probably be a professional, but music is so political, you know?

To everyone's total shock and surprise, we wake up with raging hangovers (honestly, I was actually a bit surprised, after Southeast Asia's mystical hangover prevention).  Sarah and I meet David and Amy for lunch, and set off to find the perfect morning-after meal.  And wouldn't you know it, we run across a Pizza Hut.  Having lived in Korea, I knew to expect some differences, but pizza's pizza, even if this dining room did seem a lot fancier than it needed to be.  Maybe they'll do something wacky like put corn on it.  Or...they'll hand you a goddamn steak menu:

And a freaking wine selection:

After flipping through the book back and forth a couple times, I was able to conclusively say that yes, they did actually serve pizza in this Pizza Hut.

Still not entirely sure if it wasn't all a waking dream, though.

In addition to my pizza, I ordered an appetizer of escargots, followed by bread pudding for dessert.  That was what I ate at Pizza Hut.

Did I mention the escargots?  The Pizza Hut escargots?  Oh goddammit, there's something I have to fix in this timeline, isn't there.

After eating the most confused meal that Werner Herzog never made a movie about, we headed downtown for some shopping.  Finally, I would have shorts.  The street dealers were out in full force on their colorful roller skates, but this time we had a secret weapon.  David had taught us to say "bu yao", which means in Chinese "I don't want".  However, instead of ruing the day and so forth, these people actually seemed to gain power from our attempts to tell them off in their own language, and they laughed and laughed.  Sarah, not one to be beaten so easily, started to combine a shouted "Bu Yao!" with the "suck-it" crotch chop, which seemed to have the desired effect.  There wasn't much a dealer could do to retaliate, after that.

That sound you hear is the sad rumble of roller skates rolling away in defeat.   It's...not a common sound.

We end up on Nanjing Road, one of the world's busiest shopping streets, and a place where a guy is almost certain to find at least one pair of short pants for sale if he looks hard enough.  Despite being the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, the street was as crowded as its reputation suggested.  I don't know if it was a regular fixture, but there was a saxophonist playing from a golden veranda above the street, where old couples had gathered to dance.

And the Chinese Billy Idol.

One of the biggest tourist destinations in Shanghai is easily the the Bund river and the view it provides of the neighboring skyline:

A bunch of space penises ruled over by a spiked uber-dick and its robo-balls.  If you squint a bit.

While we all took pictures of ourselves standing in front of One-Nasty-Riot-Away-From-Cyberpunk City, a queue actually started to form of Chinese people who wanted to take pictures with Sarah.  Once enough tourists had gotten a photo with a real live blonde white girl, we adjourned to the Bund Brewery, where a glass of beer costs about 10 dollars, and tastes like a world where McCarthyism was right about everything, especially dodgy microbrews.  I tried a lager that was cloudy and foul, and a dark beer that might actually have been Bund water in a glass.

The beer was bad and tasted of Communism.  That's the joke.

A rooftop hookah bar later in the evening offered similarly disappointing and expensive drinks, but had a really spectacular view.  Which is good, because also our hookah didn't work.  We end up back at Windows Too, where I find the dice game just as impenetrable, but notice a number of interesting and helpful posters:

Homer nooo

noooooo

 For our last day together before David and Amy went back to Hefei and Sarah returned to Korea, we explored the Old City of Shanghai.

Everywhere, everywhere, are people trying to sell Mao merchandise.  For stuff dedicated to the founder of Chinese communism, it was one of the most flagrant displays of capitalism I've ever seen.  Shops line every street offering the best deals on shirts with Obama's face done up in Communist garb, or Little Red Book lighters for souvenirs.

Also, a lot of Chinese erotic vampire fiction fans.  Just like Mao wanted.

We eat lunch at a cozy little halal place that is bare empty when we arrive, and fills to capacity promptly at 12 p.m. when every Chinese person in the city takes lunch all at the same time.  Moving on, we pass alleys where locals sit around bags of leather and metal buckles and put together the "designer" belts someone on the next street is sure to offer.  Amy goes into a convenience store, and buys something called Baijiu.  From what I've read since, it's a Chinese liquor with 5000 years of history and a number of distinctive complexities.  But that's all bullshit.  Actually, it's a fifty cent flask of Fuck You Firewater.

All that Chinese on the label is calling you a pussy, and your mother something that doesn't really make sense to Westerners but you should probably be offended anyway.  Like, she's a donkey that doesn't go to church enough.

Passing around the one flask of noxious spirits is enough to get all of us in the group staggering.  Before standing balance becomes impossible, we walk into a bamboo park and take seat around a table in the center.  Kids run around nearby, rough-housing and learning just how much violence their parents will let them get away with (a lot, so long as it is performed in the manner of kung fu).  Next to our table sits a dirty diaper left by a previous family, which bothers one less after they've seen how Chinese mothers will often let their infants take standing dumps in public.  In fact, you'll often see babies with split opening in their pants for just this disgusting purpose.

We drink a round of beers, do the usual reminiscing about Korea, and before long David and Amy have taken off to catch their train.  Sarah and I meet back up with Mitchell, now off work, who brings us along for the real Shanghai past-time: Bootlegging.

First, we head to an entire mall of counterfeit stores, where Sarah is able to buy a pair of knock-off Lady Gaga Heartbeats earphones, and I buy some of those sweet sweet Mao souvenirs that go against everything he and the Republic he founded stood for.  Next, Mitchell takes us to where he personally buys his bootleg DVDs, which is, no joke, in the back of a bookstore through a secret passage behind a swinging bookcase. In addition to DVDs the store in the back also sells the photocopied books I became familiar with in Vietnam.  Sarah buys a couple books, while I just stand there, ecstatic that I actually got to go through a trick bookcase in my lifetime.

As I said earlier, it was Sarah's last night in Shanghai, and the end of her time traveling with me.  After a lavish dinner at an amazing Hong Kong-style restaurant, we retired early back to Mitchell's.  I buy a plane ticket online for Bangkok, and Sarah leaves me a parting gift: $500 cash (in Chinese Yuan), and a bottle of Xanax.  The cash in case my debit card didn't work, and the Xanax for "making friends," she said.  It was one of the tougher goodbyes I've had to say.  Without human companionship, or a working mp3 player, it was going to get lonely on the road.  But, at least I had a new bottle of pill-shaped friend-makers to help me along.