Got up around 10, and spent the next 15 minutes doing various stretching exercises to try to reattain a full range of movement (I hate my mattress!). I then walked to the closest train station (about 1.5km or so) and hopped on the number 4 line to the 'Shanghai Indoor Stadium' station.
Just a quick side-note here. Trains in Shanghai are fairly similar to trains in Melbourne, in the following respects:
- They both carry passengers
- They both run on rails
Anyway, I got out at the stadium station (may have to go back there at some point to actually have a look at the stadium) and walked north for about a kilometre where I arrived at a shopping centre named 'Metro City'. This place is a gadget-lover's dream. Multiple stories of the latest technology, including phones, cameras, game consoles, PC parts - you name it, they have it. I was specifically looking for a new digital camera as the current Sony that I have is, in the words of Homer Simpon, the "suckiest suck that ever sucked". I read good things about the Canon IXUS 80 IS, so I made some inquiries at a few stores to see how much it was going to cost me. I started off at the official Canon-branded store - that was a mistake.
Upon walking in, I was approached by a staff member obviously eager for a sale. After I inquired about the camera, he told me it would be $370. I knew that I could get it cheaper than that and wanted to have a look around. I mentioned that I didn't have that much money, so he grabbed my arm and walked me upstairs to an ATM machine. He then proceeded to watch me like a hawk watches a field mouse just before it swoops in for the kill. After getting some money I managed to extract myself from his clutches, and went on my merry way.
The next stall I went to was entirely due to an attractive sales girl. Yes, I'm prepared to admit it, she was hot and I went in because of her. Her English was pretty good, but she had a problem with my accent and couldn't work out which camera model I was after. She got out some paper and I wrote it down, and she said 'no problem' and quoted me a price which was almost $100 cheaper than the Canon place. This news prompted me to strike up my happy dance, but I quickly stopped when I received some apprehensive looks from the other salespeople in the stall. At this time, I encountered the classic 'bait-and-switch' policy that is famous over here. Obviously it's not just specific to China, but it certainly seems prevalent over here. For those of you not familiar with the bait-and-switch, it basically entails an assistant getting you into the store with the promise of something that you want, only to sit you down and attempt to sell you something more expensive/more profitable. In this case, I knew the exact camera model that I wanted. When the girl told me the price, I was happy to sit down and look at buying it. She called over another sales guy, and gave him some rapid-fire instructions. He disappeared, and we were left alone at the table.
The girl flashed me a disarming (and extremely cute) smile, and proceeded to do her best to sway me from my decision. First she tried to tell me that the camera that I wanted was more than 3 years old, which I knew wasn't true. Then she got out a Panasonic and gave me a quick demonstration of its capabilities. After I wasn't swayed by that, she got out another Canon (bigger and bulkier than the one I wanted) and tried to sell me that instead. I had noticed by now that they didn't actually have the camera that I wanted on display anywhere, and had realised that the sales guy had been sent off in search of the model that I wanted. I politely refused all of her attempts to sell me a different camera, and a few minutes later the other guy returned and said 'bu hao', which means 'no good'. He obviously could not get the camera that I wanted from anywhere else at a price which would have still gotten the girl a profit, so I moved on.
The next few places I went had exactly the same price, but then I happened across a place that was slightly more expensive. I mentioned that I could get the camera cheaper at another place, so they started doing some bargaining. These guys actually had the camera I wanted on display, so they got it out and let me play with it for a while. They ended up throwing in a 2gb memory card and knocking quite a bit off the price, so I bought it from them.
From Metro Plaza I walked to the closest train station and made my way to People's Square, which is one of the busiest train stations I have ever been to. Think Flinders St during peak hour, and you're getting close to the volume of people that seem to be at this station at all times. Anyway, the People's Square station is close to a number of shopping centres (amongst other things), and I was after some new running shoes, so that was my main reason for going there. I started off at the somewhat strangely named 'Raffles City', a multi-storey shopping centre with a number of up-market brands. I spent about an hour looking around but they had a fairly small sporting goods area so I moved on.
From there I wandered down the road until I came across the wonderfully named 'Brilliance Shimao International Plaza'. The first thing that caught my attention was the massive Nike Swoosh on the front of the building. I went in and found a Nike specialty store, and ended up buying some shoes there for a reasonable price. I then went upstairs and found a few more sports stores (including another Nike place, which was a bit strange) and bought some more clothes. I finished up by making a trip to Subway (no meatballs left so I had to get roasted chicken, devastated!) and went over the road to the People's Park to wolf it down.
By now I was pretty tired of shopping. I had been walking around buying things for 5 hours, so decided it was time to take my purchases back to my apartment. I got back home at around 6, and after stuffing around for a bit I got changed and went out in search of beer.
I've noticed that I seem to be in the crap side of town in terms of bars and clubs. I'm on the Pudong side of town, and all the nightlife seems to happen on the Puxi side. However, I found a post on a web forum which mentioned a bar at a place named 'Thumb Plaza' which didn't seem too far away, so I downloaded an image with Chinese instructions on how to get there to my iPhone (nerd alert!) and flagged down a taxi. He dropped me off about 10 minutes later for the grand total of $2 :) On my way over to the bar, I noticed a Nike Factory outlet, so I went in to have a look. The shoes that I had purchased earlier in the day were there, and were $25 cheaper. Damn it! Still, I guess it's good to know that it's there.
Anyhoo, I walked in to the bar and noticed by the accents that there were Americans everywhere. This was not exactly surprising, as the place was owned by an American. I marched up to the bar and asked for a Heineken as it was the first beer that I could see they had on tap. They poured me a pint and I handed over a 100 RMB note. They gave me 40 RMB change...which equates to a $AUD 13.60 pint. Bugger. I drank it down making sure to savour the taste (unfortunately, as those of you who have tried it are already aware, Heineken is a crap beer) and watched some NBA action on the very large TV screen nearby. After finishing the Heineken I moved on to a pint of Tiger (which was much cheaper and arguably tasted better) by which time an English Premier League soccer match had come on. I forced myself to watch the most boring sport ever created for about 10 minutes before my eyes rebelled and threatened to jump out of their sockets if the visual torture continued. Luckily by this stage the band had started playing.
The band is named 'Jagged Edge' and are actually extremely good. The lead male vocalist also plays a mean guitar solo, and they had the decent-sized crowd singing along to a lot of their western-style songs. At this time I noticed a guy making his way through the crowd shaking hands with a lot of people. He had a torch and had been talking with the band before they started, so I figured he was the manager. I happened to know that his name was Mike (from my nerdy internet research), so I went up and introduced myself and complimented the band. He introduced me to his bar manager (Benjamin) and another employee (Elmer, as in Fudd) who was having farewell drinks that night. At this point, I stopped paying for alcohol :)
After talking to the bar manager for a little while, I asked him if he knew what a Midori Illusion Shaker was. He'd never heard of it, so I gave him the ingredients and he called over a bartender to mix it up for us. He made about 4 of them and poured them into 3 glasses for us before I could mention that they are usually drunk from shot glasses. Ben and Elmer loved them, so they may start serving them there from now on. After finishing those, Elmer kept filling up a glass with a lot of Vodka and pouring just a splash of lemonade on top. Not being one to complain about free drinks, I happily consumed everything he put in front of me. This continued until about 1:30am, at which point I was struggling remember my own name. I bid some farewells to my new friends, and stumbled outside to find a taxi. I have a piece of paper in my wallet which contains the address of my apartment in Chinese, so had no problems finding someone who knew how to get me home.
Checked my wallet this morning and it seems that I spent a grand total of $AUD 25 on beer last night. Awesome.
Classic stuff. If there is one man in the world who can squeeze free piss out of a total stranger - its you! Keep that lurk going, I'll be over there soon enough!
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