Monday, June 11th - I Love Shanghai

• If China ever takes over the world, they’ll have terrible customer service
• It’s really endemic in Chinese establishments of all sorts to have horrible customer service but today really took the cake at the tourism center at Yuyuan Park
• It was about 8:15 pm and the door was open to the Tourism Center and I saw an English subway map that I had been searching high and low for and it was about 60 feet from the door
• I walked in thinking it was open and the girl there snaps at me and points her finger and says, “NO, WE ARE CLOSED!”
• I had the thought of just making a mad dash for the map but I think she would have drop kicked me based on her tone and manner
• After I left she locked the door behind me which just screams, “Welcome to Shanghai Mr. Tourist!”
• I went out with my tail between my legs and came back when it officially opened at 8:30 and I greeted her with a nice hello but I have a feeling that not even a shovel would have wiped the scowl off her face
• Yuyuan Park was awesome
• It was more of a Japanese park than a Chinese park but I really didn’t care because it was still really beautiful
• THEY EVEN HAD KOI WHICH ARE AWESOME FISHES!

• Shanghai Museum was cool (and free)
• The fact that it was free made it my favorite museum I went to in Shanghai so far
• They had a lot of the standard “This is a pot from 2000 years ago ooh ahh” but I’ve seen an old pot before, but it was the really ornate vases, masks, and artwork that were 1000 years old that were really amazing
• I like how in America we think 100 years is old but in China that probably feels like last week to them

• 2 for 2 on avoiding pretty girl scams
• These two girls came up to me as I was making my way to the Shanghai Art Museum (which they told me was closed which for some reason I believed them so I started walking with them) and again I was thought to be a fool by two pretty Asian girls who wanted to show me this awesome tea ceremony
• I said no because I wasn’t thirsty and then they asked me if I wanted to see an acrobatics show
• I did so without thinking I said, “Sure” and sure enough those two girls pulled out brochures out of their purchases
• I thought to myself, “Really, you have brochures in your purse? Are you kidding me?” So I told them I was no longer interested and I went to go eat fried dumplings
• Fried dumplings are amazing
• Their full of oil and their nice and crisp which just makes it feel so American!

• Xintiandi and site of 1st CCCP Congress
• I just thought it was ironic that the site of the first Chinese Communist Party Congress is next door to the site of one of the biggest/upper-class shopping malls in all of China

• Qinbao and my new friend 
• After finishing looking around Xintiandi I walked over to the ancient village they have set up in Shanghai called Qinbao and I really liked it
• Plus, a girl got me out of paying 30 RMB to enter the village which was even more awesome (the free part was awesome, not the fact that I met a girl although that’s cool)
• She told me she’s a 19-year old college student at Shanghai University School of Political Science and Law (she showed me her ID later which seemed pretty legit) who majors in International Trade and hates it
• When I asked her “What are you going to do after you graduate?” she said, “Oh, I have no future” 
• I didn’t purposefully try to keep her around because I told her on multiple occasions if I was annoying her or if she wanted to go back to her school she could go back
• I know she wasn’t trying to scam me because after she spent 10 minutes trying to figure out that I wanted a soup bun I offered her to buy her a baozi as a thank you for dealing with me and she said no
• She even stuck around me when I was coughing up a fit on the train ride from Qinbao to the Oriental Pearl TV Tower
• We walked up and down the side of the river opposite The Bund and she left to go back to her college 
• She told me that if she wasn’t back by 10 pm her professors would yell at her (which is reason #1598 why American universities rock)

• E. Nanjing Rd. and The Bund
• I have never been propositioned by hookers so many times in my entire life than in the 2 hours I spent in this part of the city
• Every 5 minutes I was walking along these two streets (I was by myself) a woman, a woman representing another woman, or a man representing multiple women would ask me if I wanted a massage
• I knew it was more than a massage because as soon as I said no they would say something along the lines of, “You don’t want to have sex with me?”
• The first time I was taken aback because I thought, “I don’t know, maybe they’re asking me if I need a massage because my neck is slightly crooked” so I thought they were genuinely offering a massage
• I got so sick of it
• At first I would explain to them, “No, I’m catholic, I don’t believe in sex before marriage” and make the sign of the cross and all that but then I just told them I was gay (which I’m not)
• One lady wouldn’t stop propositioning me and I yelled, “I’M GAY” so loud that people turned around and stared at me (at least that got her away)