Somehow the three of us made it out the door by 7:30 a.m. for the bus terminal to Zhou Zhuang, an hour west of Shanghai proper. A relatively uneventful ride, Jim and I babbled on about our lives in Taipei from '95 onward and how weird it was to find ourselves here.

I don't think any of us who headed for Taipei back in the mid-'90s ever thought that we were "positioning" ourselves for all of this or had any idea that the global playing field would turn in China's favor in the way that it has and in such a short amount of time. I know I didn't. I just wanted to learn MANDARIN and get some "international work experience."

Who knew?

We were just there partying!

Zhou Zhuang is a quaint little canal town, promoted as the "Venice of China." Unfortunately, my pencam batteries were dying out on me so my photos turned out rather grainy, although the graininess seemed rather appropriate, no?

Click on the photo for more of today's pictures.

The tourist map we had was WAY out of scale, so what looked like temples 1/4 mile away were actually just around the corner. It cracked us up, but at least they placed "North" at the top of the map, unlike the variety you get in Taiwan, lol. We maximized our trip there and saw as much as we could, including residences of dead important people and old rinky dink museums.

'Twas okay.

Highlights of the trip was eating this massive PIG'S FEET which were being sold all over the place. In spite of all the fat, it was quite yummy! Lunch was less to be desired (never thought anyone could mess up dumplings) but the boat ride down the canal was really cool. Jim would randomly wave at people and that made our experience interesting too. He was a happy camper.

But we also noticed some very odd things about that town.

First, it was a very POOR place, with the town surrounded by large fields and randomly scattered houses. It's what one would imagine "Communist China" to be, odd because it was only one HOUR outside of crazy Shanghai.

Second, we couldn't help but notice how many of the local townspeople were just hanging out, doing NOTHING. Absolutely nothing at all. We're not sure if it was because it was a day off or what, but it felt so random and lifeless. A pretty town, but lacking of any energy or motivation from its people.

Click on the photo for more of today's pictures.

Third was the 2001 APEC meeting hall, which included a big BOAT where the main meeting took place and an entire villa built around it just to accomodate to that event.

It was shocking to see how poorly structured the place was, with low quality materials and old, spotted carpeting, etc., with gross grammatical errors on all of the English signs. Considering the IMPORTANCE of the event, it was kind of embarrassing that the quality of the locale could be so ICKY.

We did have a funny moment though when Flora stood in front of the stone wall in front of the main entrance translating the Chinese text. Jim and I stood on the other side reading the English translation, which she didn't know was available.

 Me: "So Flora! How much did the whole thing cost?"

Her: "It says here, 800 thousand... oh wait... 8 million..."

 Me: "Oh wow! And when exactly was the APEC meeting?"

Her: "Um... the meeting was held on..."

And she kept sharing her knowledge with such enthusiasm until she rounded the corner and realized that Jim and I were reading the English version straight from the panel, and snickering.

LOL!

Anyway, the other thing we thought was quite weird on our return back to Shanghai were the hundreds and hundreds of skinny trees that aligned the main roads. The lower part of each tree was painted white. A rather strange sight.

All in all it was a worthwhile trip, but I doubt any of us will go back again.

Been there.

Done that.

NEXT!

"Dinner with Chin-Chin..."

Afterwards we got back to Jim's place and I was BEAT. I don't remember what those guys did -- actually I think they went to work out at the gym -- but I crashed until they woke me up for dinner.

Between my travels in the U.S. and feeling incredibly jet-lagged and COLD, I've been coming home after every event and crashing like a log. It's a good thing that they got me up because otherwise I would have slept until midnight probably, and though I came THIS close to staying in, I ended up scrambling to get ready and head out with them.

"Should I stay or should I go?" seems to be a constant theme in my life.

LOL!

We met up with Chin-Chin for dinner at 1221, a popular Shanghainese restaurant with lots of tall foreigners, lol. Chin-Chin also knows Mark and a handful of others from Taiwan. Small world eh? Dinner was good, and we later went bar hopping at Hen-Shan Road until 2 a.m.

A mellow evening, but it was quite fun. =)

They say that Shanghai is whatever you make of it... which is very true.

Very true indeed.


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