home again, home again
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
It feels damn strange being back in Tokyo. Things here are so relatively sane it's like waking from some sort of hilarious fevered dream.
No one trying to kill us on the streets with their car, cycle, or scooter; no dust in our eyes and between our teeth; no one lined up to buy eggs prepared atop an upturned barrel with filth encrusted on the sides, and made in a gap between buildings; no laundry overhead; no people sauntering over to stand next to you and stare; no one getting into arguments (or slapping fights) on the streets.
I kinda miss all of that. Shanghai is exhausting but I loved its vibrancy while we were there. Tokyo certainly feels bloodless by comparison.
I got a lot of mileage out of the card that my friend Joon made me. Which he says "I'm allergic to wheat" on one line and "Can I eat that?" on the other line. I was warned off of a lot of food that way.
Some random thoughts on the place:
We did the motorbike tour with shanghai sideways and in four hours managed:
- to see the really relevant sites
- to see things we would never have found (the 'old' part of the old town) or wouldn't have been able to access (the roof of the post office)
- to see things we went back to check out at length (e.g. Taikang Road art centre)
- and most importantly, to get a grip on the city; we felt practically at home here at the end of our first morning!
- to avoid the ridiculous tourist traps (the 'old town' that everyone gets taken to on the tours)
The guide books and maps are all out of date. our book-first written in 2001, but last printed in 2008, no guarantee of an update at that time-has many omissions, mistakes, etc. Our map doesn't have one of the subway lines! I threw out my guidebook and map as we headed for the airport because they were both essentially irrelevant.
Expo will be in Shanghai next year, so half of the city is under construction; the extensive riverside walk at the Bund is entirely boarded up. Our guide said that there were some 6,000 construction projects on the go at this time.
We got our money changed at the airport and in the city, and the airport is clearly the way to go. The banks in town are run at government pace, shall we say. 20 minutes to change $600. Getting it changed back to Japanese Yen would have come with a ¥C50 fee, so we just kept the Chinese money.
I advise anyone going there to take taxis. They're cheap and much faster than the bus. And take the subway; as clean and modern as useful as that of Toronto, (for whatever that's worth). Maglev from the airport is good and not expensive. Take a cab from there into the city centre or take the subway if it's going the right way.
We learned to avoid eating restaurant in the hotel. It is ridiculously expensive, and you can tough it out on the street and get better food. Our second morning, we spent a grand total of 6% of our first morning, which was in the hotel. Every morning after that, we just ate at stalls where someone was cooking something right on the street.
There's no tipping in China, just like Japan.
We saw several confrontations flare up. There was at least one that turned violent (a man and woman started slapping each other on the sidewalk on our first day), and in one case a man kicked a beggar woman and hit her over the head when she approached me for money. Shouting matches in the queue for the maglev, people yelling at each other in the traffic.
And the traffic; never have I seen such chaos. It was worse than the general lawlessness of the Dominican Republic or Mexico or Fiji or even Manila. Just madness. Absolutely unsafe to cross the street without constantly looking in every conceivable direction, and the last city on Earth in which I'd want to be behind the wheel. While the general condition of the cars was much better than in Manila or Mexico (or Florida, for that matter), the disregard for the traffic lights was something I just couldn't get over. And the pedestrians did the same. We found ourselves in large crowds that had effectively decided en masse to take to the streets.
Perhaps in time it's something I could get used to, but I doubt it. By our last day, I got into the mood myself, slapping repeatedly on the quarterpanel and hood of a car that ploughed into the group of 10-15 people crossing the street (legally). The driver had simply disregarded the light and charged through us at maybe 20-30kph. He narrowly missed Kenny's baby carriage. The people in the car didn't respond to my shouts at all, or my slaps on their car, even when I collapsed the rear-view mirror. Some of the people around me voiced their support, but that was about it.
When eating in restaurants, I pointed to the "no MSG, please" phrase in your book. Next time, I'll carry a laminated card made with that, too--they use a lot of MSG, here.
We found a restaurant called Shanghai Grandmother about a block off of the Bund that was rather good; the river crab is good but like all crab-in-the-shell, hard to eat. Knowing Shanghai, it'll be gone by the end of the year, so take the recommendation with care.
If you ask someone in a restaurant for their recommendation, they'll point to the most expensive thing. So we just winged it; point at photos and good luck.
The tap water is supposedly unsafe, but we had no problem. The water is a bit muddy tasting (and ever so slightly saline) but it makes for terrific tea.
If you've got kids, the zoo is worthwhile—a very in-your-face zoo indeed! So is the cricket/fish/bird market, and the aquarium. Kenny even managed to get a hand into one of the tanks at the aquarium, to give you an idea of its tactile ability.
The lasting impression of the place was one of bustling, thriving humanity. People living, squabbling, getting around, doing business, and building. And building, and building.
We had a great time.