After my evening at Cuvee Ben and I weren't feeling very well (free drinks- go figure, eh?). We spent the day at the hostel making sure the couch didn't go anywhere. I said goodbye to Stefanos and read my book. In my defense, the novel I was reading, The Kitchen House, was really good and there is a chance I would have spent the day reading it even if I felt top-notch.
At Johnny's suggestion Jake, Ben, and I went to Yang's Dumplings for dinner. Shanghai dumplings are different than Beijing dumplings in that they have soup in the middle instead of meat or seafood. I can't say which I liked better because they were both nice in different ways. Shanghai dumplings were more filling, and harder to eat. Beijing dumplings had more flavor varieties. I think I need to try them all again to come up with a proper analysis.
The next day I went with Ben and Jake to the fake market because they had not seen it yet, then we went to the Architectural and Development Planning museum. The museum displayed the plans Shanghai had for the future of the city. Some of it was interactive, but I found most of it to be quite boring. Jake had gone the day before and really enjoyed himself but I didn't like it very much. The one exhibit I found slightly interesting was a model of Shanghai fifteen to twenty years from now. It was extremely detailed and was built to scale. It showed an aerial view of the city and even lit up to demonstrate how it would look at night. The model was indeed impressive, but I didn't find the plans so enthralling; I was more engrossed with the amount of meticulous detail applied to every aspect of the massive model. I think maybe I didn't fancy the museum much because I found it a bit depressing, actually. I know I was meant to just look at all the big (literally) plans China has for Shanghai, but I couldn't get past how expensive it would be. I wondered where China would get the money for such a project given that a considerable number of its citizens lived it substantial poverty. I wondered, but I didn't really want to know the answer because ignorance is bliss and I preferred to remain ignorant about the Chinese government. When in China it is probably wise to not ask many questions.
We walked back to the hostel and on the way a little Chinese girl about four years old pointed and laughed at Jake. Jake isn't exceptionally funny looking, but he is tall with light hair and sticks out like a sore thumb in China. The lightheartedness of the child raised my spirits a bit. Jake and Ben left and I had soup with Karla. The soup restaurant was similar to Mongolian Grill back in the US where you choose the meat, vegetables, noodles, etc. and the cooks grill it for you. Except at this place in China it was Chinese, not Mongolian, and they make it into a soup. Mine was OK, but Karla had a satay base soup and it was better.
Back at the hostel Raphael, Marco, and John were getting ready for a pub crawl. They invited me, but I didn't want to go because I had felt so poor (AKA hungover) the day before. John gave me the name of the final stop on the crawl in case I changed my mind and wanted to join up with them later. I took the name and gave him my number. I looked up the pub and it was quite far from the hostel. Also Karla and Norah had invited me out for a girls night. Unfortunately Norah had disappeared.
I made some new friends while hanging out with Karla waiting for Norah. I met Alex from Brazil, Matt from England, and Lincoln from the US. For some reason Matt wanted to guess my name. I told him it began with an M. He guessed a lot of names and wasn't getting anywhere and Alex threw out "Maggie" on the first try. It was funny. And once again, I apologize for the monotony of some of my posts. I realize an Englishman guessing my name isn't the most gripping topic, but I want to remember these things.
D2 suggested we play a card game and we played King's Cup (AKA Ring of Fire). Norah and Johnny came back late and we planned to go out he next night instead. John texted me from the last pub, but by this time I was already drinking at the hostel and couldn't be bothered to meet him so far away when I had perfectly good company across the table.
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