After dinner, we headed to a neat bar known for their speak-easy style and unique crafted cocktails. Here are Sean and Anand enjoying theirs (one is a corn-bacon margarita!):
The next day started early with some shopping and exploring. Here we are in front of some cool greenery dragons and on the Nanjing pedestrian street:
We also checked out the city skyline from the SWFC (bottle cap opener) building. This is the first time I went there during the day, and it was awesome!
That evening was really fun. We got a group together and went to the delicious restaurant Lost Heaven for some good Yunnan food. After dinner, we hit up a few cool bars in Shanghai. What a fun night!
Here are a few of my personal favorites from later in the evening. Please note that the one of Sean and Anand climbing through public art made it onto a local website here in Shanghai! And please also note that just like in Columbus, all Sean could talk about was street meat. In China. Gross:
The next day we headed to Jing-An temple. It was unbelievably hot - maybe the hottest day of the summer:
The guys toured YuYuan Garden and snapped these shots. Take a look at the special snacks menu sign ... urinate noodles? Yummy:
We had some awesome dinners. Here's a few that were great. Look at the view from a place called Char:
Anand made it very clear to me before this trip that he intended to try some "weird" food in China. He took that call very seriously, including stocking up on the right stomach meds, antibiotics and more to make sure he'd stay healthy while downing what I believe to be disgusting menu options. Here are the guys enjoying duck tongue, bullfrog legs and snake (sorry Anand, caught you mid-bite!):
As part of their trip here, we planned a getaway to Macau and to Hong Kong. So if you're not current on your China policy, let me tell you a little bit about these two Special Administrative Regions. Macau was a Portuguese colony from the 1700s until 1999. Similarly, Hong Kong was a British colony from the 1800s until 1999. In 1999, both colonies were peacefully handed over to the Chinese. Both still exist in a somewhat-autonomous, somewhat-part-of-China way today. And they both will for a set period of time. That means that though they are technically China, they both have their own monetary system, laws, government structure, etc. for now. That also means that you have to go through Customs and Immigration each time you travel between Macau, Hong Kong or mainland China. Because we went from mainland to both islands, I had my passport stamped EIGHT times in the course of 48 hours. Ridiculous.
Macau is basically like the Las Vegas of Asia. In fact, we stayed at the sister property of the Vegas Venetian. We all played a game I'd never heard of called Sic Bo. One thing we learned - you have to have lots of moolah to gamble in Macau. The minimums were so high! And another annoying lesson learned - Macau's money is called patacas, but in the casino you actually have to gamble with Hong Kong dollars. What?! That makes no sense. Here are a few shots of the Venetian:
From Macau we headed over by ferry to Hong Kong. I pictured the ferry being fun ... instead it was choppy and kind of awful. Here are Sean, Anand and Holly on the ferry. And why does the sign say this?
Hong Kong was awesome. So great. I would love to go back again and spend even more time there. The British influence is definitely everywhere still. We walked around downtown for a bit before our next big adventure:
Also, it was 10,000 degrees. A bit of an overstatement, but we were struggling. We wanted to check out the Peak Tram and take in views from atop a mountain right in the middle of the downtown area. The tram line took forever and people were crammed in trying to get onto the next Tram. So getting up there was not a fun experience. In fact, when the tram doors opened, people bolted in and nearly ran me over. I got to enjoy the climb up the mountainside in a standing position since all the seats were gobbled up immediately. Please check out these amazing flip flops the lady in front of me in line had one - rubber ducky!
Getting there was frustrating, but oh-so-worth-it for the views. Look at these incredible shots!
The night ended in a cool part of town called Lan Kwai Fong. We had a bistro dinner and then went to a few bars. The area is packed full of restaurants, clubs and bars, and there was some truly unreal people-watching to be had. It was a really fun night:
The next day we headed to Stanley to close out our trip. It is a great little seaside area with shopping and places to eat galore:
Back in Shanghai, the guys were on their last day. Anand had told me about something called a Marriage Market. He read about it online, and apparently it happened in the park next to where I live. We thought it would be fun to check it out. It was crazy! Older folks (mostly appearing to be grandparents of adult grandchildren) would stake out a spot and put up flyers advertising their grandchild's age, height, weight, monthly salary, interests, telephone number (!), a picture and more. These seniors would also walk around to view other people's flyers to try and find a match. None of the actual eligible bachelors/bachelorettes were at the event. We're not sure quite how this matchmaking happens - do they just collect phone numbers and pass them along to their grandchildren? Do the grandparents set a blind date on-the-spot? No clue. Regardless, apparently this was the hot ticket in town because thousands of people were up for grabs on these flyers. Picture taking is probably rude, but we snapped one anyway. Those are rows and rows of flyers behind us, and the flyers stretched on throughout the park:
I had such a fun time with my Ohio visitors. I was sad when they left - we had great experiences and it felt more like home having Sean there. But I have so many memories to smile and laugh about now from their visit. Thanks for coming all the way to Asia!
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