One of the sights to see in Shanghai is a double, Nanjing Road and the Bund. Nanjing Road is a shopping street, and the Bund is a riverfront area famous for its view. If you like upscale shopping more than downscale, then Nanjing Road will suit you better; this is not as much a place for bargaining as Xu Jia Hui market, save for some back alleys where you can do some bargaining. But some things don’t change, like the endless stream of Rolex salesmen and a good supply of beggars. One of them really hounded us, a woman with a baby, who not only followed us for a few blocks, repeating “Xie xie” (“shay-shay,” or “thank you”), but also resorted to grabbing our arms, trying to pull us back to stay and give her some money.

Down an alley way between some of the regular stores we could spy a cheap-market area, like a mini-Xu Jia Hui. We went in to get an electric plug strip, a “brick” with a surge protector. On the way out, we stopped at a DVD shop, which had the usual display of pirate DVDs. This place, however, did not just have the thin cardboard holders with the DVDs, but also had more substantial, thick cardboard holders, like fair approximations of some commercial DVD cases. We asked what the difference was between the two, and were told that the ones in the thin cases were about one dollar apiece, while the thicker ones on the wall were $4 each. Why the difference in price, we asked; the guy in the shop replied, in an eagerly sincere kind of voice, “the more expensive ones are real!” Ken and I both laughed, as it was all too obvious that the “real” ones were just as fake as the others, given that they included titles like Spiderman 2 and Catwoman, movies still out in theaters and not yet released on DVD. In fact, the “real” ones were likely of lesser quality, as new releases are theater-camcorder versions, while the older titles are direct rips from commercial DVDs.

Nanjing Road

Other than that, I don’t have much to say about Nanjing Road–for the serious shopper, maybe it has its charms, but I found little to do there. The Bund was more interesting, visually, at least. There was a beautiful view, definitely a nighttime sort of thing rather than a daytime one, for all the lights on display. There were a lot of people there, most for the light show. We enjoyed it for a while, then had some dinner at a small pasta shop on the way back, then took the train as far as it would go and finished the trip with a $5 taxi trip the rest of the way.

Views from the Bund at night

On the way back, Ken and I were finally able to ask someone–as it was, a taxi driver–what the price of gas is in China. We’d seen lots of gas stations, most of them the Sinopec brand, but they never showed a price. After much gesturing and figuring of vocabulary, we got the idea across to the driver, and he told us that the price was Y3.4 per liter, or roughly $1.60 per gallon. But the driver said that prices had gone up this year, as they probably have everywhere, and said the cause was the Bush administration and the action in Iraq. Not angrily, but just matter-of-factly.

Also in the taxi, I noticed some stores that I had not expected to see–including an Ikea store, of all things. There was also a UniQlo store, a popular clothing store chain from Japan, which Ken said is considered kind of pricey here, though in Japan it is more of a discount place. Other than that, I noticed several food store imports, including of course McDonald’s and KFC, and then there is Starbucks, Pizza Hut, and the Japanese beef-noodle chain Yoshinoya.

One other thing–when on the train into town in the early afternoon, I noticed something that I hadn’t noticed before: a nuclear power plant. Not a big deal, but it was a bit surprising to see the twin towers that in the U.S. have become synonymous with nuclear plants.

Tomorrow: Ken and I visit Hangzhou, a city to the south with some lovely lakeside views.

In a day or two: how Chinese guys cool off on hot days, and some pretty funny “Engrish,” Chinese-style.