Sachi and I went out for lunch and then went shopping. At the restaurant, things went OK, except that a bottled drink Sachi ordered didn’t come for about 20 minutes, despite repeated reminders from us. All the had to do was grab the bottle and bring it to the table. For me, what was interesting was the menu–and not interesting in all that good a way. Unless you consider deep-fried duck chins and crispy pigeon to be yummy menu choices. Some excerpts:

In case you were wondering what duck chins look like:

After lunch, we walked up and down the street. As I’ve mentioned, Shanghai is littered with skyscrapers–they’re everywhere, and seem to be the simple standard-issue building style. There was a 20-story building that looked important, with a big something-or-other “Plaza” sign, with escalators and stairs going up to it. Thinking there was something worth looking at, Sachi and I went up–and found what seemed to be a more or less deserted shop area, not that there was likely much there to begin with. A couple of shop clerks, a man and a woman, played a game of badminton in front of their shop, looking briefly at us to determine whether they needed to put away the game.

We went down the road and across the street on the way to the local supermarket to do some shopping. Along the way, we saw three or four card games going on, a typical street event.

In between a few of these games, a police officer seemed to be telling a lady selling fake DVDs to move her show along–despite the fact that just 30 feet away, another guy was selling the same assortment of DVDs. Maybe the lady just didn’t pay off the right people, or she was in front of someone’s store who didn’t like it. (By the way, they have “Blu-Ray” DVDs on the carts–I have to wonder, are they actually Blu-Rays, or is that part fake too?)

A few steps down the road, Sachi and I were shocked to see an old man fall flat forward on his face in front of us, either because his shoe got loose or because the pavement was so uneven. He started spitting blood on the sidewalk. People rushed to help him, I gave him a package of tissues, and he seemed to be okay, but it was a bit jarring.

I also noticed that this area–right across the street from our four-star hotel–was pretty darned run-down.

I simply cannot get over how much Shanghai looks like a slum much of the time. And not just some parts of it, it’s pretty much throughout with exceptions. Crumbling masonry, dilapidated sidewalks, dust and trash all over, rickety houses everywhere. It’s like a modern city is thrusting up through a third-world city, and much of the modern part is falling into disrepair and being taken over by the run-down parts at a fast clip.

Just before we got to the supermarket, there was a homeless guy laying face-down on a makeshift mattress on the sidewalk, playing a harmonica to beg for money.

In the supermarket (their theme song is, strangely, “Happy Birthday to You”–betcha they don’t pay royalties on that), we were trying to check out when a guy came up to our cashier with a worn & torn box of Crest toothpaste and started shouting at her. At about this time, a guy right around the corner from our register dropped a case of Great Wall Red Wine, leading to a crimson pool slowly spreading and flowing across the floor.

Just another afternoon in jolly Shanghai.