So, last week I mentioned that I was in the paper (which I still haven't been able to find another copy of). The day after I wrote that post I went to my Tuesday elementary school. First thing in the morning I usually have a bit of a chat with the vice-principal, who is a nice guy and always wants to know what's going on in my life. This morning he came up to me and said "Hey! You were in the paper!".

"Yeah, I know", I said. "Jonathan burger, right?".

"Jonathan burger? What's that? No, look here", he said and handed me the North Hokkaido paper. Amazingly, I was in the paper again (but this time a different paper and for a different reason). This time I was in the paper because I helped save the elementary school from a knife-wielding attacker. No, really. Don't believe me? Have a look at the article.

If you don't understand Japanese, it's probably best to just look at the picture (that's me with the baseball bat) and use your imagination.

If you do understand Japanese, well... I guess I'm busted. I was involved in subduing a knife wielding maniac, but the knife was actually plastic. It was all part of an 'intruder drill' that we did the previous week. When I came to school that morning, the vice principal came up to me and instead of having our usual chat, he said to me "Good morning. There's an intruder coming to our school today. You get to use the bat. Have fun!", and he handed me the baseball bat. This was certainly an unusual and much more interesting way to start the day.

In Japan, once every year or two there is usually an incident involving a crazy person coming into an elementary school and assaulting (or sometimes killing) kids. So, instead of having the regular fire drill, the school decided to have an intruder drill. They organised it with the local police and a newspaper reporter came to watch. The police employ this guy whose job is to go around to schools and act like an intruder. Then, after he has been subdued, the police come and take him away and give the kids a short lecture on what to do in a real intruder situation.

Actually, the drill is more for the teachers and staff than for the students. All the student do is run outside. The staff have learn how to best deal with this kind of situation. In our case, the police supervisor said we did well, but emphasised that a real situation is much quicker and more explosive. I guess this was the real problem with having a drill like this. In this drill, everyone was prepared and ready to go before the intruder had even arrived. It was actually quite comical watching everyone in the staffroom that morning (before the drill). Everyone was talking about preparations for the drill:

"Make sure the intruder poles are by the door" (schools are are required to have these long poles placed around the school in case an intruder comes - you can see them in the picture).

"When the intruder comes, the kids will have to go outside, so make sure everyone is wearing their snow boots."

"The intruder is coming at 10:45, so everyone has to be ready by 10:40."

"Do you think the intruder will want coffee or tea?"

Stupid stuff like this. If it was a real intruder, I don't think there would be time to make sure everyone was wearing the right shoes.

So, at 10:45, the intruder came into the school via the front door (which is right next to the staff room). One of the staff just happened to be standing by the staffroom door, so he asked the intruder what he was doing. They got into a bit of a verbal argument, there was a little pushing, then the intruder pulled out his knife. By now, me and two other teachers had come out to see what was going on. The two other teachers grabbed the intruder poles (which had been conveniently placed by the door), and I started waving my bat (which I had been conveniently holding), and we set about subduing the intruder. The intruder put up a good fight. He was a powerful little guy and he was shouting like a real maniac. The idea was to make it as real as possible, so he was giving 100%. Even though he was strong, we ended up pinning him against the wall. Once he was against the wall there was very little he could do. Actually, I was surprised at how well the poles worked. Once you get them in the right position, the guy is not going anywhere. We held him there for about 5 minutes, and he struggled pretty much the whole time. It was only right at the end that we let up for a few seconds to make sure he was ok (he let his character drop for just a second to let us know he was fine), then it was back on. The local police officer arrived soon after (he just happened to be patrolling nearby), and we put the guy on the floor while the officer cuffed him. Finally, when it was all done and all the kids were outside, we uncuffed the intruder and there were smiles all round. It was actually pretty fun, and I was surprised at how intense it was (even though it was only acting, it was important that we did it as realistically as possible). Once we'd finished, the change in the intruder was dramatic. He went from being this crazy knife-wielding maniac to a quiet, kind of jolly fellow.

The reporter took some pictures, there was a short speech by the police, and then it was over. I'm not sure how useful it was because I'm certain that a real-life situation would be completely different, but it was certainly more interestin than my usual Tuesday morning.

Anyway, back to China.

So, I woke up looking forward to my first full day in Shanghai. I went down to the hotel restaurant to check out the breakfast buffet that was included with my room. The buffet was a Chinese/Western mixed breakfast that was by far the worst buffet breakfast I have ever seen. There was a weird selection of pastries, vegetables, meats and salad items. Things that were supposed to be hot were cold, things that were supposed to be cold were hot, things that were supposed to be soft were strangely hard... you get the idea. Even the drinks were awful. I had a choice between water (which had probably come straight from the tap), weak, warm coffee, or post-mix Fanta and Sprite (both of which had no carbonation, just syrup and tap water). Uhh... I chose a variety of things, hoping to find something that was both edible and tasty, but I was out of luck. I forced it all down anyway knowing that I would need energy for the morning.

After breakfast I left the hotel and walked towards the French quarter. It was actually quite a pleasant walk. The weather was cold (about 0 or 1 degree), but it was sunny and starting to warm up. It was just after peak hour so the roads were relatively quiet and the streets were relatively quiet too.

After about ten minutes the scenery started to change. Suddenly there were a lot of large European style buildings on streets lined with tall, leafless trees. Looking around, the scene could have come from any number of European cities. In fact, the trees and buildings wouldn't have looked out of place in Melbourne. As I walked further the residential area soon gave way to a commercial area. There were shops restaurants and boutiques that, again, wouldn't have looked out of place in Paris, London or Melbourne.



The people I saw in this area were obviously more wealthy than people in the others parts of the city. There were no beggars or touts here, and everything was cleaner and less... um... 'in your face'. It was a pleasant place for a morning walk.

My destination for the morning was the Yu Yuan Gardens and market, one of the major tourist attractions in Shanghai. It took me about an hour to get there by foot from my hotel. The Yu Yuan Garden is basically a traditional Chinese garden with ponds, stone bridges and some old stone houses. However, the garden is located in the centre of a market filled with shops, restaurants and food stalls. I use the word 'market' loosely, because it's not the kind of place that you would imagine a Chinese market to be. It's all new and fairly clean. There are lots of new buildings that have been designed and painted to look like traditional old buildings. The place is deigned to lure people who want to see a piece of traditional China, but really it's about as traditional as McDonalds and Starbucks (which both had stores there). It's probably easier to understand if you look at the pictures.











As you can see, it kind of gives you a glimpse at old China, but if you take a closer look you'll see that everything is very new. Despite this, it's certainly a place worth visiting, and many people do. The place was packed with people, mostly tourists. There were lots of French, German and Russian tourists, but there were also lots of tourists from other parts of China. I don't know how I could tell that a Chinese person was a tourist and not a local, I just could. Shanghai people seem to always be in a hurry, always moving with a purpose, whereas Chinese tourists seem more laid back. Although the place was packed, it was easier walking around here than it was in a packed Shanghai street. The only real problem was the touts. They were everywhere. You want DVD? You want polo shirt? You want Vuitton? No, bugger off!

I had a few food related goals for my trip, things that I really wanted to eat, and I had a chance to eat one at the market. It's called 'shoronpo' in Japanese, something like 'shao ron bao' in Chinese, and in English it would probably be called a soup dumpling. Basically, it's just a big dumpling filled with a boiling hot pork soup. You stick a straw in the top of the dumpling and try not to burn yourself as you drink the scalding broth. Then you can eat the thick, doughy dumpling skin. On a cold day, this was an awesome snack.




I washed it down with a cup of tea that seemed to be popular with the Chinese tourists. It was very sweet, very milky and was filled with jelly like balls about the size of a small marble. The straw was extra wide so you could suck the balls up while drinking. It was pretty good too, though I don't think I could drink any more than a cup a day (too sweet).


After the market, I headed towards the Bund, the famous riverside area along the main river that runs through Shanghai. One side of the river is lined with old European style buildings like banks and hotels. The other side was farmland until recent times. Now it's culled Pudong and it has hotels, shopping centres and high-class apartments. Along the way I wandered through a park and got to see a guy doing some rollerblade tricks. Do people still rollerblade? I guess they do in China.

The Bund is a pleasant place for a walk and it has a pretty nice view.


There are obviously lots of touts and beggars here, but it's not as bad as Yu Yuan. There were lots of people selling various things and there were quite a few illegal food stalls selling various types of unidentifiable grilled meats. It was quite easy to tell which ones were the illegal ones. As I was walking along the path, minding my own business, there was a shout from up ahead and all of a sudden a group of people came sprinting towards me, frantically wheeling their portable barbecues. They passed by and took off for some hiding place. A few minutes later a pair of policeman came cruising by in their police golf-cart. This was not the last time I saw this kind of thing in China. I think it's a kind of game that the police and the illegal workers play. The police come and make a token effort, the illegal workers take off, then 20 minutes later they're back working the same spot.

One thing you can't escape in China are the beggars. Anywhere there are people with money, there will be beggars. Now, I don't mind giving some of my change to people who need the money. In fact, it can be a real pain carrying around a pocketful of loose change that you're not going to use. The Chinese currency is the Yuan and 1 yuan = about 15 Australian cents. However, there is also a smaller denomination, the jiao. 10 jiao = 1 yuan, so 1 jiao = about 1.5 cents. When you shop at supermarkets and convenience stores where there are cheap items, you'll inevitably end up with some jiao change. I rarely used jiao when I was shopping, so I usually ended up giving it to beggars. Unfortunately, this presents a bit of a moral problem. How do you choose which beggar to give money to and which one to ignore? What makes one person more deserving of spare change than another? Do you give it to the old lady with the baby, or the guy who has no legs, or both, or neither? Is the person begging in front of you really in need of your money, or are they just doing it to make some extra change before they go back to their nice apartment and watch TV and play video games with their family?

While I was walking along the Bund this moral conundrum became much easier, I met some beggars who I had absolutely no doubt were worth giving money to. They were two kids who had decided to perform for money, instead of just sitting around shaking a cup. They were about 9 or 10 years old and looked like brothers. They were a little dirty, but it was hard to tell whether they were really homeless or they were just out to make some cash for their family. Either way, they put on a good show. I sat down and watched them for about 20 minutes, but because I was enjoying it I wasn't really thinking about taking pictures (so I missed a lot of the good parts). In the first picture, the kid wearing the t-shirt tied some metal wire around the shirtless kid's chest. He tied it so tight that the kid couldn't breathe properly, but through kung-fu like meditation the kid ignored the pain and kept the wire on for a few minutes.


Next, the small kid got dressed and the big kid took of his shirt. The small kid then wrapped a thick metal band around the big kid's neck. Like in the previous act, the kid couldn't breathe properly, but he persevered for a few minutes. Unfortunately, I missed getting a good picture of this act.


Next, they did some acrobatics. They did somersaults and cartwheels like professional gymnasts. First they did it two handed, then one handed. It was pretty cool.


Along the way there were other people trying to make a buck. These people were drawing portraits for tourists, and they were pretty good too.



More of the Bund...



Next, I decided to head over to Pudong and go up that big tower.


First, I had to work out how to get to the other side of the river. The map I had said there was a special tourist tunnel that went under the river, so I headed off in the direction of the tunnel. I assumed it would just be a tunnel that you walk through, so I was surprised when I got there. It turned out to be a kind of underground monorail shuttle kind of thing. You buy a ticket, walk down the stairs and get in a big windowed box that looks like this -


It then takes off through the tunnel, where you are given a 'special audio and visual experience'. It's basically a light show with some backrground music. Along the way the lights and music change, and there's a commentary in Chinese and English to let you know where you are. We passed through areas with names like 'the beautiful waves', 'the blazing fire' and 'from heaven to hell'. It was a real touristy thing, but it was actually kind of funny. The names they came up with for each of the zones were the most amusing part. There were some other foreigners in the cabin with me and everyone was giggling each time we passed into a new zone and the name of that zone was announced.





I arrived on the other side of the river and found myself in a surprisingly quiet part of the city. There were very few people around, and most of them were heading for the big tower. The big tower I'm talking about is the Pearl TV Tower, the tallest tower in Asia and the third tallest tower in the world (I looked that up...).






There was a little wait to get up the tower (only about 10 minutes), but nothing like what it would have been in peak season. There were halls filled with barriers designed to keep everyone queued up properly. Had I gone in peak seasons it probably would have taken hours waiting in line. In the end, I was happy to wait 10 minutes for the great view, but I'm not so sure it would be worth waiting for hours.







After wandering around the top observation deck I caught the elevator down to mid-level observation deck and the space exhibition hall.



The space exhibition hall was pretty corny and not particularly informative, but there was one exhibition that caught my eye. There was an interesting series of posters showing the planets in our solar system. Here we have 'Jupitor', which (according to the poster) is the brightest star in the sky next to Hesper.


What's a Hesper?

Well, apparently it's a planest in our solar system, according to the next poster.

Ah, of course, Hesper... the mysterious planet that only exists in the Chinese solar system.

After doing the tower, I headed across the road to the 'Super Brand Mall', a huge western style mall that is geared towards the 'not so poor, but not filthy rich' part of society. Most of the shops were basically the same as you'd find in a shopping centre in Australia or Japan, although the prices of stuff were a little cheaper. While wandering through the shopping centre I decided to stop and have a late lunch at a Thai restaurant. I had a really nice green chicken curry, which was hot enough to get my nose running but not hot enough to make me want to stop eating. I really love green curry, but just about every time I eat it it gives me the runs. Of course, I never remember this fact until after I've finished the meal. Fortunately, this time I was safe. The next few days were pleasantly diarrhea free.

After the mall I headed back to the hotel for a rest. I went out again for a walk at night, just around the hotel area, got some dinner and then crashed back in the hotel. Overall, this was a very busy, but enjoyable day. There was plenty of other stuff that I saw, but if I wrote about it all I'd get RSI in my fingers.

Next, Shanghai Day 3...