a weirdo in china, pt. 3: tutorial mission

So a new day dawned, and I dawned before it. That is to say, I was still extremely jet lagged, and my first full day in China started promptly at 3 A.M.

I lay in bed for a couple hours, then decided I wasn't doing myself any favors and set out to see the real China, which I defined as whatever parts of China I happened to wander past on my twenty-minute morning constitutional.

I didn't go very far, but I still saw plenty of bizarre sights. Men beating the heat with DIY crop tops. Half-awake people queuing for fried bread. And a fellow whose approach to street-level direct marketing was nothing short of revolutionary.

I think this one speaks for itself, unlike its subject.

I first formed an impression of Shanghai, then, as a sort of Fort Lauderdale with an economy. A quietly decaying place with an active nightlife, but not enough going on during the day to indefinitely justify its existence. And palm trees. But boy, was I wrong.

Shortly before 6 A.M., the city came to life. Noises, smells, and sights reverberated up and down the thoroughfares, and those arteries started pumping the lifeblood of traffic in greater and greater densities. People shouted to one another over the din, and the racket of it all was only matched by the intense, radiating heat of the newly-risen sun. I watched the city wake up, shake the sleep out of its eyes, and find its feet again. It was spectacular.

There's a little pond between these buildings, because why not?

Eventually I found my way back to my hotel and settled in to breakfast, which was a pleasing if blandly inoffensive assortment of Western and Chinese breakfast staples.

From there, I headed to Tianzifang, a neat collection of back alleys crammed with shops, art studios, and restaurants. I had a mojito, and also some fried shrimp, and the fork they gave me for the latter was, well, in keeping with the rest of my utensil life so far.

Tianzifang had a lot of quaint touches, but this one took the cake:

From there, it was on to the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum. On the way, I had a glimpse into Shanghai's checkered past.

The urban planning museum was really special for containing a scale model of the entire city of Shanghai. I couldn't fit it in one picture. I found my hotel. I couldn't find the Urban Planning Museum to look inside to see if I could find myself.

After that, it was time for lunch! Lunch was the amazing food known as SOUP DUMPLINGS.

Red:  spicy cuttlefish. Green:  shrimp. White:  pork. All:  delicious.

Dinner was also outrageously good. I managed to find some time to explore a Chinese supermarket as as well, but a deeper examination of that will have to wait for another day. Suffice to say that this day helped me start to form my fullest impression of China. What could that be? Read and find out!