Big Daddy got dissed by a street vendor. He was walking down the street with his Trader Joe's insulated shopping bag and this cretin told him his bag was a piece of shit. Now come on, it has a zipper and shoulder strap. He tried to sell BD phony paper logo shopping bags. You know, Prada, Chanel, status bags. Who the fuck would buy a phony paper bag to carry their shit in.
The luggage I want is only sold in China. Yes, this gives me pause. But there are items manufactured strictly for the China market. The Briggs and Riley bags are ugly as can be, the Wenger bags in the US market don't appeal to me. I may go with the cardboard box the Chinese use, that and an Ikea bag and you are a world traveler.
No iPhone for me, the 4s unlocked with no contract sells for about a grand in the U.S. My conversations usually involve intense conversation like, "where are you", or text messages that say "In the taxi now". Not worth a grand.
Next day-I lost some of the post yesterday and then the Internet went off-line for a few hours. The Internet is so crazy here right now.
Something weird happened this month. I got a FB message from my mother. We have not communicated since last summer. She sent me a Happy New Year on January 11. WTF. No Happy Birthday, no Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday's, no Happy Jewish Day, and now this. Don't know what she was going for, belated calendar date or very early Lunar New Year.
Crazy of the day-The migrants cannot get to their home towns for Lunar New Year. The migrants pretty much make everything sold and live in deplorable dormitories. When the New Year's shutdown happens the dormitories are usually shutdown and the workers have no choice but to take their shit and leave. China introduced on-line purchases of train tickets last year. You must have a China ID card and a credit card to purchase these tickets. The migrants don't know how to use the system and all the tickets are sold out when they get to the stations. Talk about a plan.
Showing posts with label train travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label train travel. Show all posts
Monday, January 16, 2012
Monday, September 5, 2011
Back at the Howard Johnson
So far there is no mosquito, any bears and the buffalo are still roaming.
Yesterday was as close to a horror story as you can get without actual horror happening.
The hardest thing about living in Shanghai as budget people is the taxi travel. You never know how much time to plan for travel. How long will the elevator take, how long to get a taxi, how nasty will traffic be? Yesterday nothing took any extra time and we arrived at the train station an hour and a half early. Then we discovered our train was delayed 30 minutes. The train station is not a great place to hang out. We decided to try the Chinese restaurant and sit a spell. Yuck. Everything was horrible. When the waitress finally took our order she said no to everything we picked out. Finally she showed us the one thing we could order. The nasty, greasy, al dente fried rice.
There are no washrooms at the train station unless you are the most desperate person on earth.
We finally get through the ticket taker and make it downstairs to the train platform and there is no train. So everyone lines up at their car number and hangs out. Chinese hanging out consists of pushing and shoving to get closer to being first in line. I think this is slightly dangerous on a train platform. When the train arrives it stops at a different spot than normal and everyone surges to the right to re-fight for their number one spot.
Entertain for this trip involved a shouting match and various personal grooming lessons. There was a guy sitting with friends without a proper ticket. That was the shouting match. It was fairly lengthy and he won. The train attendant reported him to various train staff and police men at the different stops, but no one ever approved him. So he sat there with this purple sunglasses and picked his nose and flicked it for a couple hours. These people can be filthy. Right behind him sat a lady that thought she was in her personal boudoir. She acted like a movie star, taking 30 minutes before she was satisfied with how she was sitting. Up and down constantly re-arranging her shawl. Then she proceeded to rub lotion on every visible surface and give herself a massage. She was a big girl so there was quite a bit of flesh to rub.
There was a little excitement in my world. I had room service as Big Daddy had to work late and when they brought the tray . . . there were packets of ketchup, salt and black pepper. I almost cried. Those are very hard condiments to get here.
Yesterday was as close to a horror story as you can get without actual horror happening.
The hardest thing about living in Shanghai as budget people is the taxi travel. You never know how much time to plan for travel. How long will the elevator take, how long to get a taxi, how nasty will traffic be? Yesterday nothing took any extra time and we arrived at the train station an hour and a half early. Then we discovered our train was delayed 30 minutes. The train station is not a great place to hang out. We decided to try the Chinese restaurant and sit a spell. Yuck. Everything was horrible. When the waitress finally took our order she said no to everything we picked out. Finally she showed us the one thing we could order. The nasty, greasy, al dente fried rice.
There are no washrooms at the train station unless you are the most desperate person on earth.
We finally get through the ticket taker and make it downstairs to the train platform and there is no train. So everyone lines up at their car number and hangs out. Chinese hanging out consists of pushing and shoving to get closer to being first in line. I think this is slightly dangerous on a train platform. When the train arrives it stops at a different spot than normal and everyone surges to the right to re-fight for their number one spot.
Entertain for this trip involved a shouting match and various personal grooming lessons. There was a guy sitting with friends without a proper ticket. That was the shouting match. It was fairly lengthy and he won. The train attendant reported him to various train staff and police men at the different stops, but no one ever approved him. So he sat there with this purple sunglasses and picked his nose and flicked it for a couple hours. These people can be filthy. Right behind him sat a lady that thought she was in her personal boudoir. She acted like a movie star, taking 30 minutes before she was satisfied with how she was sitting. Up and down constantly re-arranging her shawl. Then she proceeded to rub lotion on every visible surface and give herself a massage. She was a big girl so there was quite a bit of flesh to rub.
There was a little excitement in my world. I had room service as Big Daddy had to work late and when they brought the tray . . . there were packets of ketchup, salt and black pepper. I almost cried. Those are very hard condiments to get here.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Once again Big Daddy misses the Kodak moment
We took train home from BFE Sunday afternoon. Fountains that never worked were splish splashing in all their glory while the rains came down. Peng Quan, or phonetically Pun Trank, means fountain. New word of the week I will never use again in a sentence. It is so Chinese to turn the fountains on only when it rains.
I made a new friend, Daisy. If you take the business card you are now friends. And she likes reading the books I leave at the hotel. When I travel I always have books and I try to travel only with books I can leave when I am finished reading them. So now BFE is becoming filled with literature picked out by a person who will read a cereal box if I am desperate. We order all the best sellers we can tolerate every few weeks. We order our favorite authors if they write anything new. We order whatever else we think won't make us puke. China is now filled with everything from James Patterson to Sarah Palin. The only one neither of us can read was the last Tom Clancy and we were really looking forward to it, but it is Clancy on LSD and I just can't read it. South of Broad by Pat Conroy was fabulous.
Anyway, we get on the train and life is good. Until shortly before we arrive in Shanghai. I was kinda thinking about going to the restroom to pee but that is not a pretty sight at the end of the 4 hour train ride. Then I smell this overwhelming odor that smells just like urine. BAD. I asked Big Daddy if he could smell it and he did wrinkle his cute nose. He got up to go stand at the back with his bags as he was tired of sitting and he could not pass down the aisle as there were shrimp and clams laying on the floor of train being sorted and bagged. Yep, right on the floor where people walk with their peepee shoes.
Is this not a Kodak moment?
I made a new friend, Daisy. If you take the business card you are now friends. And she likes reading the books I leave at the hotel. When I travel I always have books and I try to travel only with books I can leave when I am finished reading them. So now BFE is becoming filled with literature picked out by a person who will read a cereal box if I am desperate. We order all the best sellers we can tolerate every few weeks. We order our favorite authors if they write anything new. We order whatever else we think won't make us puke. China is now filled with everything from James Patterson to Sarah Palin. The only one neither of us can read was the last Tom Clancy and we were really looking forward to it, but it is Clancy on LSD and I just can't read it. South of Broad by Pat Conroy was fabulous.
Anyway, we get on the train and life is good. Until shortly before we arrive in Shanghai. I was kinda thinking about going to the restroom to pee but that is not a pretty sight at the end of the 4 hour train ride. Then I smell this overwhelming odor that smells just like urine. BAD. I asked Big Daddy if he could smell it and he did wrinkle his cute nose. He got up to go stand at the back with his bags as he was tired of sitting and he could not pass down the aisle as there were shrimp and clams laying on the floor of train being sorted and bagged. Yep, right on the floor where people walk with their peepee shoes.
Is this not a Kodak moment?
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