Gimme Shelter

Another Olympic session I attended was on 21 August at Workers Stadium, which is an easy walk from where I live. It was the two final games of Women’s Football. D and I walked up to Sanlitun for a meal before the matches, then walked to the North Gate of the Stadium, where a number of restaurants and clubs with prime locations were closed for the duration. All of them were actually outside the security fence, but were apparently considered to risky to allow open while events were going on.

It was a drizzly day, so we both had umbrellas. Mine folded down to a small size, but D’s Olympic mascot umbrella was too long, so we ended up going back out and taking it home. We did see people inside with full-length umbrellas, so it seems the security rule was inconsistently applied.

The second time round security was just fine, and we found ourselves in the wonderful confines of Workers Stadium. This is one of the old facilities that was “remodeled” for the Olympics, but it’s still pretty much an outdated pile of junk. It has no covered concourses, so all of the concession stands and entrances to restrooms are exposed to the elements. The rows are rather steeply pitched and much too close together for comfortable passing, a fact which is made worse by the size of the sections. They’re about 40 seats wide and only have an aisle on one side – the other side has a railing to separate it from the next section. Approximately every minute and a half throughout the whole evening we had to stand up to let someone pass. No one in our row seemed capable of simply watching the game. They had to take the kids out, get some refreshments or whatever.
First up was some entertainment from a Cheer Squad (or whatever they prefer to be called). Gotta love the outfits for this routine.
Yes, they’re wearing cat ears, and you can’t tell from this shot, but they have tails too.
I found a video of them on Youtoube:

After a while they were joined by a bunch of Fuwa and dancers in other outfits. Towards the end of the routine, Beibei (the blue one) started deflating and had to be rushed off for medical attention.

The Bronze Medal match was between Germany and Japan.
Ever since the Women’s World Cup last year, I’ve kind of had a grudge against Germany, and was really glad when Brazil beat them here in the Olympics, reversing the result of last year’s title match. That, plus my general love of most things Japanese, and I was rooting for the women in blue. They started out very strong, dominating the play in the first half and narrowly missing some scoring opportunities. Germany just couldn’t pull it together.

We noticed that as the game progressed, the Chinese crowd grew more and more partisan, booing loudly every time Japan so much as touched the ball, and cheering when Germany had the ball. I don’t know if that had any impact on the outcome, but while Japan continued to play solidly, Germany got a couple of lucky breaks and managed to score twice, taking the Bronze.

In between matches, more dance routines and mascots:
A flag squad came out, and at first I thought it was just the presentation of the colors for the Gold Medal match.
But they did a pretty elaborate choreographed routine with the American and Brazilian flags, along with some Olympic flags. You can see how wet it was – I felt sorry for the dancers whose moves put them onto the ground.

The match was pretty even, finishing scoreless at the half.
At the half we had dirt-bike races on the field for entertainment.
The remaining regular time also went scoreless.
To be honest (call me un-American if you like), but by the time we went into the two 15-minute overtime periods, I would have been happy to see either team score. As it was, the US did, taking the Gold.

For once, getting out of a venue and home was a breeze, though it looked like those who didn’t live within walking distance may have had more of a challenge, as Gongti Beilu (the street on the north side of the stadium) was jammed solid with cars, buses and taxis as far as we could see in both directions.

Ancient Chinese secret, huh?

How’s that for a cultural reference that dates me?

This is a short post about two surprises that happened today in quick succession.

Purely by accident, I discovered that Wikipedia is accessible in China. A friend told me she was moving to the city of Zibo in Shandong, so I did a Goggle search, and of course the Wikipedia link was the first result. Usually I don’t even bother clicking on those, but something in me said “What the heck?” and gave it a try.

Oddly enough, it came up – extremely slowly, but not the usual “Server not found” error. That was the first surprise.

Then, in the article on Zibo it said that FIFA has honored the city as the birthplace of football. Huh?

So there you go. The ancient game of cuju, played by both men and women in China over 2000 years ago is the ancestor of modern soccer.

Lately at work it’s been a kind of theatre of the absurd, and I really wish I could say more about it, but that story will have to wait until after the Olympics, if it can ever be told.

It’s been a year since I got my work permit, so that’s currently being renewed. I feel kind of strange not having my passport, but they can’t put a new visa in it unless they have it.

And I’m pretty excited that I’ll be resuming my language lessons next week. They’ll be private lessons this time, since none of my coworkers who took classes before seem to have time these days. I’m just going to make time.

What a hoot!

I mentioned a while ago that there were plans for a bunch of us expats to go to Hooters. It was SJ’s idea of a birthday celebration for AL, who was in town for a few weeks for the intended Phase 2 launch. (Incidentally, I’m pretty sure SJ told us she had never been to a Hooters restaurant at all.)

Hooters Beijing is not far from Seasons Park, and since the weather was decent I decided to walk. The sky looked a little threatening so I took my umbrella just in case. As it turned out, I was the first one there. I told them I needed a table for nine, and they put me at a table by the back door. One of their little things is that whenever someone comes in, all the staff yells, “Welcome to Hooters!” Being next to the door, we were right in the thick of this.

BG and SJ showed up next with a cake in a box. A waitress asked whose birthday it was, and they went off to arrange things. KW was next, and the others trickled in. When AL arrived, the waitress came over with a balloon and tied it to his sweatshirt.
We got on with our business of eating and drinking. KW and I both ordered a Southwest Chicken Salad. The waitress never asked us what kind of dressing we wanted. At first I thought nothing of it – maybe it has a set dressing rather than a choice – but a little after the food arrived I realized there was no dressing on it at all. It took a while to flag her down and convey to her what we wanted, but we eventually got our dressing.
A couple of times during the evening, the staff got together and did a short dance routine. Next to the door, we got pretty used to the “Welcome to Hooters!” greeting, and eventually started joining in. By the end of the evening, the staff’s performance had diminished, and we found ourselves greeting guests on our own.

When we finished eating, they brought out the cake and it was time for the Hooters Beijing version of a birthday song.
They had AL stand up on his chair holding a menu in each hand. We sang a silly tune, something like, “It’s your birthday! It’s your birthday!” At the pauses in our singing, the birthday boy was supposed to flap the menus like wings and shout, “It’s my birthday!”
Or something like that. Eventually we got to eat the thing. Shengri dangao!

SJ has a hilarious movie of the birthday dance that she has been threatening to post on YouTube. I’ll post a link to it if she ever does.

When we left, JW couldn’t resist the merchandise and picked up some Hooters Beijing shot glasses.

There has been a Hooters in Shanghai for several years now, and my friend there told me an amusing story. She worked for a company that was part-owned by an Australian guy, and one time, he took some of the employees to Hooters. She said there were lots of foreigners there, and wondered why the restaurant was named after a bird. I explained the American slang meaning of “hooters” and she said, “Oh, I see. Maybe that’s why he took us there.”

Just as we left the restaurant, it started sprinkling. The others decided to go bowling, but I wasn’t feeling very well and headed for home. By the time I got there it was pouring and I was soaked through – cheap Chinese umbrella!

I was taken by a UFO

Wherein I try to remember what happened in Shanghai on 30 September. Once again, some photos by D and some by me.

You might remember that on Saturday evening, D discovered that her Zen MP3 player had been stolen. Thinking that our insurance just might cover it, and that insurance companies tend to like documentation for claims, we stopped by the hotel’s front desk and spoke to the manager about reporting the theft to the police. Although it took a while for her to understand what we wanted, she eventually assigned a purser to walk with us the two blocks to the local police station.

It was down a little side alley off Nanjing Road. It’s amazing how quickly the upscale glitz turns to piles of cardboard and lines of scrappy bikes. Lots of scooters too. Instead of going in the main entrance of the police station, our guide took us down a grubby stairway to the basement. He said he knew the officer in charge, so we didn’t have to wait in line with the general public. We went into a little cement office where there were two rickety desks, some folding chairs, and a bare light bulb for illumination. OK, maybe I’m exaggerating, but not by much – and perhaps my mind is filling in some details I don’t remember clearly.

Again, it took a little while to get our wishes across – the officer spoke almost no English – but he seemed to accept that an American insurance company might like something in writing. And it took a little while longer to figure out what form was appropriate and how it should be filled out. I ended up taking the standard Chinese form and just writing in my own words in English what happened, being careful to include such things as the estimated value and the time and place of the incident as near as I could guess.

Then we went upstairs and waited in the lobby while the officer got the document registered and stamped and whatever they do. Official paper in hand, we returned to the hotel and thanked the purser for all his assistance. Hope he wasn’t too disappointed that we didn’t tip him – but I’ve gotten so used to not tipping here, that I didn’t want to set a precedent.

After that little adventure, we had a good portion of the day to kill before it was time to head to the stadium for the final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup. We consulted a map and saw a temple near a subway station, so off we went.

The Shanghai Metro is mostly nicer than the subways in Beijing, in part because it’s simply newer. The tracks are above ground in many places.
The temple we visited is called Jing’an, and one thing sets it completely apart from the other temples I’ve visited in China. It’s new.
In fact, it’s still under construction, being built by a local religious organization. The piles of building materials don’t discourage worshippers, however. We saw many people of all ages paying their respects.
We wandered around for a while, fascinated by the setting. In China, you just get used to such things being old, not alive.
There’s also the setting. Seeing this in the middle of a bustling commercial dynamo like Shanghai makes for some pretty stark contrasts.
And also, given how shoddy most current Chinese construction is, it’s nice to see workers taking real care about their craft.
Though I suppose it’s possible some pieces, like the wood carvings, could have been salvaged from older structures.

Anyway, there you go. A temple in Shanghai that doesn’t show up in the tourist guides.

When we left the temple, we decided to wander around the neighborhood a bit to see a part of town other than Nanjing Road and the Bund.
As part of their financing for the construction, the temple rents out the ground floor of their outer walls for shops.
We saw this restaurant. Its name is translated as Fishiness Infinitude. Um, OK.
This is a typical scene.
Eventually we made a circle and came around the opposite side of the temple, where there was a shopping center having a sidewalk sale.
This was a nifty bit of public art along the same sidewalk. It was originally part of a set of statues.
But his companion has been overwhelmed by the economic boom.

Eventually it got to be time to head for the stadium. Sunday afternoon turned out to be a hideously busy time on the trains. We were crammed up against each other along with a lot of people obviously going the same place plus a lot just going wherever Shanghai people go on Sunday afternoons.
Luckily, the Metro station is right there, attached to the stadium by a raised walkway. But the trip had been so crowded and uncomfortable that D said, “We’re taking a taxi when we leave.” I didn’t argue.

A few days earlier, back in Beijing, we had watched in stunned amazement as Brazil embarrassed the American women in a big way. National pride aside, it was a wonderful performance by an underdog team of charismatic players, and the stodgy Americans didn’t stand a chance, even aside from some questionable personnel choices. Sure, Briana Scurry was less than stellar in goal, but honestly I don’t think Hope Solo’s presence would have changed the outcome. The South Americans had the North Americans beat at every single position.

That defeat set up the matches we saw in Shanghai, with the US playing Norway for third place, and Brazil taking on reigning champs Germany for the trophy.

You might remember in my description of the previous game we saw, that they had a lot of security, with at least three guys per section. Check this out:
Every single seat in the first row of the lower level was occupied by a security guard. It was a ring of white polo shirts all the way around with the exception of the VIP section behind the benches. I guess they didn’t want any trouble.
Of course, the US didn’t have much trouble with Norway. Here’s one of our goals about to go into the net. By the end of it, we felt sorry for the Scandinavians, and were kind of happy they managed to score at least once.
After it was over, we even saw Briana and Hope hug each other. Aw, ain’t that sweet?

As for the first place match, we were definitely caught up in the wave of enthusiasm for the Brazilian team. It had been really something to watch them on TV, and we would have dearly loved to see them give Germany the same treatment they had given us.
But alas, the Germany vs. Brazil match was basically a story of missed opportunities for Brazil. This is perhaps the worst of them.

Our section was populated mostly with Germans, who were quite obnoxiously enjoying their team’s success. In the second half my BlueBerry buzzed with an incoming email. It was from JW:

From: JW (China)
To: JD (China)
Sent: Sun Sep 30 06:46:05 2007
Subject: We just saw you

We just saw you on tv behind the happy Germans.

Hope you are having fun.

I replied:

From: JD (China)
To: JW (China)
Sent: Sun Sep 30 06:47:04 2007
Subject: Re: We just saw you

We'd be having more fun if brasil was ahead!
--------------------------
Sent from my BlueBerry Wireless Handheld

As soon as the game was over, they started building a stage out on the field for the trophy ceremony. We had no desire to see the Germans get all smug and even more unbearable, so we snuck out, hoping to have an easier time finding a taxi.

After a pretty wild ride where the driver tried to avoid the traffic jams on the main streets, we ended up back at the hotel. It was getting late, but we didn’t feel like retiring yet – and we hadn’t had a proper dinner (like all Chinese venues, there was no food to speak of at the stadium). I had been wanting to see what it was like up in the UFO on top of the hotel, so we went up to the 45th floor, got off the elevator and went to the little elevator that takes you up to 47. There was a little combo (piano, upright bass, drums, and a singer) playing music on the circular stage in the middle. We took a table on the second level so we could see out the windows better. We got there just before they closed the kitchen, so we picked a selection of expensive appetizers to go with our drinks.

I seem to remember as we were sitting there listening to the music that it would make a humorous blog entry to describe what they played and how they sounded, but right now I’m drawing a blank. I’ll have to consult my offboard memory (aka D) for some hints to jog something loose and post later about that.

Yes, girls can play football too

Who says time travel is impossible? I’ve set the Wayback Machine for 22 September, 2007, the place, Tianjin, China. Some photos by me, some by D.

It really was just coincidence that the Women’s World Cup was taking place in China at the time while D would be here. But it was a happy coincidence, and we took advantage of it. We saw a couple of games in Portland, Oregon back in 2003, including that embarrassing match where the US lost to Germany in the semifinals.

The first game that fit the travel schedule was on 22 September in Tianjin. As is usual with such things, we didn’t know what teams would be playing at the time the tickets were purchased. Buying them was a little adventure on its own. Tickets were available through Emma, one of Ticketmaster’s partners here in China, but they haven’t been upgraded to our computer systems yet. I first went online to buy tickets, and managed to get to the event and pick out my seats. But when I went to pay, I found that they couldn’t take a credit card online, so I selected the option to reserve the tickets and pay for them at the local Emma box office, which happens to be close to where I live.

I went into the box office the next day with an appropriate amount of cash and showed the woman my printed receipt. She looked all over in the computer and could not find my order. So I finally decided to just order again – it’s not like I’d paid for them yet. We found the seats and she printed out the tickets for the equivalent of about $25. I should mention that the temperature in the box office was extremely uncomfortable and I’m glad I didn’t melt in the time it took.

There’s a nice new train that runs between Beijing and Tianjin several times a day, so we opted for that. It’s only about a 40 minute trip, but getting to it turned out to be another adventure. A coworker who is from Tianjin told us there was no need to buy train tickets in advance – just go to the Beijing station and get tickets there. What he didn’t tell us is how many thousand other people would be doing the same thing at the same time. There were 20 or so ticket windows open on the outside of the station with a huge mob of people crowded around them more or less in lines. The signs were all in Chinese, and while I know the characters for Tianjin, any instructions about what could be purchased where were completely indecipherable.
We went around the side and eventually found another set of ticket windows. One of them was labeled in English TICKET SALES FOR FOREIGNERS. The line was not that long, and I purchased two tickets for Tianjin on a train leaving in less than an hour, from some track or other that I couldn’t make out on the ticket. We followed the crowd into the station proper and up the stairs to the waiting areas. The signs were confusing and we ended up waiting for a while in entirely the wrong place. I eventually found an information booth, showed them a ticket, and asked “Where?” in Chinese. They pointed my in the right direction. As we made our way to the track, we passed a nice little booth selling Tianjin tickets. If only we’d known.
The train was pretty nice, a lot like the shinkansen in Japan. We had reserved seats, which were spacious and comfortable. Unfortunately there’s not a lot to see along this journey.
The station in Tianjin was quite a contrast to the one in Beijing. For one thing, it’s not a building. There are stairs and ramps to take you over the tracks to the platforms, which are covered but not enclosed. I can imagine this is pretty unpleasant in the winter time. The taxi area there is a massive free-for-all, with dozens of aging little Chinese cars crowded together and drivers shouting out for passengers. In Beijing the taxis are all Volkswagens, Hyundais, and Citroens, and even the smallest of those is bigger than the average Tianjin taxi. We picked one at random and showed the woman the hotel’s address. She took us on a long roundabout path that seemed to circle the outside of the entire city before heading into town.

It was my goal to save some money on the hotel in order to have more available for other travel, but the tactic backfired in this case. We were at a Home Inn, which is like China’s equivalent of a Motel 6. Chinese friends have told me they are simple but clean, and reliable around the nation. This one was kind of run down and in the midst of refurbishment, with the smell of fresh paint permeating the building. The staff spoke almost no English, and my Chinese wasn’t a lot of help. Somehow we got checked in and the proper foreigner registration papers got filled out.
See for yourself. Not exactly what we’re used to.

By the time we were checked in and settled, it was mid-afternoon. I hadn’t made any plans for the part of the day before the game started, so we wandered around looking at the city. We came across this – I’m still not sure what it is.
Notice the window washer guys up on the slope.
And the elaborate safety system they have to avoid falls.
There were people with radio controlled boats in the pond.

Before too long we were getting hungry, so we headed towards what looked like a commercial area. We found hotels, shops, and banks, but not a single restaurant that was open between lunch and dinner.
There was a cool little food street off to one side of the main street, but the only place that was open had a big private party going on. Starving, we finally decided to just find a taxi and head to the stadium, reasoning that there must be food in that area.

It turned out to be a pretty short taxi ride, and there was a shopping center across from the stadium grounds with a few restaurants. We picked Mr. Pizza, where they had a really strange selection of pizzas, and, luckily, beer as well.

When we finished eating, it was still a little early to go to the game, so we wandered around the shopping area for a bit and then made our way to the ticket gate.
Tianjin Olympic Stadium is a very nice looking futuristic structure set way back from the street. They could use a shuttle bus to take attendees from the ticket entrance to the stadium.
In what I’m learning is typical Chinese fashion, there are very few concessions located inside. They had soft drinks (which they pour out of the bottles into paper cups for you) and popcorn. That’s it.
There were a few pitifully stocked souvenir stands, but mostly the huge concourse was just open space. I wonder if they’ll make any changes for the Olympics – certainly Americans and Europeans are used to having more options (and opportunities to spend money). D reported unhappily that the restrooms featured only Asian-style squatters – no Western-style toilets at all – another thing that could use some attention before hordes of foreigners arrive next summer.

We got to our seats pretty early – pretty much the first to arrive in our section, so we got to watch other people come in. One thing we noticed was security. Each section had two security guys in the front row as well as one in the back. At each gate entrance there were a few more, and a bunch down on the field. Mind you, these are not burly, gun-toting ruffians, but mostly young guys in ill-fitting uniforms. Many of them were in a more casual uniform consisting of a polo shirt.
There were no smoking signs, and an announcement was made that smoking was prohibited inside the stadium, but we seemed to be located in the chain smokers’ section. All around us for virtually the entire game people were puffing away. The security guard behind us paid no attention to that – I think he may have even lent his lighter to someone. Smoking is so pervasive here, and Chinese people so oblivious to (if not outright contemptuous of) behavior laws, that such rules come off as mere window dressing, much like the security procedures at the Barcelona game. In fact, trains and subways are about the only places I haven’t seen anyone smoking. As an aside, I’ve noticed lately that many taxis in Beijing now have green stickers in them for no smoking, but most of them still reek after years of it.
It’s easy to fraternize with the enemy when you’re actually from a neutral country.
One of the more entertaining parts of the event (at least at first) was a big British guy wearing a read and white wig and with a flag draped over his shoulders. He was continually shouting England slogans, starting football songs, and bad-mouthing the Americans. His loud swearing probably would have got him kicked out of an American venue, but since it was in English and not Chinese, he was allowed to carry on. Our section seemed to consist mostly of England supporters, though a lot of them were Chinese.
At halftime, Mr. England was quite the celebrity. Lots of people wanted their picture taken with him.

I spoke a little with the guy next to me (the one with Mr. England in the earlier picture). He was a student at Tianjin Sports University (or something like that), and some of his classmates were down on the field chasing the out of bounds balls. He was pretty non-committal about the two teams, though he had some England gear.
He pointed to a big group cheering for the US above us, and said they were also classmates.
And this picture is just too cute to leave out.
Oh, yes, there was a football match, too.

As any of you know who pay attention to such things, the US stomped the Brits handily. The poor English team just never got their act together, and the keeper in particular made some hideous bumbles. I expect she was weighing her alternative career options after the ordeal ended.
Even the most enthusiastic fan felt the pain of England’s poor performance.

After leaving the stadium, it took quite a while to catch a taxi, but eventually we got back to the hotel and ended up watching a part of some old black and white Chinese movie that seemed to be glorifying the revolution.

The next morning we checked out early, which turned out to be a chore. I had used a credit card for the deposit but wanted to pay the bill with cash, but nobody seemed to know how to void the credit card transaction. Plastic money is still a fairly new (or at least relatively uncommon) thing here, especially in places not frequented by foreigners.

I was not surprised that the taxi ride to the train station was much shorter than the one when we arrived. In the waiting area, we sat as far as we could from the restrooms, but the urine and cleaner odor was still pervasive and there wasn’t much ventilation. And unfortunately, the odor followed us onto the train. The nice new high-speed train had a very smelly restroom on it, and whenever someone left the door open to the end of car area (which was basically anytime anyone passed through since it didn’t close by itself) we got a stench like a Honey Bucket that hasn’t been emptied in weeks combined with the sharp edge of industrial cleaners.

Upon arrival back in Beijing, we found the chaos of the train station unabated. The taxi queue was an unorganized mess of shoving, so we crossed the street to try our luck there, only to find zones where taxis are apparently not allowed to stop or have to pay to pass. After what seemed like ages we finally caught one willing to pick us up, and we were on our way back to Seasons Park.

All in all, it was an exhausting and rather unpleasant weekend aside from the football match itself. Tianjin was not a very impressive city, but I’m willing to believe we just ended up in a dull part of town and it actually has something to offer. But I’m in no hurry to find out.

All aboard the Shanghai Express

Written 2 October and posted only much later. I have pictures to add as well, but will get to them later.

Update: Pictures added 6 November.

In the standard irony of my blog-life, the more I have to write about, the less time I have to write about it. So over the next few entries I’ll probably be tackling a wide variety of events in no particular order.

The quick recap, for those who don’t have my schedule memorized, includes:

• The end of my Japan trip to the World Science Fiction Convention.
• Various non-convention events and observations regarding the city of Yokohama.
• The arrival of D for an extended visit in Beijing.
• A quick trip to Tianjin to see the FIFA Women’s World Cup game in which the US beat England.
• Some sight-seeing, shopping, and going out with D around Beijing.
• A trip to Shanghai for the FIFA Women’s World Cup final game between Germany and Brazil, along with some sight-seeing, shopping, and going out in Shanghai.

For no reason other than it’s fresh in my mind, I’m going to start with yesterday, which was an amusing day in many respects.

October 1 is National Day in China, so most people had the day off. After a late night involving football matches, crazy taxi rides, and drinks in a UFO, we got up kind of late, and in spite of constant distraction from the National Geographic Channel Asia, managed to make it to the breakfast buffet before it closed at 10:30. Like the one at the Kuntai in Beijing all those months ago, it featured a wide variety of English, American, Chinese, and Japanese breakfast items, but all in all the quality was not very good (maybe because nothing was fresh by that point). Certainly not worth the $25 each it cost. We checked out just before noon and left our bags with the concierge, who, given our flight’s departure time, advised leaving the hotel at 7pm.
We started out by going to the multi-story shopping center next door. D was thinking of shoes. The streets were rather crowded with people out for the day off, and there was a magician performing on a stage set up along the sidewalk. Inside the shopping center was crowded as well, but at least you could usually walk without running into people. There was a sale going on, so D ended up buying two pairs of shoes at the Arnold Palmer booth. I didn’t even know Arnold made women’s shoes, especially cute non-sporting styles. With the discount, they came to around $75 for the both of them, and paying was a small adventure. In many of these Chinese shopping centers, purchasing works like this: the little shop gives you a slip or invoice that has the item number on it along with the price; you go to a cashier and pay for it; the cashier fills out a three-part duplicating form and stamps all three copies; the cashier keeps one, you keep one, and you take the other back to the shop; the shop takes the stamped form and gives you your purchase. As a further complication, only certain cashiers can take credit cards, so I had to traipse all around to find a place to use my American Visa card.
After finishing with Arnold, we strolled around some more, and I ended up buying a pair of shoes from someone named Alain Delon. I tried on a bunch of nice looking Jackie Chan shoes, but they didn’t feel right on my foot.
We eventually tired of that shopping center, took our bags to the hotel for safekeeping, and went outside. It was even more crowded out than before. When we came up from the pedestrian underpass to the Nanjing Street mall, it was a sea of people as far as you could see. Lots of them stopped at the top of the steps to take pictures, further adding to the lack of room to move.

We made our way to another shopping center just to get out of the heat and have room to move without bumping into people. We stopped at a Japanese style place for lunch, and then did some more wandering. We came across the FIFA Women’s World Cup Official Merchandise Store, where everything was half price. I bought a cool T-shirt. A bit later we came across a shop called Miiow where the sportswear has cat-oriented graphics. D bought a jacket there.

In spite of what you may be thinking, neither of us is really a shopaholic, and we were getting pretty tired of the endless stream of booths for oddly named brands. We decided to make our way back to the hotel and have some drinks in the lobby lounge while we waited until it was time to go to the airport. The crowds in the street had lessened somewhat by this time. It was nice to just chill for a while and sip a Manhattan, even if it was kind of a strange tasting Manhattan.
This is one of the decorations in the hotel lobby.

At a few minutes to seven, we went over to the concierge desk and retrieved our bags. He waved a taxi up, and when we said we were going to Hongqiao Airport, he asked what time our flight was. I said it was at 9, and he said with the street so busy for the holiday, it might take almost two hours to get there. Nothing to be done about that, so we hopped in and off we went. He took a lot of back streets, since the main ones were all clogged, and the first expressway onramp was blocked off, leading us right back into the surface streets. The second ramp was open, and we found the freeway to be only lightly inhabited, so we actually ended up getting to the airport in only ten minutes or so.

Check-in was simple with no bags to check, and we got to our gate with more than an hour to wait. We amused ourselves with people-watching and fashion commentary, standing the whole time because the waiting area didn’t have enough seats for a whole plane’s complement of passengers.

Just as a Fashion Police aside: The Number One Fashion Faux Pas all over the world seems to be the same. Over-tweezing of eyebrows. I don't think I've ever seen a natural pair of eyebrows that didn't look better than thin lines drawn on with a pen.

To return to the Hongqiao waiting area... There was a big Samsung TV showing a series of ads and movie trailers, but without sound it was pretty hard to tell what was being advertised sometimes. About a half-hour before boarding time, people started lining up at the gate. We all had reserved seats, so I don’t know why they felt the need. We took advantage of some vacated seats and got a little leg rest after standing so long.

We walked on easily at the end of the line, and managed to find space in the overhead bins for all our shoe boxes. We could tell it was going to be an interesting flight. Unlike the trip to Shanghai (where half the passengers were asleep before we left the gate), this cabin was full of very talkative people, including a number who seemed to be on their first air journey. The flight attendant had to keep coming back to one woman who was always speaking loudly and doing odd things like putting her tray table down as we taxied. We were sitting next to a couple of British guys from Beijing who had also gone to Shanghai for the football matches. As it was a late night flight, we only got peanuts and beverages.

A while into the flight they started a movie from Hong Kong called My Name is Fame. In between reading chapters of my book, I kind of watched it, reading the subtitles without listening. When they made the announcement to put up trays and return to seats for the descent into Beijing, the movie was still going, and the screen went blank before it ended. It seemed like a pretty good movie, so it’s going on the Netflix list.

In typical Chinese air travel fashion, the second the plane touched the ground, you could hear the clicking of seatbelts being undone and the noises of mobile phones being turned on while the announcement told us to remain in our seats and keep electronic devices off. The newbie flyer lady next to us stood up and opened the overhead bin to take out a package. A flight attendant came running, abruptly shut the bin door, and spoke harshly to the woman.

So all in all, an amusing day. I suppose some people would be annoyed by some of the things that happened, but part of surviving in China is learning to take such things in stride. You don't ask why, you just smile and accept.

I'll try to catch up on all those other events as soon as I can. I know the world is holding its breath, and I wouldn't want anyone to fall over from lack of oxygen.