Yantai, Shanghai but not beyond

I've had one half-interesting day yesterday and today was pretty interesting but expensive, unexpectedly expensive.

Yesterday, I stayed at a place without showers. So I decided to leave Yantai as quickly as possible. It didn't seem like that interesting a place to be. I left the hotel and got to the bus station and met some man. He didn't really speak English but got me on a bus to Shanghai. He tried to get me to stay at a hotel for the 5 hours until the bus. I don't know what that was about. I'm always suspicious of prostitution now. I don't think it had anything to do with that. Anyways, instead of that we went out to eat. He had like 3 beers at 9:30 in the morning. Possibly more, there were 600ml bottles. I had some too but drank very slowly. The bill was reasonable so I didn't mind that much. I saw some prostitutes working from their little homes. Oh, the finger through the hole sign. International, I guess. Then he took me to the bus station and I just waited on the bus for hours. I was told the bus was leaving at 1:30. I didn't end up leaving until 3:30. What a waste of a couple hours. I perused my travel guide. I'm getting a bit sick actually. I think some English teacher gave me some illness he had. I suppose there's time to blame later. Maybe it's retribution for something. I will make another post if my time doesn't run out. I don't like this pay in advance business.

The bus ride was pretty long. It was about 12 hours. I slept for some of it. There weren't any seats. I had to lay down the whole time which would've been nicer if the busses weren't designed for tiny Chinese people. The bus to Yantai from Weihai was the same. It's like they aren't meant for people with femurs. I saw some Chinese movie 3 times in a row. The same one. It wasn't even the whole movie. I don't know what that was about. Then a few hours of Chinese variety hours followed by Terminator 2 so now I can say 've seen it.... in Mandarin. Good thing it's not a dialogue heavy movie and basically full of just guns and explosions.

I got to Shanghai at 3:30 in the morning. I really haven't done very much. I tried to get into the 2 hostels in town but they were both full... sorry. They said it very quickly too and I could tell they weren't sorry at all. I stayed at a different place again paying too much money. My 'fuck it' limit is too low. I should strive to be more frugal. I might have to after today.

I spent a few hours with some people from X'ian. They were here travelling. They spoke decent English. We went to a traditional tea house and sampled all kinds of teas. They were 38 yuan per sample and we had 6 plus some side dishes so my share came out to something like $50. I thought you were supposed to be poor people of China. I guess they figure foreigners are just loaded all the time. They didn't even flinch at the price.

After that I met some Japanese teacher from Okinawa and we went for coffee. I knew I shouldn't have really but it was just coffee. Similar story except we didn't have coffee at all. We had hard alcohol. Again, only I was shocked by the price. I suppose the divide between the rich and the poor is sharper in Shanghai than the rest of China. Mind you, the people I met weren't even from Shanghai.

I had to take a taxi from the 'coffee house' to the ATM to get more money. It was so ridiculously expensive, too expensive to actually tell you. She told me what she thought of Korea. The Korean women are beautiful but lots of times it' only because of plastic surgery and that Korean men are wifebeaters. I'd known that already but really it's only older men who do that. I don't think it's a big problem among younger people but what do I know. I find it hard to believe that a man that carried a purse would beat his girlfriend with it. I never thought that much about it and don't have much of an opinion on the matter but will say that the definition of masculinity in Korea is different for different ages.

So far, I've only walked around for a bit and spent too much money for too little. I did learn how to tell people I wasn't interested in buying watches but haven't been asked since I learnt it of course. I'll have to explore the Bund a little more. It's full of European architecture and the Chinese flags are the only indication that I'm in China. Go back to the square where I met the young people from Xian. I've been told it would be quite easy to get a job teaching English here. I guess there are 10,000+ students at their university and only 12 English teachers. English teaching wasn't so bad now that I look back on it. I would definitely make a smarter decision before I signed. I really do make poor decisions. No more friends in Shanghai for me unless they are poor travellers like me. These local people think I must have money oozing out of every orifice. They each paid their share. What expensive shares! I'll have to eat very cheap tonight. I don't know how many more days I will be here. I guess it depends when I get a train to Beijing and when said train leaves. I think it's a 14 hour ride.

Also my Korean bank card, I believe is useless outside of Korea. No machines I've found will take it. Surprising that my Bank of Montreal card will get me further than the one from a neighbouring country, well not money wise but you know what I mean.