ShangHai - shopping, jazz and cubans

Peter:

Shanghai is an incredible city. So vibrant. No great museums, temples, or cultural landmarks, but a bustling city of commerce. Like Alice's Restaurant you can get anything you want in Shanghai. Well, almost anything. I followed my wife hither and yon in her relentless quest to find a coffee mug with a picture of Mao on it. Mao busts, Mao watches, Mao ashtrays, but no coffee mugs. Well China is hardly a nation of coffee drinkers (although that may be changing with the ubiquitous Starbucks popping up all over Shanghai). Back to the shopping. In the photos you can see pictures from the antiques market; the pet market where crickets, turtles, kittens, puppies, fish, etc could be had; the live market where you get your food with buckets of live eels, fish, chickens, ducks, etc; to the kitsch market (for want of a better description); to the big clothes market where I got two cashmere scarves for about $7. The clothes market was full of deals if you were willing to bargain. Fortunately we had Vera's friend and professional shopper Jeanne with us to extract maximum value. Some clothes are fakes, some are relabeled versions of designer clothing from Chinese factories, other are the real thing that "fell off the back of a truck". Everywhere we went had touts offering "watch? bag?". You could get impressive looking knockoffs of any high end watch - Rolex, Omega, Breitling whatever, and the same went for bags. It looks like the authorities have been clamping down on the designer watch and bag knockoffs so none of these are on display. But if you express the slightest interest in "watch bag" then the merchants will open the cupboard and show you the stuff.

We spent most of our money at the fabric market. Big building with three floors of stalls. All selling fabrics - cotton, silk, cashmere, wool. Each stall did its own tailoring. I ended up getting 3 suits tailor made along with 2 extra pairs of trousers for about $300. If I had more time I would have got a stack of shirts as well. I guess I'll be the best dressed academic in my new job. Vera had a full length cashmere coat made, a suit for work, and a classic silk cheongsam (qingpao) - the chinese evening dress with the slit up the side.

Staying with friends in Shanghai certainly made the visit more enjoyable. We would never have sorted the clothes out without Jeanne's help. She also booked an excellent restaurant for us on our second night and told us of nearby jazz club. The jazz club was superb. An excellent venue that had a 4 piece (trumpet, piano, bass, drums) with a female vocalist. the band came from New Orleans. The was an 80 yuan charged for the first drink (about $10), so to get value for money we hit the 18 year old Macallan and high end cognac. Smoking is rife in China and the jazz club was no exception. They sold cuban cigars, so I indulged myself with an anniversary Romeo y Julieta. Sipping 18 year old whisky and smoking a cigar while listening to jazz was a great evening and the decor of the place and the music almost transported you back to Shanghai's earlier roaring days of the 20's and 30's.