"Fuckin China man. I don't even know what to say. Nordy tried to explain to me the lawlessness, smelliness and madness that is China but it never really registered until we touched down in Shanghai.
In a 200 foot walk down the same street you will see countless men and women clearing their throats and spitting all over the place (often times just missing you by inches), old men walking around in nothing but their underwear at all hours of the day, people peeing on the street (and apparently pooping plays too, although I never got to experience that one), maybe a chicken or two, and countless other absurdities. Let alone the smells. Oh man, the smells. One step you will smell the most amazing foods and dumplings being made right there on the street and the next step you will smell pure piss and sewage. I understand now why this place is indescribable. It certainly had a mystique to it (both disgusting and beautiful at the same time) and I can tell you now... I will be back.
The only adjective you can use to describe 90% of the smells, tastes, and even sights is: China."
This was one of the tougher posts I have written, and I've been putting it off for a while since the city felt way to comfortable. We just repeated my go-to's and favorite places that I've already blogged about before, and nobody really wants to read about other people's nights out. But screw it, I'm doing it anyway.
This part of the trip was 7 days and 7 nights of non-stop tourism and boozing. Little to no downtime. As the week progressed, we got in a total groove of partying till about 5am, sleeping till about 12-1, lunch, being a tourist till 6, dinner, chill for a little then do start it all over again.
The hostel we stayed at was really nice and exactly what we needed after the anti-social shithole in Taipei. The vibe was something I had never experienced before though. Life in shanghai usually bred a feeling of social isolation for whities. Being in a big city where you don't speak the local language very well connects the cultural differences that all non-Chinese expats share. Hostel life leveled the playing field, even for the Chinese guests since they are just as out of place as we are. Hostel life is just a group of people looking to have fun and meet new friends no matter what culture or creed. So far it has been a lot of dudes...
We made really good friends with this skater bro Canadian Eric, who was our best friend so far on the trip and lived in Roland's room. He was in Shanghai, despite speaking no Chinese, to teach English. We tore up the city with him.
The craziest character we met was a Chinese dude from Suzhou named Tiger (he even laughed when he said his American name). He was basically Morimoto with swag coming out the ass, opened beer bottles with his teeth like a bawwws, spoke little to no english but managed to make Confucius-like statements like 'It's crazy. It's weird. But it's my life', had a white yoga instructor girlfriend and was leaving to hike around Tibet by himself for the next few months. One minute we were ripping shots with him at the bar, the next he disappears and we never saw him again. We don't know if he actually ever existed. But odds are he's probably climbing a mountain somewhere in Western China with babes on both his arms.
During the weekdays we did the classic Shanghai touristy things Xintiandi, Tienzifung, Peoples Square, the Bund, Pudong (with the mandatory trip up to the top of the bottle opener to the Park Hyatt bar), fabric market for the re-up on jeans, and fake market for some new hipster shades. 
The one tourist activity that I had never done before was M50, the creative modern art district. This was a former industrial facility that was turned into a home for hundreds of Shanghai artists and galleries. With hordes of european models walking the empty alleyways and a dope graffiti street art display on the outer walls, it was a real sweet afternoon.
After staying up till deep in the AM to watch out Jets and Bears both win on opening day at the Camel on Monday, we ended up meeting with my boy Henrik that night. In classic Henrik fashion, he took us to new corners of Shanghai I had never been before. We were set to meet up with him at the corner of Jinshajiang Lu and Zaoyang Lu, the ECNU back gate and our old stomping grounds when we studied abroad. [Full disclosure on the ECNU back gate for my Weiguo pengyous. The back gate is completely gone. I was back there less than 2 years ago, but now the gate is completely bricked up. Every solid food spot has closed up with it with the exception if the mystery meat crock pot hamambao guy, the yellow table joints, 1/3 of the fried chicken spots and Muslim noods. With no student access to the street though, I have no clue how even these staples last. It's fucking heartbreaking]
We found him smoking a cig on the corner by KFC (classic) and he took us to Ellen's, the new college dive bar a block away from the university that had the dive bar feel of C's (a cheap dive we always went to). We would have destroyed this place of it had been open 3 years ago. After a few taxi beers, Henrik took us to one of his Korean friends birthday party on the outskirts of the city where there's an awesome Korean town. The night was a haze of really strange Vinegar-like Korean rice wine, C-store beers and really good looking Korean chicks (that of course we didn't pull) and we ended up back at Henriks till early into the next morning.
On Wednesday we started to crank it up a little. After a few beers with the hostel lads at the pool table, we pregamed at Windows Too for some of their fake dollar shots, had planned on going to ladies night at the jazz club Brown Sugar for their champagne ladies night, but they closed last month. We instead went to Zapatas where I knew the tequila would be flowing and the girls dancing on the bar. As we first walked in it just seemed to be a bunch of 50+ year old westerners with there hot little Chinese 'companions' at their sides. Eventually I was right and it got sweaty and wild real fast. After we ordered our first round, as I turned around a cute little Chinese girl nearly ran me over, smashing my Heinekin into a million pieces. Instead of just apologizing, she grabbed me and we made out for like 10 minutes. Pretty solid apology. Problem was, she was mad teethy and chipped part of my front tooth. That kinda sucked. 20 minutes later, I was being pulled up on the bar by another really sexy Chinese chick who ended up ripped my shirt off while grinding on me for 15 mins. Ill chalk both these up to successful battle wounds. Eric was having the same luck with a Peruvian girl and Roland was falling in love with some French chick who was interning at Louis Vuitton. After hanging with some cute Dutch chicks on the patio for the rest of the night, I think we would all call Wednesday a successful night.
The next night after pregaming at I Heart Shanghai (running into 3 people I studied abroad with, Jack from Madison who was working the bar for a couple weeks for a friend, then Issei and Ben who were from Georgetown. Small freaking world), we went to M1nt to follow Roland's French chick from the night before. This was a place I swore I wouldn't go to again. It's the most pretentious place in the city, with hella expensive drinks, an 80 ft shark tank and nothing but different levels of up-scale privacy that my cheap ass wasn't getting into. But Roland's Parisian amore was going, so we HAD to go. I don't know if it was a change of heart I had while there or the bottles of baijiu we split pregaming, but the night is a complete slideshow. The French chicks' friends were a total bust, didn't dance or have any fun and to top it off Roland's girl had to leave early (buying us each a round of drinks in the process, so shes OK in my book). Somehow we made friends with a dude from the Bronx named James in the lobby of the club who looked exactly like the Don Cheadle character in Boogie Nights when he had the beaded corn rows, he took us to another stretch of bars across town. We got there to find the bars all closing, but 20 minutes of hilarious sketchiness followed thanks to a very persuasive James. Ill leave it at that.
Saturday we weren't playing any games and were going all out. A Sichuan hot pot lunch and a trip to the propaganda museum during the day. Then the ELE (Everybody Love Everybody) night begun. Starting with a group Dinner and pregaming with Henrik and Elliott's old roommates Cheung, Alex and their friends. We polished off a few bottles of baijiu each (Cheung shaking his head the entire time, calling our $1 bottle of liquor 'cooking wine')then Steveo, Eric and I raced to the Bund to catch the lit up skyline (an unreal site), of course missing it by only 1 minute. We headed upstairs in the 1930s French building, to the best rooftop bar in the city, overlooking Pudong and the Huangpu River. Our time at there was a complete blur of 10 ft tall people dressed as birds, pole dancers on the rooftop pation and 14$ mojitos. We partied with a group Peruvian chicks, but eventually left Eric with them to meet up with Henrik at Dada. Finishing the night along the alleyways of the city, eating street meat muslim skewers, walking around the French Concession at all hours of the night, and finishing on the steps of a c store drinking beers and watching the sun rise is as good as it gets in that city.
At the end of the week we were completely spent. We were always banking on the 2 connecting train trips to Vietnam to recharge our batteries, but after 7 straight days of partying and walking around the city, our bodies were ready to shut down. The route to Hanoi started with a 29 hr train to Nanning where we had a hard sleeper cabin. We cheaper out, and knew it would be a little rough, but they didnt tell us they put us in an open cabin next to the devil himself: a 2 year old chinese kid who didn't shut up or stop screaming THE ENTIRE TRIP. 10pm, laughing then crying. 4am, screaming at the top of his lungs. 11pm, bitching about something. This kid was way too old to be pulling this shit. Mom dukes just wasnt doing anything to stop it, to our dismay. As the only white people on the train, theres a lot to hate about this train ride; including hard boiled quail egg shells and chicken bones covering the floor, shit and throw up everywhere, and a wet sock smell that encompases the cabin. This spawn of Satan made it that much worse for us. I wanted to go Will Farrell in The Campaign and just cold cock this kid.
Getting off that train couldn't come soon enough, and of course we got into the station an hour late at 5:55. That meant we had to de-board our train, go to an ATM to pay for our next ticket in cash (which Roland did in a fully Chinese ATM with no knowledge of the language oncesoever, which is just crazy to me) wait in line for a ticket, order a ticket in Chinese (I'm back hitting all my strides on that front) then go through security and get back to the other train before they closed the doors at 620 in a freaking packed southern Chinese train station. We had to make this train Or else we were stuck in a southern Chinese city whose food specialty, from what I hear, is dog. We made it with 2 mins to spare. Thank fucking God. Completely soaked in sweat, but in one piece.
I don't envy the people on the Amazing Race since this rush for tickets was just a crazy blur. After almost 30 hrs in a cramped cabin and little movement, hitting the hot muggy Nanning air in a crazy packed China station and getting back on the train was an adrenaline rush, but something that would be tough to continuously do. After the nightmare first train, we upgraded to a first class cabin for 35$. We got a private room with great ac, and completely empty. Just a complete 180 from our previous experience. After getting a nice meal in us, with the panic, rush, and sweat subsiding, we are now sprawling out. I turned on some Nina Simone and will be reading Kerouac until lights off and we cross the boarder into Vietnam. I love China. I love the madness. Life is pretty damn good right now.
My 2 cents on- Shanghai: I don't really know what else to say. It's one of my favorite places in the world, it's changing and growing at an insane rate, and I want as many people to experience this place as possible.
Favorite thing we did: Bar Rouge is just one of the dopest bars in the world. Great drinks. Great music. The white party and the pole dancers hanging in the Shanghai night didn't hurt.
Thing we wish we did: We didn't see any jazz and that is just killing me. Jazz came to Shanghai in the 1930s and never left, so there is a great jazz scene that we just didn't make time to see.
Best thing we ate: Yangs Fried Dumplings. Shengjianbao. I really think I can eat these everyday.
Iced black tea. Kalamansi limes w/ Mint and lemongrass from Element fresh. Add some vodka and you have a perfect drink. But at the time it was perfect in the humid Shanghai day 
