So yeah. Shanghai, amazing experience. Our flight there on Saturday afternoon was an hour late boarding, but the Seoul airport is like a castle so I didn't bitch too much. Although Bender might claim otherwise. The flight was only an hour and a half and we gained an hour going there because of the time difference. Our hotel was a solid 45 minutes from the airport and really, you don't see much on the way into the center of the city. But when we got there, it was immediately impressive. First off, I could breathe in Shanghai. In Korea, I cough up disgusting fluids all day long, but magically I was healthy for three days in China.

Our hotel was right next to the Pearl Tower, which is a massive television and communications tower that's probably the most visited attraction in the city. At night when it was lit up, it made the Seoul Tower look like a piece of trash. And the Seoul Tower, sadly, probably is the coolest thing to see in Seoul. Our hotel, which was of the five star variety meaning we did not belong there, was along the river and we spent most of the first night just hanging out there taking in the view, making out. You know. I expected China to be different than Korea, but there is seriously nothing similar about them besides them each being home to a billion Asians. Shanghai is basically like going to Europe, minus people speaking English. Tourists were everywhere. The city is just way too clean for anything you expect from China. For God's sake, it's China. After a half hour in Shanghai, I was about to call my office and have them ship my stuff across the sea. But then, and it's a big but, we began to interact with Chinese people.

To put it simply, Chinese people aren't all that friendly. Koreans always seem to be smiling. That may be due to drinking excessive amounts of soju, but still, it's nice. Like last night at a bar near my apartment, there were four Korean guys sitting next to me and they told me their English names were Dirty, Crazy, Penis and Junk in the Trunk. That's good stuff and I don't picture that kind of interaction ever happening in China. The Chinese all seemed pretty cold and lame. While some of this may have to do with the fact that Shanghai has 400000x more westerners than Seoul so the people aren't all that excited when they see Americans, I just wasn't getting the right vibes from them. The worst part of the culture, by far, and yeah maybe it's just because we were in a touristy area, is that you can't go into a bar without being made into the waitresses pet project. You walk in and their only job is to talk to you, play games with you, do whatever to keep you in there and drinking. Within five minutes of walking into our first bar, there was a girl sitting at our table. Ten minutes later, she and another waitress challenged us to a game of foosball. I was still giving them the benefit of the doubt before the game started. They were already up 2-0 when one of them put this on the table: We win, you buy us a drink. You win, we buy you a drink. Bender may also deny this, but I think he was about to accept their offer. But being the huge nerd I am, I had researched this situation beforehand and I knew if we lost that game, we'd be out of money on the first night. Some Chinese girls approach foreigners, ask them to go to a bar with them, the guy buys a drink and the tab is something ridiculous as the girl works for the bar. In the end, it was the smart move to turn down the challenge as these girls had obviously been trained in foosball. They were making shots I'd never seen before and I think the final score was something like 10-3.

Actually, I was wrong. That wasn't the first bar we went into. The first one we got two steps inside and there was at least 40 girls sitting around the bar, all of them wearing Christmas hats. I'm pretty certain there wasn't a single set of twig and berries in there. So yeah, that was an immediate bad sign of the Shanghai bar scene. Later that night, after I refused to pay $10 to get into a bar not knowing what was behind the door, a guy outside led us down an alley to another whore house/bar. I'm pretty sure he promised us it was a normal bar, but no, not at all. There were girls everywhere. The shadiest was also all over the streets. At least every 10 minutes, some guy would come up offering some sort of love massage. The ones who really put in effort would first strike up a conversation, asking where you're from, what you're doing in Shanghai, before they'd hit you with "Do you like girls? No clothes?" Yeah, my favorite was when this young guy came up to us and asked if we wanted "Merry Christmas Sex"? I told him I was taken and continued to hold Bender's hand.

And yes, Koreans girls make Chinese girls look like they've all just gotten smashed in the face with a sledgehammer. No contest.

If you could combine the cleanliness and just plain beauty of Shanghai with the friendliness of Koreans, I think you'd have the perfect country. Overall though, Seoul definitely gets the edge. I could never live in Shanghai for a year. People in Korea leave you alone and let you go about your life and that's a damn big deal when you live there.

Shanghai was also a lot more expensive than I had expected. While we found a few restaurants where we just ordered everything on the menu because it was so cheap, for the most part, as far as beer and food goes, it was on par with Seoul. Meaning comparable to American prices. The best bargain was the $10 we paid for a Cuban cigar on the last night there. That was disgusting. While waiting for our return flight to Seoul on Tuesday, Bender and I each ordered a large orange juice from an airport restaurant after the waitress assured us that yes, in fact, "large orange juice, very nice." That large orange juice, which tasted like something I left sitting next to my bed for a week, ran 75RMB. Or more than $8. I can't imagine I will ever pay $8 for an orange juice ever ever again.

The flight back was also delayed close to an hour, which was great, since I needed every thing to run perfectly in order to get to work on time. Instead I got to work an hour later. Pretty sure no one cared though. For the month of Jan. my schedule changes so I start work at 10 and get out at 5:30. The great thing, though, is that I only need to be at the school when I'm teaching. A big change from the current situation of me watching Mad TV clips on youtube for about 4 hours a day. On Wednesdays next month, I work from 2:30-5:30. That is, well, pretty sweet. Tomorrow night is the monthly Club Night in the university area and I'm getting excited because it looks like Bender will show up this time and I won't be dancing like an idiot on a stage by myself for five hours this time. Who knows what goes on here on New Year's Eve, they might just all spit on each other at midnight. I saw a middle school girl spit on the sidewalk in front of me today. She's never going to get an American boyfriend acting that way. Unless she wants to date John Mark Karr II.

Pictures: 2nd photo- a view of the city from the observation deck of Jin Mao. 3rd photo- view of Jin Mao Building from down the street, the building right next to it being constructed will be bigger than Jin Mao when it's finished and will become the third tallest building in the world. 6th photo- Yu Gardens (that couple in the gazebo making out is not me and Bender.)