Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Attack of the Shoe Shine Lady


We covered a little over 3 miles on foot today. We fleft the Marriott and haded east on Nanjing Rd toward the river. About a mile later it became a purely pedestrian walk. Since crossing the street can be taking your life in your hands, strolling down this wide stretch without cars was a real dream. Sometimes kids would recognize us a westerners and say "hello". As the day worn on, it was usally "do you want to buy a watch".
The Peri Plus map of Shanghai we used was pretty good with 2 exceptions. First, it would be a better walking map if it showed where the under-street tunnels were. Some streets are so wide the only way to cross is an under-street tunnel. Second, they have restaurants listed that are purely just a counter and not a valid destination. This makes us question the validity of it being on the map at all.
We worked ourselves south along the river to "The Old City". There we saw the temple and teahouse of the Yuyuan Garden, pictured above. At that point we did some souvenir shopping and caught a cab back to the hotel. A 3 mile ride for just 3 bucks! Just outside the hotel, an old lady squirted white goo on my foot and said "Shoe Shine"? Before I could stop her she was wiping it down. While she had me, another guy came up and quirted it on my other foot! Four bucks later, I had my shoes shined. Kinda reminds me of the NYC windshield cleaning scam, but on foot.

1 comment:

Linda said...

I am now up to date on the blog. Keepim comin!! Linda