Wednesday, May 20th. Day 2.

Day 2 began at 9:00 A.M. We departed our hotel for the tallest building in China, called the Shanghai World Financial Center. The building looks like a beer bottle opener at the top.

However, we found out that luck was not on our side today. The building, pictured below, had clouds surrounding the top of it. We could not see anything out of the windows. We were 474 meters above the ground, and yet we had zero visibility.


The observatory design was very cool, though. The ground had clear glass in some areas so you could see straight down.

Walking over these tiles at first was quite interesting, especially to Aronski, who doesn't like heights too much. We stayed for awhile and the surrounding clouds did not clear up. This was disappointing because the SWFC is the world's highest observatory. Some people were able to manage some photos through the clouds, but none of them showed too much of anything, just a few buildings below. The best photo opportunity was a team photo, which is pretty disappointing given where we were.

We left the SWFC and went to one of the the main shopping districts in Shanghai. This turned out to be way too much fun.

The shopping district was essentially a big street lined with department stores and other shops.

However, the fun took place in the side and back alleys. There were numerous people that pestered us to buy their "Dvds, watches, shoes, wallets, belts, sunglasses, etc."

Most people were skeptical at first, but eventually everyone at least looked around in the sketchy shops.

I would say at least half of the team ending up buying stuff, which was fun. Bargaining with people that speak broken English is truly an experience. The trick is to offer a lower price than they say, then pretend to leave. They will grab you and then listen to the offer you make. By the end of the day people learned the proper hustling techniques.

Carlos was truly the star of the day, though. He bought a fake Rolex watch for over 100 U.S dollars. Most people were able to buy things at much cheaper prices, because they saw what happened to Carlos. He was the first to buy something, so he definitely got hustled hard. He received nonstop heckling all day for making such a boneheaded buy.

There are no photos from these shops, but I'll try to encapsulate them. They were tiny shops packed with all sorts of fake things. There would be at least 5 of us in the shop, and about 10 to 15 Chinese salesmen. One would stand by the door, making it hard for us to leave. They would talk nonstop and were relentless in trying to sell their terrible quality items.

Most people thought this experience was the best of the trip so far. It was our first chance to shop, and shop we did. We bought a lot of things for extremely discounted prices. I think when we shop in Beijing we will be able to spend a lot less money, because we will all have learned the proper way to hustle.

We have our first game tomorrow, which should be an opportunity to show the Chinese how Rollins plays soccer.