16 July

A mellow day; was supposed to go to Hangzhou with Sandi. Got to lovely new Shanghai South rail station to find out that the chosen train was apparently sold out and, perhaps more importantly, no at the station spoke any adequate amount of English.

So bought tickets for 16 July.

We then took the lovely new subway to Shanghai's Peoples' Park. Went on a few rides with Shayna (swinging boat and bumper cars; Sandi rode the carousel with her and Shayna soloed one ride). For some reason, I wasn't the only one eager to bump her on the bumper cars.... Also, again, tool copious photos -- Donna too -- including a few of a woman with a really huge lens, much larger than Professor Hollander's.

From there, went to an amusing, ineptly managed, apparently well-known dumpling restaurant in... Old Town.

From there, our mission was to find the counterfeit center of the city, where the quality merchandise was.

We failed.

Best we could do were DVDs of the brand-spanking new "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and the relatively aged classic, "The Graduate" for a whopping 14 yuan.

We then toured the nearby Shanghai Library, possibly the largest library with the fewest actual books. (Which makes sense; think about it.)

We then split up, us to return to the hotel to begin packing and to have a mediocre, slightly overpriced dinner at the hotel, after which we went to a local equivalent of 7-11. (Dinner included spaghetti bolognese, reminiscent of '97 except this time the sauce was red but lacking cream and meat... the more things change....