The start of my weekend started exactly as planned. On Saturday morning I got up bright and early and went off to the Cultural market. This market is by Hero mountain. We were accompanied by Cynthia and Reed. There were a lot of people at this place when we got there. The people were selling all sorts of stuff. There was a huge rock market. They sold all types of rocks (polished, unpolished, interesting, dull), and even some pretend jade stuff as well. After the rock market we went down the one street. On either side of the street were book stores. There were a lot of people in between the building selling stuff in the middle. They sold all sorts of cultural items, and goods. There were people selling watches from famous brands (although they weren’t), people selling plants, some selling pictures and books, and other selling what Nathan was interested in buying. . Nathan bought a tea pot and some cups. The teapot took a while to pick out since there were so many different pots to choose from. He ended up taking a dark colored pot and the same colors cups. After the cultural market we walked down a little bit and got to the bird market. There were all types of birds here. Some of the birds seemed familiar to me, such as the cockatiel and the small green birds. Some other birds were as familiar, these would be the black birds and some other types. The best talking birds were the black birds. They looked almost like the birds from The Birds. Some of them were able to say hello, and ni hao (hello in Mandarin). That was the end of our trip at the cultural market. After this we headed on over to the bus.

Our adventure was only half over at this point. We took the bus till the end of the line and got off at Carefore. This is a famous French supermarket. Here is the place I bought a controller to play games on the PC. I bought a controller that very closely resembles a playstation dual shock controller. I probably paid more than if I would have gone to the electronics market but I am satisfied with only have to pay basically $11 Canadian. So far it has been working really good. After Carefore we rode on the bus all the way home.

Sunday:
We didn’t go computer shopping like we though we might. Instead we went with Jerry to the IT market. Here, Nathan wanted to buy a 256mb usb flash stick. The stick itself is grey in color and made of metal. It weighs slightly more than most but it feels so much more stronger. After Nathan picked out the flash stick he wanted to buy a network cable tester. This device tests to make sure that all the cable in a Cat5 cable are good. A simple device that doesn’t really cost a lot. The only thing I was kind of interested in was if anyone would have Gameboy Advance flash carts. Too bad nobody did, and if they did they didn’t tell me. It doesn’t seem that video games on the tv or portable are popular over here. Most people seem to stick to the online pc games such as Counter-Strike.

After the IT market we got on the bus and went west across town to the Electronics market. This market sells all sorts of interesting pieces that seem really cool. They have switches, fuses, solder, soldering irons, cable, wires, mcu, cpus, circuit boards, different procesors, lcds, and other things that people could use for their electronics goods. The place was really big with a lot of people selling their stuff. Thats one of the big differences that I notice. In Canada at shops there will only be one person and they seem to carry a lot of everything. At these places there are a lot of people and each person seems to carry a lot of one type of good. Another thing that I haven’ done (since I didn’t buy anything) is bargain the people down to get the best price. That was the end of our day with Jerry, and the end of our weekend! It was a good time, and hopefully it is a preview to what out 7 day holiday will be like coming up on May 1 – May 7.

It looks like the weekend could be interesting this week. On Saturday a couple people from work will be taking us to a Cultural Market, or something like that. This market is located at the foot of Hero mountain. Only a short distance from where we are. There will be all sorts of people selling fake porcelain goods. I think it should be interesting. I’m not really in the market for these goods so I am just going to be going along for the ride.

Then on Sunday, we might be going with a couple different people from the office. One of them, Nancy, wants to buy a computer for at home. Again, I’m not in the market for a new computer so I’ll just be tagging along enjoying the scenery. This time though, we will go to the technology market. I don’t know which location they are reffering to though. I’m sure I will see once we get there. If I had to guess though, I think it would be the same place we have gone to 3 other times before. It is a really big electronics market with 6 floors. There are all sorts of merchants selling their products here. There is so much stock and the selection is huge. The only thing I might be interested in would be a controller for my computer so I can play SNES and NES games easier without a keyboard.

So no matter what happens, this weekend is looking busy. I still don’t have any ideas what I’m going to do for the Labour Day holiday in May. I am going to be off work from May 1 to May 7. That will be a long time without working. This could result in a boring or interesting week, it all depends on what goes on I guess.

Well I don’t need to remind anyone as everyone knows that my birthday has just occurred. On April 9th, I turned 20. To celebrate my birthday a bunch of people from work went out for supper together on April 8th. We were planning on eating pizza. So we first went to Pizza Hut but it turned out that the lineup was at least 20 minutes. So we walked down the street till we got to Pizza 39. Its a buffet style restaurant. It costs 39 yuan per person (works out to like $6 Canadian). They had a lot of different types of food. I ended up eating a lot of food. The pizza was pizza but the topping seemed a little.. strange. I had a couple slices of pizza with peas, onions, peppers, and green beans for the topping. I also had a couple pieces of what I thought might be pepperoni. I also had a whole bunch of french fries, chicken wings, and barbeque. I also had some ice cream and some fruit. All the food was really good for how much we paid. Also, what might be a shocker to most people, the beer was also included in the price of the buffet. So it was all you could eat and drink. I didn’t drink much since I ate so much food. I was really really full. I wouldn’t mind returning again.

On April 9th, my birthday, I basically just sat around all day and played super nintendo on my laptop. It was a very relaxed day with not a lot to do. This basically carried over for the whole weekend. It was a very calm birthday. On monday I brought my birthday cake to the office and shared with all the people in my division. The cake tasted really good although it was nothing compared to Dairy Queen ice cream cake. I’ll have to make sure I celebrate my birthday again when I get back and make sure to get some DQ ice cream cake!

On April 1st at 8:00pm, Nathan and I got on a train to Shanghai. We got the soft sleeper so we got to sleep on a soft matress and had a lot of room. The train ride wasn’t that bad for comfort and it provided for an interesting ride. There were two other people in our cabin area. They were really helpful and even were telling us where to go and not to go in Shanghai. After the train arived in Shanghai we got to the subway and rode to the Peace Hotel to meet Nathan’s parents. From there we went to the hotel they had been staying at. We had breakfast in their hotel. The food was all really really good. It was a mix of Chinese and western styled breakfast. I think more western styled than Chinese. It was a buffet so I ate a lot of breakfast. I had eggs, sausage, potatoes, some Chinese vegetables, a couple slices of toast, a bowl of cereal, and some orange juice. I was set till supper after that!

After breakfast was our time to see the city. The first thing we ended up not really doing a lot during the two days we were there but it was still enough for me. The first thing we went to see was the MAGLEV train. It is a really really fast train that levitates off the ground using magnets. Since it isn’t touching the ground there is no friction. The top speed we travelled at was 453kph . All the vehicles on the road near the track looked like they were standing still. Too bad the ride only lasts like 10 minutes. The seating inside the train felt very much like an airplane. After the train ride we walked around on Nanjing Road. We ate at pizza hut for supper. It tasted like regular pizza hut but seemed like it lacked in toppings, cheese and meat. After supper we went to the tallest building in China. . . the Jinmao Tower. We went on the elevator to the top. The elevator moves very quickly. I took like 40 seconds to get to the top. At the top we got to see the whole city. Too bad the weather wasn’t that good and the pollution was blocking out view of the cityscape though. After this we went back to our hotel and went to sleep. The next morning we again went to see some sites. The only thing we saw was the bund. It was a park type walking park thing beside the river. There were a lot of people here and it wasn’t very exciting. The weather was nicer so the city looked more beautiful with better lighting. After we were done with the bund we had some McDonalds and then went to the airport for out return to Jinan.

After we got back, we arrived just in time for the F1 race. Was that good timing or what? I thought I would have missed the race.