I'm getting bored of saying it's still cloudy/raining...

...are you as bored reading it? Hahaha. I don't think I've ever been somewhere where it was this cloudy/rainy for so long...

But I made the best of it today. After waking up at 9AM for the first time since I got here (basically because I went to bed at 4...more on that later), I decided to take it easy and visit the Shanghai Science & Technology Museum. A classmate who had been there before warned me that the museum should let visitors know it's really just for kids...I should have listened to her. I don't think I've ever seen that many (Chinese) children packed into one place before! And the people here really seem to lack manners, they actually push you to try to get ahead, even if you're in a packed crowd trying to get through a narrow hallway. It was so bad I got pissed off at one point and just used my size to block the people pushing me from behind hahaha. But there was a lot to see there, basically spent the entire afternoon covering the entire museum. I wanted to catch their very popular IMAX 4D movie (I'm not even sure how 4D works), but I got their around noon and the remaining movie times for the day were already sold out.

Now to last night haha. Let's just say clubbing in Shanghai is something different. Our taxi driver couldn't find where the club we wanted to go to, so we went to a club called Babyface first (apparently it's a very popular club here, where almost everyone here has at least heard of it), but it didn't live up to the status it carries (or at least not last night). No dress code, no cover charge, and all drinks at $10 CAD (yeah, even for a beer) means a surprising amount of older people at the club. And I'm not talking about slick dressed 30 somethines, I'm talking about old 50+ Chinese men with glasses, old guys wearing dirty wifebeaters, 40+ women in summer dresses...not that there's anything wrong with any of those people going out to have fun, but it was certainly quite a surprise to see when I was expecting to see the hottest 20s of Shanghai partying. That being said, the club was still packed, more packed than any club I've been to in Toronto. And the music was weak...but I guess that's expected...if the Chinese are going to open a club catered to foreigners, they should at least know what type and time period to choose their music from. One room playing a mix of pop and techno from the 90s, the other room playing small hip-hop hits. They also have servers that take your drink orders at the club because the bar is impossible to get to...and for a country where tipping is illegal, the servers certainly have a way of "forgetting" your change hahaha.

But we quickly got tired of trying to find some space to dance, so we left and accidentally ran into some other people from our class who planned to go to Babyface. So my new Italian friends took me to another foreigner's club, Zapata's. Definitely was not as packed (which was surprising for a Friday night, at least to me), but at least we had space to dance now. There were also a surprising number of older people there (and even 50-55 year old Chinese groups lounging in the sofas outside...at 3AM)...I guess the older folk here really like hitting up the trendy spots? But it was a nice set-up, the music was definitely better (at least danceable to), and the dace crowd was good.

So after a few Heinies and several shots of tequila, my first night out in Shanghai is in the books. It wasn't too bad either, definitely something I'll be doing again, hopefully to some of the other many clubs here.

UPDATE:

Outside Shanghai Science & Technology Museum. I don't apologize for my poor panoramic patchwork, I have too many photos haha.


A few shots from the animal exhibition at the museum.


A few shots from the rain-forest exhibition. The amount of detail you can capture with DSLR cameras is amazing (even with my cheap lens). That giant dragonfly in the last picture obviously is not real, but it was huge.


The 4D movie theatre, which I didn't get to experience!


Almost like the Ontario Science Centre at this exhibit. Like I said, the museum really is meant for kids.


Pretty nice view of the surrounding skyline from inside the museum.


In one of the technology exhibits.


In the spider exhibit (yeah, an entire exhibit just for spiders). There was a giant spider model (to show the different hairs), and a giant spider model hanging from the ceiling that actually dropped down (to the screams of little kids).


Outside Babyface (the day after, I obviously couldn't bring my giant DSLR into the club with me).


Zapata's. A borrowed photo from a friend.