Shanghai

The old Shanghai market area.

We did a lot of shopping in this area

A park near the Shanghai Museum.

The Shanghai Grand Theatre.

This is the Shanghai Museum. The shape is from a Chinese idiom: sky is round and earth is square

This is a modern Shanghai shopping street seen from above.

And at ground level. The street goes on and on... Along this street were outside operas and other amusements.

We tried to go see this church

But it was in use for a wedding ceremony.

Maggie took me to this tea shop where I learned to make Chinese tea the right way. It seemed very complicated to me but Maggie said that the Japanese version is much more complicated.

This woman is painting inside a bottle. On the items below, either Maggie negotiated the price while I was out of sight or she got the first offer and then called me over to negotiate from there. The latter was helpful because I was able to negotiate from a local price. Maggie explained that "Americans have 'EXPENSIVE' written across their foreheads. Some of the sellers were obviously not happy about these tactics.

This man is making my chop so I can sign my Chinese name Dai4Fu2. I didn't take any pictures during the actual carving since I needed a flash and I didn't want to distract him while he was carving my name out of just over a square centimeter of stone. He asked me what style I wanted the writing in and then marked the edges of the blank stone and stamped a piece of paper to establish the outline. Then he drew my name on the paper and then put the paper over the end of the stone to transfer the writing. Then he removed the paper and carefully cut the image. Maggie checked it over and found an imperfection which he corrected.

This man is painting with names. Maggie negotiated the price on this while I was hiding. When I decided to get a second one, he tried to raise the price and Maggie had more negotiating to do.

I couldn't pass up this watch. It's a mechanical watch and Chairman Mao's arm waves continuously.

Another cultural artifact that I just couldn't pass up. First you heat him up with hot water. Then you put him in cold water. Then you take him out and heat him up with some more hot water and...