Wow, everything seems blocked here — Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, Twitter, and sit tight for this, even my website. You might wonder how come? Well, I don’t have an idea yet how the filtering system in China works and today, have been able to beat the system. And here is my initial post from days ago which I hope I can continue. Let’s get this going.
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After about 25 hours of travel, I finally arrived in China and of course, I’m supposed to be on a vacation but I find it hard to take a vacation of my beloved blog. In that light, I will be posting [frequently], the heights, sights and words of how my travel goes. Hopefully I can come through on that.
First order of business; I learned the hard way that learning some Mandarin is of utmost importance. That’s a no-brainier you’d think not until you arrive and figure out that just being able to pronounce [pinyin] words as-is wouldn’t do, Chinese are used to understanding via intonation — which, as a westerner, you’d almost never get right. After being lost for like hours, trying to figure out where I am, I can’t correctly tell the Shanghanese-only-speaking driver where I’m going, it dawned on me that I’m in some real funk.
All’s well, I finally got to pronounce ‘Jianyin road’ ‘Chi-a-yin ro’d’ and some cabbie got me to my abode, eww. Next other of business: check out Shanghai’s nightlife. There are various ways this could go, Route 1, hoes (prostitutes) and pimps. I’ve read about how massage in China is code name for pre-sex and special massage is code name for sex — hold on, why would I believe what I read; I want to see how true that is.
Took a cold shower, 9:30pm, off I hit the streets to see the nightlife and out of the blue came this guy saying: ‘you massage, beautiful girls, many, you, choose’. I was like, umm, o.k. pimp, let’s go. After walking for like 2 miles we came to this ‘joint’ and I was offered massage – 100RMB ($40) or special massage 300RMB ($50). Well, neither did I accept, I was just curious and I lied to the PIMP and hoes that I forgot my wallet in my hotel and I would go get it and be back.
Alternate route. I was sitting (this same night, after declining the previous sex offer) doing some street photography of Nanying road and this two ladies approached me and seemed very interested in photography until the bang came: “me, you and my friend go for coffee”, I’m replied: “coffee, too late” (I learned to speak English in a way that is similar to Chinese to they understand easier). After much back and fought, I made the mistake of going into the ‘bar’.
Number 1 rule! Never follow strange girls (No matter how pretty) into any bar or karaoke whatsoever! I was almost tricked into paying 500RMB for the room, beers, music, and all the shit they tried to offer me. Luckily, I’m black, smart and aggressive, I left paying 180RMB ($30) for 45RMB ($7.50) beers. Well, I learned my lesson some hard way.
(Stay tuned for more of my tales, good and bad.
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