1.1. --- China, The Country - this is going to be a blast!

Once upon a time, my good friend Eileks and myself, Atha, went to China, the Country! It was meant to be a blast... and a blast it was.

30th of July. 7.15 a.m. CET. Two backpacks carried by a French and a Kyrgyz on the streets of Grenoble are heading to the bus station to go to Lyon-Paris-Shanghai.

In Lyon the 1st blast was that all reserved seats were messed up and we got tickets in very different seats on the plane from Paris to Shanghai... 10 hours separated... we couldn't have survived it... actions were to be taken... In Paris, during check-in, I, by pure chance, see a lady with a ticket next to Alex's; and here it starts... "Excuse me, can I get your boarding pass and give you mine..." :-) This is how we sat next to Benoit, a French IT guy, who decided to get drunk with us on the plane during the first hours of the flight - the plan was to drink a lot early to become sober prior the arrival to Shanghai. And so we drank, the hostesses became more beautiful, the sky - bluer, the jokes - funnier and the flight - shorter.

11 hours later. 6.50 a.m. China Time. Shanghai. Temperature: 27C. FFS!!! 27C at 7 in the morning!

A light cigarette and my knees were shaking while walking up the bus stairs.

Alex's eyes are vampire-red. Smile on the face is dull. But the spirit is high and awaiting adventure.

The first impression of Shanghai is a "WOW"! Buildings. Many buildings. Tall buildings. Chaotically placed buildings. The city crushes you. You are no one. If you die, it will continue as nothing happened. Of course, anywhere you die it will be the same - nothing will change; but in Shanghai you actually understand and feel that. A man is nothing... and we were 2 nothings amongst other 17 millions of nothings.

2 hours later. Hostel. 4 beds in our room. Bags left at the reception. Showers are taken. Shorts are put on. Money exchanged. We are set to venture into this huge anthill of steel, cement and human flesh.

The primary objective was to buy a photo camera as we had none. At the camera store a nice Chinese lady offers us an apparently good deal - 1080 Monopolies (this is how I called the Yuan because of the pink color of 100 Yuan bills), or 169$, for a camera. All of a sudden we start bargaining with her (hell knows why we started actually, but it started off). Through a calculator we announce 800 Yuan. The girl's face cringes, she types in 1050. We stand our ground 800. 1000 follows the answer - 800 are unchanged in reply. Alex softens the bargain by exchanging a couple of jokes with the lady, I don't understand the jokes - and frankly I wouldn't want to :-). So all in all we bought a camera, a memory card of 4Gb, a camera bag and some other accessory for 880... Yet, for some reason we thought that the girl had us. :-) Later on we checked the prices on the internet and the cheapest we could find was 169$... :-)

The nice Chinese lady, who we thought had us... I am sure she thinks the same. :-)

So here we go a couple of pictures of the city of Shanghai in the next post.