Shanghai's wild animal park

We did visit a "wild animal park" outside of Shanghai. As part of the admission, you get a bus ride through several gated sections of the park. The first section of the park had all the plant eaters - zebras, gazelle, water buffalo, and wild boar - and no green left for them to graze on. There were assorted bales of hay, but it didn't seem to be enough.

The next section had the lions. The driver asked for 'contributions' so that they can put live chickens on the outside of the bus for the lions. They got a couple of chickens, put them on a rope right outside the windows of the bus (one chicken on each side) and drove the bus slowly into the lion's area. The lions were waiting. When the bus drove in, the a lion got on each side of the bus, crouched down, and jumped up to grab the chicken in one quick motion. It seemed that the lion areas were full of nice tall grass.

There was also a tiger area and a bear area. No one wanted to pay to feed the tigers also. I think the tigers were disappointed by the lack of a chicken snack.

I think the park would be better off if they took some of those starving herbivores and released them into the lion and tiger areas. The herbivores would get a chance to eat some of the tall grass in the carnivore areas - although they'd end up being a snack themselves. This would also reduce the number of herbivores eating the grass and allow it to grow some. Herbivores get more food, carnivores get more food. Only downside are the few herbivores sacrificed.

The lemurs were very cute. It did seem that the 5 yuan per "snack pack" that the park charged was a big money maker. The visitors pretty much paid to feed the animals and the park made a hefty profit. The lemurs seemed to be the only animals in the park that got enough food.

More things about Shanghai

Having the parking sign on the road tell you how many parking spaces are left in the parking lot is cool.

Not cool is getting into a near death experience in the car. Drivers here seem to have relatively little experience compared to a person in the US and it shows in their driving skills. Making a left hand turn is best when there are no oncoming cars. Personally, I dislike watching a car doing a full screeching brake heading towards the side off the car that I'm on. I had visions of being a whole lot thinner.

Cool is having stores sell tons of mp3/mp4 players and phones. It's all about choice. Probably something like 40-100 mp3/mp4 players in the stores, not including the iPod. Most are cheap Chinese brands, but some are quite interesting. I'm surprised they haven't done better in the US.

Shopping in Shanghai is quite different than the US. In the US, you do not encounter many faked items in the stores. In Shanghai, it's more likely that the items you're purchasing are faked, but at the same time, there's no way to tell if something is faked or not. Part of the problem is the obsession with name brands that many people have and the high prices that the original products sell for. Rather than use items that are not a known name brand, people will purchase cheap name brand items suspecting that they are faked.

The other oddity about Shanghai is the number of sales people in the stores. In the US, getting help in a store is hard. Sales people are pretty much focused around the cash register. In Shanghai, there's someone trying to be helpful in just about every department. In some of the stores, the number of sales people outnumber the number of customers.

Restaurants in Shanghai also operate with a higher number of service people. At our last lunch, we had three waitresses serving at the table. In the US, our waitress would be serving five or more tables at the same time.

One more interesting shopping tip in China. Most small back alley merchants don't publish their prices. If you ask how much something is, they'll look you up and down and figure out how much you can be ripped off for. It pays to do your homework and figure how much everyone else is willing to sell the items for. They'll usually start at two to ten times the price they'll end up at if you negotiate. Lowball them and when they balk, walk away. Amazingly, the price will start to drop. Do this a few times and you'll find the merchants who are willing to deal. Usually, the same stuff is sold by many merchants so don't worry about not finding that pair of chopsticks at another merchant. Of course, the merchants will complain that they're losing money and cannot feed their grandmother and kids at the same time they tell you to buy four or five instead of one.

More things in China

Cool things in Shanghai.

LED highway signs that show the traffic problems on a map. Green for moving good, yellow for slow, and red for stopped or very slow. You can quickly figure out if you need to detour.

English on most of the highway signs for those that cannot read.

Overhead walkways to cross congested streets.

Bullet train going 420 km/h.

Malls that take up a small city block because they are vertical instead of spread out over a wide space like in the US.

Decent western food for those who haven't adapted to Chinese food. I hear it's hit or miss though.

Not so cool things in Shanghai

How dirty things get when it rains. It's like it's raining mud. I'm used to the rain cleaning things up, but somehow the rain seems to make everything muddy, even the sidewalks.

Traffic, traffic, traffic. The freeway into the downtown area has not been widened since the last time I was here, but the traffic seems to have increased ten fold.

Merging six lanes into two lanes when taking the tunnel from Pu Dong. Traffic moves ... ever ... so ... slowly ...

There aren't enough parking spaces for the increasing number of cars. It's just going to get worse as people get more cars in the city.

Impressions of China

I haven't complained about much in a while and it's time to complain. I'm in China and I have plenty to complain about. Of course, I do enjoy visiting China but there are things that can be improved in any society.

Rules are to be obeyed.

Of course, no one actually obeys any of the rules. My favorite gripes involve people cutting in a line while buying tickets as if the rest of the people don't exist. The whole concept of waiting in a line seems totally foreign. Let's just go up to the front like the line doesn't apply to us.

In the US, a tollbooth involves a tollbooth and a single file of cars. In China, you got the same tollbooth but several lines of cars jockeying for position trying to cut off someone from the other lanes. It's like merging in hell. Those shoulders on the freeway? Use them for passing - it's a waste otherwise.

It's rude to stare.

Unless, of course, you're staring at a foreigner. Some places have more foreigners so you get fewer stares, but go out where there are few foreigners and you'll know what it must be like to be a celebrity as you get everyone looking at you, or rather, blatantly staring at you.

Google tries to be too smart

I go overseas and try to blog something, and many things work - in my native language. Until I try to blog. Everything appears fine on google's blogger until I log in, then it's apparent that google has decided that it wants me to edit using a different language. I, unfortunately, only have my native language installed so all I get are those rectangles to indicate that I cannot display whatever language they've decided I should blog in.

[sigh]

Fortunately, I know someone that reads rectangles (or understands the navigational links of blogger) and directs me to the page where I can pick my own language.