Shanghai Journals    Page 3



pay for any metro/bus/taxi ride. We have definitely been taking full advantage of Shanghai's transportation infrastructure and especially during the past month.

Just a few weeks ago, we hopped on the metro down to People's Square, the commercial center of the city, to do a little shopping. (Another very handy, and potentially dangerous, convenience here: People's Square has anything and everything you could ever want to buy.) We went there to find a place called the Nanjing Xi Lu bargaining market.

There is any number of "bargaining markets" across Shanghai—I know of at least five. What they consist of is anywhere from one to five levels of hallways lined with merchant stalls selling anything from imitation Gucci handbags to pocket knives and nail clippers. A couple friends and I had heard this particular market mentioned a number of times among the international students, so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be well worth the four kuai ($0.58) subway ride downtown.

The Nanjing Xi Lu bargaining market had five huge floors lined with hundreds of stalls. We could have spent half the

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