Hello Kitty, Elaborate Trees, and Me.

My friend Scott ahead of me almost disappears into the crowd on Shanghai's shopping mecca Nanjing Road ( Wikipedia - Nanjing Road (Shanghai) ). Hilarious tales to be told of getting caught off-guard as westerners when children just squat down and urinate as required right in the middle of a very busy walk/roadway. Anyhow, the shopping experience was interesting and despite the facade of small doorways, many buildings held gigantic shopping mazes within. Some places were a labyrinthine mix off thin corridors and steep stairs with boutique-style shops crammed this way and that in seemingly haphazard fashion.

There was however an order to this chaos that the local people understand all too well and it is well known that following the wrong rabbit can get you stuck in a hole you can't pull yourself out of. Side-street merchants are always calling for you to follow them down some alley or another with promises of 'the best wares in all of China', for the cheapest. Buyer beware though, 

(Below) Yeah, I rocked the Hello Kitty prop, and still completely confident in my manhood. ;)

(Below) Are you kidding me?! Even the trees!?! Yes, even the trees have been grown together in  patterns to improve aesthetics . The trees shown below however marked the end of our   trip down Nanjing Road.  We couldn't decide whether to turn around here or proceed forward into unknown territory.

(Below) Nanjing Road gets a hearty thumbs-up from me and several of my companions as many of them acquire interesting trinkets and saw many interesting things in such  tightly-packed area. I mean some of these shopping mall areas behind little doors and entranceways were 10+ floors, criss-crossing escalators and store after store after store. Very good deals in a few places was the general consensus, but overall there was hardly room to bargain. My Sifu had previously recommended that the group reserve any shopping for further in the trip. Primarily because of expense in the area, but secondly we had an inside-flight to catch and needn't be paying extra for overweight baggage this early in the trip.