The Free Street Bar is a smoky, dimly lit basement which provides an intimate, relaxing atmosphere for the conversationalist. The entrance is easily missable, consisting solely of a narrow, dimly-lit flight of stairs decorated with American beer promotional posters. It has the pretensions of being a gallery, and several works of art can be found on the walls. The bar is small but the drinks are affordable (20 yuan Coronas). There is a pole dancer whose unbelievable feats on said pole are worth seeing. Primarily a bar, it has a lots of booths and a ring of comfortable couches near the door, and the sound system is pretty decent. It has a small stage with a smattering of cafe tables and chairs in front of it. A small and unsanitary bathroom can be found past the stage to the left, the ceiling in which is so low to the point that it doesn't adequately serve long legged or flabby people. Don't let that discourage you for one moment. New Yorkers often relish the rough edges of their nightspots— for many, it is the veritable seal of credibility. Grittiness, perhaps, is the purest expression of the spirit of our scene— it connotates everything taboo, outcast, and mysterious. Free Street is, to be wordy, a cathonic experience; a roughly hewn underworld populated by strange beings, haunting sounds, and wild ideas.

1 + 1 Disco is located on Jieshien Lu Street in the northwestern part of Linfen. An excellent space with legendary (and CUTE) bartenders, decent techno/electronica spun by the house DJ. The dance floor in this place deserves much more than I could possibly fit in this posting. The floor bounces to the beat of the people dancing on it, so the floor LITERALLY keeps you jumping! 1 + 1 has a dazzling futuristic appearance which is exciting in both architectural layout and imagery, and leaves every new visitor somewhat awed. Also, there aren't too many Lao Wai's (read: gringos) in Linfen, so if you decide to make the trek to 1 + 1, be prepared to have most, if not all of your drinks purchased for you by your fellow revellers, who will all do their part to ensure that you have the time of the century.

Eastern China Relaxing Trip day 8

30/12/06 Zhouzhuang, Shanghai night time, Yunnan food street, bookstore

We planned going to Zhouzhuang today!!!!

We bought our breakfast near the hostel, it tasted so good!!

We're in taxi heading to the bus station,  you can feel more about early morning at Shanghai.

We took a cheaper bus to  Zhouzhuang, it took 3 hours for us, such a really long time on bus!!!  The bus station was far away from the main town as well, we had to walk for more than 30 minutes and we didn't know the way to there.  The entrance fee is RMB100, it's so expensive, it's absolutely pointless to pay for entering this village!!!

Zhouzhuang bridge!!

This is a random tower in Zhouzhuang, the weather was so great!!  My friend said Michelle looked so sexy in this photo, what do you think?

Random pictures of Zhouzhuang

This place isn't included the tourist village!

This house is terrible!!  Luckily, after my inspection, there was nobody living there.

Nice picture!!!

There were many people wanted us to drive us to the village and we didn't think we would like their help.  However, we stopped my a woman who said she would help us to get in without paying, we didn't believe her, but eventually we didn't why but get in her little trolley to the entrance of the village and bought the tickets.  Although we just paid RMB5 but it's totally silly as the woman was walking slowly instead of riding bicycle.  I was sure we could walk much faster than her!!!!!  Also, there were plenty of men approacedh us but we finally got in a woman's trolley!! silly us!!

See our stupid video!!! 　

Alban liked this cat, but it's not for sale!!

It's a random Chinese Opera!!　

All museums in China have this kind of wax model!

Guess what is it?? It's the tool for making brick!!

haha, this is an oven, very big one!!!!

Here is our lunch!!!!

The fatty meat called "Wanshan Knuckle(萬三蹄)", we knew it's very famous food here, but it's just so fatty that I didn't want to eat, but we ordered for Alban!!!  Believe it or not, it tasted really good, the sauce and the meat were really great, we finished everything except the fatty (Alban tried the fatty as well)!!

So many Wanshan Knuckles

Actually, nothing much to see in here, so we just walked around and took some random pictures.

It's like the main character in "Journey to the West"

A very big clock, but it cost RMB5 to play one, we just borrowed it for taking a photo, but the woman shout at us immediately, haha, of course we didn't play and pay, just ran away!!

Using some effect to take this beautiful photo!!

This European kid is so cute!

This is Guan Yu, a Chinese military general under the warlord Liu Bei during the late Eastern Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms period in ancient China. He played a significant role in the civil war that led to the collapse of the Han Dynasty and the establishment of the Kingdom of Shu, of which Liu Bei was the first emperor.

There were too many little boats here, quite nice!!

The sun shone on me and made my hair looked so long!!

A same photo on Michelle's traveling book

We met these old ladies on street, and I asked them why they wore like this, they said they were hired as dancers and asked us if we would like to see their performance!!  I asked them if we needed to pay and they said no, wah!!!  It's so good!!!

　
Nice performance from the old ladies!

The pattern on this stone was made by natural.

Cheung's house!!!  My family name is Cheung, so it's my home as well!!!

We're so tired for walking whole day!!

It's really narrow!!!

The bridge behind me is so famous!!

This is the water tomb but actually nothing can see.

Every tourist came here to take a photo, so did I.

More Chinese opera

We were supposed to take the same bus back to Shanghai but we found a coach with a "Shanghai" label on, so I asked the staff if the coach was going to Shanghai and she said yes.  Then I asked if she let us come, and she said yes!!!!  Wow, it's so cool that she let us come, so that we didn't need to walk a long way to find a bus, and this coach drove much faster than the bus we took in the morning.

As this coach was run by a travel agency, and the tour guide needed to stop the tourists and let them go shopping!!!  haha, since we are not tourist from her company, she didn't push us enter the shop, but we still get in to see, of course we didn't buy anything!

This shop is selling some cotton blanket!!

　
Cotton making process!
 

Finally. we're back in Shanghai!!

It's kind of like Wanchai, of course Hong Kong is more beautiful!!

This is the metro station of Shanghai, we wanted to buy tickets but guess what??  All ticket machines weren't working!!!!!  Well, it's China!!

Wow, these dolls were sold in Hong Kong as well!!

So we went to this food street to have our dinner!!

　
We were first attracted by the good smell of BBQ lamb and we got closer to see!!!  I didn't notice there were dead lamb behind me and I even walked past it!!!  It's so unbelievable and brutal!!!  I've never eaten any lamb since this.

　
Seafood in the food street!

Although we experienced the terrible lamb event, we didn't become vegetarian, we still ate soup dumpling, as we didn't see the dead pork outside the shop.  This restaurant was recommended by Michelle's book, but I didn't think the dumpling tasted good, I won't trust that publisher anymore.

　
Alban's interview, haha, Michelle and I didn't like the soup dumpling here, so Alban had to finish all by himself!!

We had some random walk after dinner, and found this crazy bookstore!!!  The books in here were too cheap, RMB10 for 5kg!!!!  Yeah, the price is counted in weight!!!! 

　
This is Coca-Cola signboard is our landmark to the hostel..

Busy Nanjing Road!!

Today was a long day, we felt so sleepy!!

5/28/2006

2:45 PM

Today has been very enjoyable. We took another day trip. This time to Zhouzhuang. This is known as the water city. It is kind of like the Venice of China. It was about 2 hours from Shanghai. The first things we did when we got there was tour one of the old homes. Then we toured another one. I could have been done with just the one, but it was not too bad. After that we went down the waterway on the Chinese version of the gondola. It was so nice on the river. The wind was blowing and people on the banks would smile and take pictures of us. I got pictures of them too. After the rides we went to lunch. The main dish was “Pig Thigh.” It was so good. It was the whole thigh, the bone and whatever else is in the thigh. Then there was some kind of really thick sauce. It was so good. Tender and juicy and it could be pulled right off the bone with the chopsticks. After lunch we just went shopping. We had a little over and hour to walk around and relax. Today has just been all around pleasant. I did not feel rushed or pushed to do things I did not want to do. It was a relaxing day and I don’t feel nearly as tired as I usually do.

The only reason we came here was to make our way to Hukou Falls...we arrived thinking that we could catch a minibus to Hukou, but the next bus wasnt till 6am the following day so we headed off to find a room for the night. Linfen has to be the most uninspiring place I have been to- it is heavily pollluted and everyone who lives there is heavily affected by it. China is responsible for 9 of the 10 worst polluted cities....this was definatley one of them!We found a room, then headed off for a walk. We found the main square which was holding a Apartment expo for units in Hong Kong which was pretty interesting, and we found the world of the underground by accident when we went down some stairs and found a world of ping pong tables, Pool tables and video machines. And not to mention most of the youth that is missing off the streets!!! Was funny stuff. We finished off the day with 2 minute noodles and a good sleep ( we needed it before our early rise the next day!)