I could walk 500 Miles....

Well today I went on my longest exploring trip to date! Myself and the two Swedes (Lars and Lars) (it is really Chris and Henrik, but Lars and Lars sounds so much funnier in my head) went on a walk of epic proportions. It started out at their apartment which is located at Hanzhong Rd which is just a couple of kms away from the centre of the city. We decided to head down to Jinan Temple which was a good distance walk away. When had almost arrived at the temple we realized that we were all hungry, so it being St. Patty's day we stopped in at a pub called Malone's. If you are ever in Shanghai and are jonesing for a burger, Malone's is the place all expats recommend! For the really adventurous you can tell them how you want your meat cooked, me being an Albertan took a medium patty, I am not crazy enough to go rare. I ordered the four cheese burger, and it may have been the greatest thing ever to touch my tongue. It was like being at home and having a burger at Red Robin's.

After lunch we went to the temple, as everyone knows I do not have a religious bone in my body, but this temple just seemed to have this great sense of peace to it, it was really neat to see how Buddhists  pay their respects.

After the temple we decided to just keep walking and eventually we ended up in front of a hair salon that offered a "shampoo, cut, and massage" for only 2o rmb, that is less than $4 Cdn. Chris and I decided this sounded like something two brave guys must investigate, and after a little arm twisting we were able to convince Henrik to go through with it as well. It turned out to be an ok haircut. While I was having my head massaged I started thinking how a haircut was great way to judge the cost of living in a country. In most countries I have visited hairdressers or barbers have always been able to make a livable wage. This I would presume comes from the fact that it is a skilled position, somewhat similar to the trades. Well it takes about 15 minutes to cut a man's hair and probably closer to 45 minutes for a women. So let's say the average hair cut takes half an hour. This means that the hairdresser is able to "bill" about 4o rmb an hour. The salon would take approximately half of that so the hairdresser now makes 20 rmb an hour, or a little less than $4 Cdn. an hour. Before anyone says that is so little, you must understand the cost of living, even in a major city like Shanghai can be much less than back in Canada, and I believe I could live here on that wage, not at the standards I am used to, but could survive. If you calculate it out saying the average hairdresser cuts 100 heads a week, that would work out to around $4000 rmb a month, which I have been told by friends would be more than enough to live. I wonder if anyone has ever done studies on this, if anyone has ever heard of anything like this it would be great to hear from you, (we could call it the barber index). Now that I am done my brain fart for the day, lets get back to the intersting stuff (me).  All three of us looked better after the cuts then when we walked in, and the head massage you get in a shampoo here is better than anything back home. Well after that we continued our long walk and eventually made it home. When we got back to their apartment it was time for our push ups. Chris and I have started a program called 100 pushups http://hundredpushups.com , and trust me it is not easy, but I think by the end of the six weeks I will be able to do 100 pushups in a row again. The last time I was able to do that was when I was 21 and still a member of the Young Canadians.

Well I should go get some laundry going as I do not want to run out of socks, as that would be gross.

Keep your feet dry,

D.