Oh, the hotels give the hookers the room numbers of single western men staying there. It's a whole system with commissions and kickbacks. Of course, the hotels prefer you use their whores. I love reading the rules on the welcome card about how prostitution and "whoring" are strictly forbidden in the hotel.....unless you use their own. Sort of like bringing outside food into a movie theater. Shanghai will certainly be more expensive than the rest of the country. Another way to go is with the karaoke bar. Part of your room rental includes a girl for each man to help light his cigarettes, pour tea and work the karaoke machine. You can take them home with you for not too much. They're young and usually from the countryside, so not a word of English, but also not as snooty as the city folk.

you can be only so snooty when your ankles are up by your ears...

Hope I didn't keep you up last night...I had a long flight home and needed to work off some energy;)

Thats waaaay too many RMB. It's cheaper than that.

How's the internet service over there Serge? It's a 2 year job now? I saw your M5 and Ducati for sale on CL guess you changed your mind about selling it? :D

I never had issues with network service in Shanghai, Beijing or Hong Kong. Other than google video being blocked and the knowledge that my packets are being sniffed and whatnot.

I will probably need to pay some bills online and monitor some deposits while there. I hope these sites aren't blocked by the Great Firewall of China.

You get what you pay for...or so I've been told...

They are not. Financial sites never are.

-Porn sites are blocked
-News sites mentioning Tibet/Taiwan/Xinjiang are blocked
-Some blogs are also blocked as people write about Tibet/Taiwan/Xinjiang and Chinese history such as Tianamen and the Cultural Revolution.
-Wikipedia use to be blocked be for the same reason. It has info on all those topics. It's not blocked anymore.

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