fair frenzy

Ever try to point out landmarks in a place where there are
multiples of everything?

Smells. Sounds. Lights. All in abundance.


Though I have lived in China the majority of my life, the chaos of the State Fair is a completely different animal compared to the throngs of people that I have been a part of in downtown Shanghai. Despite my initial overwhelmed-ness, I enjoyed taking in the games, rides and food stalls.

We cleaned it to the bone.

Half the fun of the fair is the food. Deep fried, flavorful rich goodness. I wouldn't have gotten half the things I ate if I hadn't been with other people, but seeing as I was with my boyfriend (Abraham) and his brother, I didn't feel half so guilty because we could distribute the cholesterol clogging of our veins and commiserate together over our indulgence when it came back to bite us. And eat we did. Here is the summation of our menu: funnel cake (smothered in chocolate and strawberry sauce and powdered sugar. drool.), turkey legs (smoked and tender and scrumptious, eaten after the funnel cake, of course), lemonade (must hydrate, after all), smoked corn (don't worry, its nutritional value was negated when a dip of butter turned into a thorough stirring of the pot), fried pickle chips (ones that were somehow missing the pickle ingredient) and chocolate dipped ice cream (i think they skimped on the ice cream, but it's not like we needed the extra calories).

Now,  you might be slightly appalled at the copious amounts of food we consumed, but don't worry, we didn't sit and engorge ourselves-- it was a process dispersed between endless walking and crowd maneuvering.

Whack-a-Mole Winner!

On to games and rides. After finally meeting up with the friends we planned on meeting up with, we strolled around, looking for a game. We settled on a good game of Whack-a-Mole. I was standing there, taking pictures of them playing, when a man tapped on my shoulder. When I turned around, he said "if you want to win, play on Station 1, it's been winning all night." For proof, his daughter stood behind him holding a stuffed animal that was quite possibly larger than she was. Why not? Since I hadn't played yet, my boyfriend insisted I play. After missing a couple, I won! With the high score of 150! To give you a reference point, when my friends played the first round, the high score among them was about 80. Clearly the man's information was correct. We decided to test it again. My friend steps up to the bat and...drumroll... 150 points! I think our laughter and glee tipped off the guy running the booth because he came over, pulled out an offending mole, and restored the station to its normal scoring abilities. Oh well. At least I got a stuffed giraffe out of it!

To finish the evening we rode a swinging, turning ride that Abraham called "the Claw," and watched the fireworks as they shot off in fast succession.

All in all, a very fun, delicious way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

What do you like at the fair?