I Promised I'd Do This

I saw my parents off safely about two hours ago. They did and saw so many things here that they are afraid they won't be able to remember it all -- a fear that is extremely understandable.

In order to help, I'll post a day-by-day itinerary of their major adventures.*

Saturday:

• Arrival in Shanghai
• Hour-plus taxi ride to hotel
• Room service dinner (tuna fish sandwiches)
  
• Sleep

Sunday:

• Taking the subway one stop
• Walking down Nanjing Dong Lu
• Walking down the Promenade alongisde the Bund
• Xintiandi
• Jin Mao tower sightseeing deck
• Thumb Plaza
• My apartment

Monday:

• Guided tour of Shanghai, including Yuyuan
• Dinner at hotel restaurant Windows on the Park (2nd floor of hotel)

Tuesday:

• Shanghai Museum
• Dinner at Gongdelin

Wednesday:

• Shanghai No. 1 Department Store
• Dinner at Ajisen Ramen
• Chinese acrobat performance: ERA -- Intersection of Time

Thursday:

• Tour of the Ohel Moishe synagogue and the surrounding area in Hongkou
  
• Duolun Lu Cultural Street
• Garden Books and Changle Lu / Shaanxi Nan Lu area
  
• Dinner with me and my co-workers
  

Friday:

• Taking the subway 5 stops by themselves
• Shanghai Science & Technology Museum
• Taikang Lu
• Dinner at Epicure, the revolving restaurant on the 45th floor of the hotel (which also produced these insane pictures)
  

*Not listed: crossing blocked-off streets, almost getting hit by cars, negotiating with cab drivers, bargaining with shopkeepers, withstanding satellite malfunction, overcoming jet lag, getting swarmed by hundreds of touts trying to sell them knockoff knickknacks at every conceivable location, successfully communicating in Chinese, enduring tourist traps, attending conferences, journalling, etc.

==

With all the insanity going on, the month of May has been bad for blogging / picture taking. I look forward to doing some more before my trip back to Austin in late June. I think a trip to Suzhou is in the cards, plus some more tourism stuff in & around the city. But for now -- relaxation!! :-)

Proof of Life

Practice makes perfect!!



This was taken at Gongdelin, the oldest vegetarian restaurant in Shanghai. est. 1922. They are famed for their tofu and soy-based meat fakery. I think what you see here is fake chicken.

And whoah, this new camera is pretty badass. I think the shot came out great.

The Pigeons are in the Henhouse

Or some such nonsense to describe the fact that my parents arrived safely in Shanghai this morning :-) I met them at the gate, then took them to their hotel. I wanted to show them the Nanpu Bridge, but some roads were closed due to the Olympic torch running through town (I mean, being carried by people, not that the torch has anthromoporphized and is scurrying around under its own power). This situation caused our taxi driver some consternation, so we ended up detouring to my neck of the woods, so I showed them my area (Thumb Plaza, apartment, metro stop, etc.) and such. The driver asked if we still wanted to go see the bridge via this new route, but my parents were barely awake in the back seat so we decided to just get to the hotel.

After checking in and such, they were too tired to even leave the room, so we ordered room service (tuna sandwiches -- got to ease them into the local cuisine gently) and then I left because I could tell they were barely hanging on to consciousness :-) Not that I can blame them after a 2-hour flight, 2-hour layover, and 14-hour flight that all began at 3 AM EST. But they're safe here and that's all that matters :-)

To get to the airport to pick them up, I took the Maglev, which was pretty slick. The 50 kuai ticket is about half the cost of a taxi ride and gets you there about 10 times as fast. So in every sense, it's worth the money. I think I'll just take it out there from now on, especially because the terminal station is only two metro stops away from my apartment. The train reached a top speed of 431 km/hr (about 268 miles per hour) which, I mean, is insane. The speed is displayed as an LED readout in the cabin. And you can indeed see the scenery, what little of it there is, rushing by super fast. At one point I heard a loud WHUM and felt a small vibration. I was a little unnerved until I heard another passenger say "the other train just passed us!" Yes there are not one but TWO Maglev trains, and they run in parallel to keep up operations. When two trains are moving at 268 miles per hour and pass each other within like 10 - 20 feet, there's bound to be some noise :-)

Anyhoo, all is well, and tomorrow I begin to play tour guide :-) Well, moreso than I did today.

For What It's Worth

Some quick things about the earthquake:

• Yesterday at 2:28 PM, exactly one week after the quake, China held a three-minute moment of "silence". I have "silence" in quotes because outside our office, the air-raid siren blared and cars outside leaned on their horns for three minutes. Still, it was meaningful, as all my co-workers stopped talking and working and stood up at their desks, heads bowed. Other reports indicate that traffic, including the online variety, came to a standstill.
• Web sites are being directed to scuttle entertainment-related content for the official three-day mourning period that also began yesterday. I've heard that entertainment venues, such as bars and clubs, also will be closed. The national flag, which I saw in Beijing, will be at half-staff during this time -- the first time it's ever been lowered for ordinary citizens.
  
• All TV channels I get via cable are showing either CCTV 1 (the main station) or CCTV 9 (the English-language station). I've heard reports that foreign-owned stations or satellite stations are blacked out.
  
• Some of the SHist staff have reported being approached on the street by beggars saying that they are soliciting $$ for earthquake victims. Sad that people have to stoop that low.
  

#100: Keyi Chi Yu

This is the 100th post on this blog. Yay!! I honestly thought that, after my insane post-up in January, I wouldn't be able to keep up the pace. And while it's dropped since then, I continually find things to post about. Good times.

This one post is just to say that the best part of last night was seeing a Chinese cover band doing a bluegrass version of "Something in the Way" (the best line of which is in Chinese in the subject of this post).

My ayi is here now and she continues to serve as a great way to learn Chinese. I rarely see her because she usually comes while I'm at work, but this week she is here on Sunday. I told her my grandpa (wai gong, or mother's father) passed away and so I had to go to America last week. I also managed to convey that he was happy that I was in Shanghai -- Ta xihuan wo zai Shanghai kuai le, if I'm not mistaken :-)

Like many things in life, my Chinese (spoken, understanding, and now even a little bit of reading) improves when I don't think about it. So I'm trying a new approach. The idea is still to surround myself with Chinese (which is not difficult to do, given the circumstances) but instead of concentrating on words and sending them straight to my conscious, I'm going to try letting my unconscious do most of the work. Things seem to work better when I do that, even if it might take longer to bring words to the forefront.

Pedicab ride in Beijing

Okay, I forgot this last video I wanted to post. This is the beginning of the pedicab ride that cost me a shitload more money than it should have :-)

It's the Little Things

Just now I called my financial services institution (how's that for vague) in the US to verify that they wanted me to send them some info. I explained I was in China and would have to do some workarounds instead of faxing them the info they needed. So in closing, the guy on the phone said:

"Stay safe over there in China; come home whole."

So nice :-) That just increased my positive feelings about this company by, well, a lot.