What an amazing place this is !  Let me start with a Sam-Shanghai story. Last night, I went next store to a tall high-rise building to have dinner with my IBM  colleague ,Deb, who’s organizing our meetings here. The restaurant looked out over the Huangpu River (named for it’s smell, I think) .. There was a great view of all the amazing lights and neon of downtown Shanghai across the river. Just as we were finishing our dinner the lights in about a quarter of the city just went out. All the waiters were staring ,, I just started laughing.. Sam  !   I do believe this is your biggest electrical stunt so far.. Here’s a before and after shot.. it doesn’t do it justice.. it was just simply amazing

I managed to stay awake until about midnight then, miracle of miracles, I slept until 7:30 this morning.   I went for a beautiful run along the river then bought aome food for breakfast at the corner store..  Here you can share my breakfast.. yum !

After that, I met up with my colleagues Steve, Ri, and Deb for a day of exploring. It’s particularly good to be here with Steve. Steve’s wife Helen died in October so our minds are in somewhat similar spaces now..  Those of you who follow the blog might remember him from my trip to Tucson.

I dragged my 3 friends through the very cool subway into downtown Shanghai . The subway even has street musicians.. This guy just sounded so soulful I had to get a clip.. I did give him some money..   I think he felt sorry for me ‘damn American doesn’t know which end is up on his camera’

From the subway we dove into the cluttered streets of Shanghai into the electronics components district near the intersections of Fuzian and Beijing‘s streets. This is the real Shanghai.. no fancy hotels or restaurants It’s very crowded and gritty.. and at the same time so very alive ! My friends spent a fun (for me!) 2 hours watching me poke around the stalls that cell everything from ball bearings to magnets to transistors to LED’s . It is always fun trying to buy something here.. there is absolutely no common language, yet bargaining is a must.. all of the transactions happen with a calculator, a pad of paper and over acted facial expressions on both sides. Truth be told.. I’m a lousy bargainer. Here I am trying my best to do it.

In the end I didn’t buy much. I came here really jazzed to  buy all sorts of goofy components to make stuff. But just like in Vermont.. I’m finding that ‘stuff’ just doesn’t interest me at all right now.

   I could tell my friends interest in obscure electronic do-dads would only last so long.. so we quickly changed to ‘plan B’ and headed out to find a lunch or two.. I say ‘or two’ because we did end up eating twice. First in a nondescript place off of the busy and touristy Nanjing Street  and once again after we found the same crazy cafeteria that I’d eaten in with my friend Glenn about a year an a half ago. This place is in the old city is just insane!. The cafeteria line goes on for ever.. and you can only guess what you’re looking at.. Is that meat ? fish  ? dessert ? noodles ? tOne clue is eyes.. If it has eyes.. it’s probably not sweet. Some stuff is clearly parts  of animals we don’t eat.. You just don’t want to ask. ,,. Which is good.. because you can’t.. So we gorged ourselves yet again.. Here’s some pictures of the food and of Steve, Ri and Deb trying to decipher it.   As you can see.. some of the food looks back at you..

After that we toured some of the shops in the old city.. It was full of tourists.. and people trying to sell stuff to tourists. It was pretty late in the day at that point .. in one shop I smelled incense burning which reminded me of Sam.. and I jut melted down.. I think I needed to do that after holding it together for so long on the trip over. It felt really good. I know that I must really comfortable with my feelings when I can do that in a crowded shopping Bazaar and be OK with it.   Just a few minutes after that a woman in one of the shops pointed at my Sam button and said ‘smile ?’ .. .. and I did !
   This city is really amazing.. here are some other senses of city life here.. so much color, so many people,  so many signes of western culture, so many helpful warning signs

 
By that point it was starting to get darker and colder (relatively speaking.. maybe in the high 40’s) .. so we hoofed it on back to the subway. The subway home was nothing like the uncrowded  paradise of the morning. We were barely able  to scramble on to a train.. A conductor –guy on the outside of the train came up to the door and shoved us inside to the point the doors could close.. We were as tight as sardines.. you couldn’t even see your own feet !  It was amazing ..

We got back to the hotel at around 7 and agreed to meet up for dinner at 8:30.. everyone independently called up to say they were too full and too tired to go out.. I was secretly happy not to have to go ! 

I’m really missing my family right now.. I’ve been able to talk to them all the time thanks to the miracle of Skype. (2 cents a minute from China !)  I’m beat and ready to go to sleep..I just looked up how to say ‘I love you’ in Mandarin Chinese.. and the website I found it on was called SamCity.com !  Wo ai ni  (???)  Diane, Max, Gabe and Sam !

-jc

Greetings from Shanghai.. The trip has been very easy so far even though the plane was packed.

 It was just about a 15 hour flight. I probably slept for half of it. It went by relatively quickly. ..  At one point  I woke up just as the map on the screen announced we were going over the north pole. I even got a picture.. It looks a lot like our back yard.

No one around my seat spoke  much English, so I just sat peacefully and was alone with my thoughts. I did some catching up on email and read a bit.. but mostly I just meditated. It’s a funny feeling heading this far from home so soon after Sam’s passing..  At one point , I opened my eyes because I had this very strong feeling that someone was standing  over my left shoulder.. No one was there.. but the feeling persisted. I kept looking around.. then I realized it felt like Sam.. It was a good feeling.  I guess this means I’ll never feel like I’m traveling alone anymore.

    I got to the hotel at around 5ish and unpacked.. then took a short but great run along the Huangpo river which is just next to my hotel. The river has lots of great walking promenades. From there you can see the whole skyline of Shanghai.

It’s really a remarkable city. It’s grown visibly since I was here in 2005. Te air is filled with construction crane. Many of the new buildings are so beautiful. They incorporate curves and angles you just don’t see anywhere else They also do wonderful things with light. Their use of neon is impressive.. but what’s really dazzling is their use of multi color LED’s.. The building next to me is like a 10 floor tall TV..

I ran into a group of gigling chineese tourists who asked me to take a picture of them with their camrea.. (or at least that’s what I think they asked me to do). I could’t resist taking a picture of my own.. Note: Making silly faces is a unviersal language…

One other cool thing I saw. pocket size McDonalds… The world truly is flat..

Right now I’m going to see if I can find my friend Steve for some dinner.. then hopefully a full night’s sleep..

     I feel peaceful here… but already I miss my family. I miss my friends.  Thanks to everyone who’s been writing me.  I’ll keep sending pictures !  Thanks for flying with me Sam.

Ps.. my sister Mary is going to have her 2^nd kid either Tuesday or Wednesday.. I’ll let you know

Pss. Here’s some unedited video from the Samstone party at the house last night ..  I like the circle of shocks part !

Hi folks.. Just waiting to check  in tor the plane to Shanghai.. So far so good. I love you all.. Gotta run now..
-jc

Flash : We’re having a SamStones making potluck at our house at 6:30 Sat Night  (3/10) . Please bring pizza and/or salad to share. Sometime in the eveing I’ll be doing a short talk on Nikola Tesla, the mysterious scientist featured in the movie The Prestige. I’ll also be doing some cool High Voltage demonstrations. Come perepared to be shocked!

I woke to Sam dreams this morning.. not necessarily sad.. but bittersweet. I only ended up getting just a few hours of sleep. Somehow I still ended up waking up refreshed. After a few hours of work, I went in to see our friend Marci for a Reiki massage. I was feeling a ‘blockage’ between my head and heart. (I’m not sure if ‘blockage’ is the right word.. but the other analogies that seem to fit are more digestive ) What I mean is that my rational/scientific mind is sometimes at odds with the spiritual openness I’ve found following Sam’s passing. When I just think with my head..  reality feels pretty grim. When I let my heart lead along with my brain  I find I can be more optimistic, creative and forward looking. I’m not sure how it works, but Reiki seems to help me balance the two. As I said a few days back when I  am feeling ‘blah’ ..I often  need to feel much sadder  to feel better. The blah feeling really saps energy and limits my creativity.  Once I let go a little and open up to some sadness, it re-energizes me.   It’s funny to think I need to get so sad to allow me to be happy again.. but that’s the way it works.  What’s more the happy periods.. and they are much more frequent now.. feel all that much more good and healing because of the contrast.  One other interesting data point.. I tested my heart rate on one of those drugstore machines today.. My heart rate was in the low to mid 50’s… which is about 20 BPM slower than my normal rest pulse for as long as I can remember.. I guess I really am more relaxed now.

  After the massage, I went into work. I’ve been working at home more often now… and when I do go into work, I often spend the time on the phone in my office so I don’t do much wandering around of the halls. I did do a little walking around today and I realized what a mixed blessing it has become. It’s wonderful to see people. I always get such a warm and genuine caring response from everyone I meet. At the same time, It’s hard for me to get anywhere without having the same ‘how you doing’ conversation with everyone. I’m glad they ask… I just run out of good ways to answer. I also find that folks are very  eager for me to be ‘better’ . I get lots of ‘you’re looking good’  (yeah.. right ).. or ‘things getting back to normal ?’ kind of stuff. I know those are good hearted comments.. but normal isn’t even a goal for me anymore.. anyway.. I realize that everything anyone says is because they care.. when I remember that it doesn’t matter what they say.

     Around 4 I had to leave to get my hair cut. I’m going to China on Sunday. Last time I was there I had folks come up to me on the street and call me Karl Marx .. which I think was a compliment..  I just don’t see the resemblence.

I decided to neaten up a bit this time in order to be a little more incognito. While I was getting my haircut the  Red Hot Chile Pepper’s song ‘Dani California‘ came on the radio. I lost it…  not because the song is so great.. it’s because the 5 of us went to a Chile‘s show in Quebec City just  a few weeks before Sam died..

   From there, I went to help ‘organize’ at the Richmond free library book sale at the middle school.  Actually I didn’t help that much at all.. all I did was slum and eat some of their pizza. For the first time in the 18 years I’ve been going to this event I realized that  I didn’t want any books.. partially because I didn’t see anything that caught my eye.. and partially because I have a huge stack of books to be read under my bed..  I spent the evening pick out books I thought other folks would like I found a copy of Wallace Stegner’s ‘Crossing to Safety’ for Deb.  It’s one of  my favorite books.. Diane says that I say that about lots of books !   ‘Crossing’ is one of  those books I love where nothing happens. It’s about an older couple surveying their lives  in the setting of a summer vacation spot they’ve gone to for years.. They are realizing how they’ve come through their lives relatively unscathed.. That used to be my image of our life in the future. .. not anymore.. I also found copies for friends of some other  of my favorites include ‘Blindness by Jpse Saramago, ‘Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius’ by Eggers, ‘Choke’ by Chuck Palahunik, ‘To the Lighthouse’ by Virginia Wolfe and Shipping news by Proulx,  ‘The Hours’ by Mike Cunnignham,.. which is also sort of about Virginia Wolfe. ‘Last report of the incident at little no horse’  and ‘Love Medicine’ by Louise erdrich.  I love books.. just not now….

   Right now. I can’t keep my eyes open.. I ned to  post and then get some sleep. Tomorrow is the last Night riders competition at Bolton and Gabe is competing. I need ot be fresh for that .   We’re also  making SamStones at our house tomorrow night.. with a pizza and salad potluck.  I’m going to do a short talk and some high voltage demos’ on the topic of Nikola Tesla, the great last century inventor  in honor of the movie ‘The Prestige’ we just saw. Be there are by quadrilateral Sam !

-jc