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