I’d heard about the birth about 3 minutes before when Diane sent me an email.. At that moment  I happened to be lying on the floor of my hotel room watching one of the slide shows  that Sam’s friends had made for his memorial service. 

 Welcome little baby Liddicoat.  Mary just called me and I was able to hear your voice .

 Life is beautiful and strange..

 
I’ll write more about China tomorrow

 -jc

 Well… scratch that.. I just had  a good talk with Diane and feel more centered..
I’ll write a little more about China now..

 It’s cold and wet here in Shanghai. I started the day at around 7:30 . I was feeling lonely last night and  got very little sleep. I woke up just in time to get driven 45 min  cross town by my friend Ju  to one of the local IBM sites.  The people here are great. I spent a few hours talking to them about what it was like working for IBM here in China. I am so impressed with everyone I met.. everyone is incredibly bright, funny and speaks perfect English.. It’s hard to imagine the reverse: one of them coming to the US and feeling as welcome speaking Mandarin..   Around 11 we had to jump back in the car and drive 45 min back downtown in order to meet  my friend Jane.

We then drove about 45 min  to Tong Ji  University’s new campus on the outskirts of Shanghai. Tong Ji means ‘all in the same boat’ a pretty apt title for such a wet and soggy day. , Jane and I met with the Com Sci faculty then gave a talk to about 100 of their undergrad and grad students. Everyone f them spoke perfect English.. they even laughed at the dumb jokes in my presentation.. There is no language gap in high tech over here.. No surprise.. the PA system freaked out and had to be turned off as soon as I began to speak. (Sam !) One thing I learned after my talk on video game technology is that most  folks over here don’t  own video game consoles. .they’re too expensive. Instead they have software that allows them to play hacked version of Xbox360 and Playstation II games on their laptops.. pretty cool in a kinda not-so-legal  sort of way..  Here are some pictures from the trip to Tong Ji U.

 We left Tong Ji and drove about an hour back to the hotel in time to meet the rest of our friends for dinner. Jane had arranged a great meal in a restaurant just down the street. Jane had ordered food from Southern China.. She’d gone easy with us in that none of the food had eyes, beaks or dangerously long tentacles or antennae.  It was delicious. It was  great seeing  my friends there .. I saw old friends from Beijing as well as my close friends in our Academy group who are from England, Switzerland, Canada, the US, Japan and of course China.   We walked back through the rain to our hotel . 

 After that.. I started watching a slide show of Sam.. and that’s where I started this story

Goodnight Diane, Max, Gabe and Sam…

Welcome baby Liddicoat !

-jc

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