Life is getting easier everyday...

Click to take a look at daily life here in Shanghai Shanghai_walking009

Hey, Jenn here again! I know that I have been letting Sean bear the burden of writing all of the blog entries but I have been his shadow writer at times, I have helped gather some of the information and well let’s face it, someone has to plan all of the stuff that we are doing! We really have been going nonstop… exploring, traveling or writing about it. We are four weeks on the road now and in some ways it is getting easier and in others the wear is showing. While Sean is busy with what I now term his “mistress”, the blog, I have been busy trying to keep us organized and travel- ready. I have learned the art of washing clothes in either the bath tub or sink (depending on the load) and then hanging them in various parts of the hotel room to dry. The window is the best place but since we are across from the biggest post office in Shanghai, I refrain from drying my delicates in the sun. We have learned to stop on the way home to stock up our mini fridge with the necessities - orange juice, coffee drinks and soda and to keep a few cups of noodles, potato chips and pastries on the shelf for those times that we just don’t feel like going out in the freezing cold or having to deal with the language barrier just to feed our gnawing bellies.

We are living out of four suitcases (but we just had to buy a 5th…shopping) that I have neatly arranged all over the hotel room. Trust me this room is much nicer than the first one so I am not complaining. And although these beds are bigger than the first room, they are still nothing more than a double bed. Which I guess if you are Asian, that is big enough. When you are like Sean and I, you find yourself precariously hanging over the edge in the middle of the night. And then there the housekeepers in the morning… You don’t need an alarm clock here (which there is not a clock in the room-must be some superstition, I’m sure) you are wakened each morning with their loud talking and banging of doors. The first thought that always comes to my mind is, did we put the “Do Not Disturb” sign out last night?

Getting around has become easier and I don’t feel like the “alien” that I did the first few days. I actually caught myself walking down the street the other day as if I belonged here until I caught the glare of a stare directed at me and it was then that I realized my transformation into a China resident has started. I am starting to feel normal here. I wished that I spoke the language… Oh my God, I wish I did. And it is soooo hard. Nothing makes sense with the pronunciation so I have also honed my skills at looking up words quickly in my Mandarin book and pointing to what it is that I want to say. And they are really great about it too. I recently picked up a bottle of what I thought was soy sauce but couldn’t tell so I had to confirm with the older man at the register… he chuckled and said “Yes, soy sauce”. It’s funny, you never know who will surprise you with English.

I don’t think I will ever get used to the shopping here though. I can’t tell if it is high pressure sales or just extremely good customer service. Either way, since I am the great “shopper” and usually not the great “buyer”, I think I will stay out of stores for awhile until I really need something. There is no window shopping in Shanghai. If you look at it, the sales lady has it bagged for you before you can say “bushi”, which means NO in mandarin…but Sean and I still don’t know how to pronounce it!

I will end for now but I already know what the subject of my next entry will be about. I will end up being one of those starving kids in China that my mother told me about in order to get me to eat my vegetables… and now I know why they were starving… and I would do anything to have those safe vegetables that my mother was trying to get me to eat…. You can’t imagine the food here. Where is the General Tso’s Chicken , the Honey Garlic Chicken or Pork Fried rice??? And what is foie gras and who eats pig intestines??? More to come…..promise.

Click to learn more about the "meat street" behind me... Shanghai_walking009

The Way Shanghai Used to Live...

Click to see how they lived here in the 20's... Shanghai_Shikumen

While we recovered from our exposure to the Communist Party museum :), we checked out what a home was like for residents of Shanghai back in the early 1900s. The Shikumen lanes were considered among the younger generation as the ultimate examples of dilapidated, crowded and wretched urban living. Fortunately, a few literary masterpieces were written by writers who loved the lane's architecture and showed people the beauty of Shikumen.

According to the museum, over 70% of Shanghai residents were born and raised in Shikumen houses. Today there are almost gone but they have rebuilt a house from the 20s. It is constructed in the architectural style of the 1920s and is modeled on one household, which was part of a unit in an alley. There are seven exhibition rooms and it shows how the typical family lived back in the 1920s.

Tingzijian Literature

Tingzijian is the name of a small room located at the turn of the staircase in a building. It usually faces the north, so the small room would be cold in winter and hot in summer. House owners used to rent them out for extra income. During the 1920s and 1930s, intellectuals and artists came to Shanghai to escape pressures in other parts of the country. Mostly single, Tingzijian was cheap and in these rooms they were prodigious. Many famous writers such as Lu Xun, Cai Yuanpei, Guo Moluo, Mao Dun, Ba Jing, Ding Ling and Feng Zikai had lived in Tingzijian. Many of their works reflected life in Tingzijian and Shikumen, and were hence dubbed Tingzijian Literature.

At their peak, the Shikumen-style neighborhoods numbered more than 9000 in Shanghai and took up 60 per cent of the total housing space of the city. The Shikumen style, which has survived for more than a century, isn't in vogue today but people are realizing these monuments to Shanghai's past should be preserved.

Take a look through this old style of living here in Shanghai here...

Old Enemies Are Now Neighbors...

Click to see more street pics... Shanghai_walking009

Now that we have a plan and soon will have a place to call home, we are a bit giddy and with giddiness comes confidence and a more relaxed feeling as we travel. It was time to see some of the China you can only really see by being here; breathing the air, interacting with the people in the street, glimpsing the giant military infrastructure that is present but non-intrusive to the point of being shadows.

As many of you know, I was in the Navy for 10 years from 1980 - 1990; ten years of Cold War. I worked in the Naval Security Group, which is a very small part of the Navy in charge of intelligence gathering and denial of intelligence to adversaries. During my time in the military, Russia and China were two of the biggest adversaries we faced, and I could not even consider visiting or seeing either of these countries because of what I was doing with the Navy (it's been so long it doesn't matter now but it was very classified at the time...) and back in the 80's you could not visit these countries - they were just not open to foreigners. So you can imagine how amazing it was for me to not only come to Shanghai, China to live for a year, but yesterday Jennifer and I walked down to the French Concession area and stopped in at the site of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Yes, there are guards everywhere and yes they are active military and yes, of course we are living in communist, albeit open and friendly, China. But here I was, out of the Navy 18 years, waiting in line for free(!) tickets so I can walk over to an unobtrusive, small building you would hardly pay attention to if it wasn't so historically significant, so I can visit the site where the Communist Party in China began. You have to understand how cool that is, right?? It will be the same when I take a guided tour of the Kremlin in Moscow later on in life...

The Site of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is a two story building and the living room downstairs is the place where the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held, a bunch of guys met and stood around talking at a table, having some tea, and created a revolution. This is akin to our Continental Congress where Jefferson, Adams, Washington, all wealthy, white land owners in the U.S, gathered together to forge out the initial documents and theories of independence for our own country. Well, in China they had the same thing and it was just as profound.

After the May Fourth Movement, many Communist groups emerged nationwide. On July 23, 1921, thirteen Communist groups that were selected from all the Communist groups nationwide and represented over 50 Communists in the country held the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. The Communist International also dispatched two deputies to the congress. On July 30, disturbed by a detective from the Police Bureau in the French Concession, the meeting place had to be moved to a yacht on Jiaxing Lake in Zhejiang Province on the last day. The congress approved the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, passed the Communist Party's Constitution, and elected the central organization. From then on, the Chinese revolution entered a new era.

Much to my chagrin, there was a guard in each room so I could not snap a photo of any of the relics we saw, but I did take advantage of the gift shop and was salivating at the thought of purchasing such famous writings, key chains, and even a Christmas ornament with the face of Mao on it. I opted for a set of 4 postcards and will have them framed when I get back to the USA, which I have no idea when that will be...if only my old Navy buddies could have seen it too, time marches on and so should we..

With Risk Comes Delicious Reward

We both knew we were taking some real risks, both emotional and financial, by not accepting jobs before flying over to Shanghai to live for a year. But we really wanted to see the city first and get acclimated before beginning work in our new careers. The risk seems to have paid off and it only took four weeks.

We knew the meeting with the Vice-Principle and Dean of Foreign Students at DanYang Sr. High School went well and we are excited now because yesterday we got an offer from the school to teach there for the next year! They are providing us a more than reasonable salary, a two bedroom apartment on campus for us to live all for free, we can eat at the cafeteria whenever we want for almost pennies, they are providing a travel allowance every semester, and they are paying us half of our airfare after six months and the other half after we have been at the school for a year. It's a fair offer and we have accepted it gladly, we really loved the city of DanYang, Jiangsu Province, and we will be teaching Level 1 and Level 2 high school students the last year before they take their exams and try to get into the universities here in China - the competition is fierce so they are motivated and willing to spend extra time and even pay additional money to have their English improved.

Our apartment will be ready on the 20th so we are headed out from Shanghai to DanYang to see the apartment and sign our agreement in a few days. We talked about what to do during the Chinese New Year (it lasts fifteen days and begins on the 26th) and have decided to take advantage of our situation as much as possible. We are going to drop off our luggage in the apartment, light some incense and bless each room for the new year, and then hop on a train and head a few hours over to Beijing for the Chinese New Year! The home of the Olympics, the capital city of China - Lion and Dragon dances and the Happy Ox here we come!

Day Tripping: Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province

Click to see more pics... Shang_Zhenjiang010

We got up early, grabbed a pastry at the tiny walk-in at our hotel, downed two bottled coffee drinks (huge here!) and headed back to the train station to spend the day in another city, Zhenjiang, it's in the same province, Jiangsu (you will see all cities in China with the city first, like Zhenjiang, and then the province right after it, for example; We were amazed at the Pagodas in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province.). The train ride was one hour forty-five minutes (this time there were no seats for sale so we stood in the food car up against the wall), and we got there and discovered with a phone call that there are no school positions here - the schools are another 3 hour ride North, by bus (which we haven't been brave enough to do yet). We decide not to do a bus today, however we were all for exploring Zhenjiang because it has some very interesting historical sites, and the map suggested we should check out: "No. 1 river and hill under the Heaven, the City of the hill and forest, the Jinshan Hill, Jiaoshan Island and Beigu mountain scenic zone. Also, there is the Maoshan mountain, the Toaism bethel, Bachuashan mountain the Buddhism bethel and the Southern Mountain and the national forest park. If these sound strange to you, imagine trying to find them on a Chinese map! hahaha...

We were greeted with a city map (in Chinese!) but we could still work with it, and here is an example of the politeness of the Chinese people. We asked the staff at the hotel if they could show us the school I had written down in English and they did not understand (probably because it wasn't there!). After about ten minutes I asked them if I could use their business office so I could get on the internet and print the email with a phone number. The girl asked me to wait and after a few minutes came back and escorts me to the head of the hotel security. I'm thinking, uh oh, but he, and four of his staff talking with him in his office, get up without a word, point me to his computer, and leave quietly. Can you imagine that happening anywhere else in the world?

Jenn and I talked about it all morning and came to the conclusion that these people as a whole do not have an inherent fear of other people at all. They did not assume I was a terrorist, or that I would do harm to their computer, or that I had any malicious reason at all and that's one of the big differences in this culture we have noticed so far. Their first reaction is not negative when interacting with other people foreign to them, whereas 'we', meaning people from the USA (and other countries in Europe for sure), feel it is natural to prepare and protect ourselves because experience shows not to trust strangers, period. It is the same comfortable feeling we get when walking in a completely new section of town and everyone stares, but they don't wince or frown - they simply look, then smile, and just keep right on their way - we thought it would be completely different, that we would be feared, but, alas, that's not the case at all here.

We had a delicious lunch, again with the help of six or seven servers in the hotel restaurant, and mapped out our day starting in the North West section of the city to see some real sights; our first Pagoda.

Ci Shou Pagoda

Click to see more pics... Shang_Zhenjiang010

Initially built in Xiao Lian Dynasty, 1400-odd years ago, Ci Shou Pagoda was destroyed and rebuilt for several times from the Tang dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. In the 3rd year of the reign of Long Qing Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, a monk called Liao Ming gathered them into one pagodas rebuilt it on the Northern site renamed it Ci Shou Pagoda and it was damaged again. Today's Ci Shou Pagoda was built on the original site in August, the 26th year A.D. Qing Dynasty by Yin Ru, the Abbot of Jinshan Temple, who held alms bowl in his palm to collect funds. The pagoda is 36 meters high. Made of brick and wood, seven stories and eight faces, it stands on the top of the hill looking very lofty, and it is the symbol building of Zhenjiang, the famous historical and cultural city. The view gives you a panoramic view of the Changliang River coming from the west, the three hills and city mountains, and the forest which looks like a landscape picture which makes you carefree and relaxed. (yes, this is a quote from a stone inscription).

Take a look at the pics from this serene and beautiful spot...

After the Ci Shour Pagoda we navigated our way by foot towards what looked like a park on the map but ended up being much more. We were walking along a very busy road and simply looked up to see several hills with Pagodas on top so we decided to climb and take a look. We didn't now it but we were going through a Hutong. This is a tiny city consisting of alleyways created by the walls of old style Chinese courtyard houses. We walked quietly down tight alleys passing bicycles, some trash receptacles, and could actually see through the living rooms to the kitchens of these peoples homes because most of their thick, wooden doors were propped open. The alleys showed wear but mostly they were swept clean with the occasional cat peeking out to have a look at us. It was exactly what I imagined after seeing dozens of guide books describe these little cities that time has forgotten. The people did not stop to stare, we went through basically unnoticed, then up and out of the city to the hills and were met with what seemed like an endless flight of stairs up to heaven. At the top we walked around and saw the city from every direction and it was breathtaking.

Jiang Tian Zen Temple

Dated back to Dongjin Dynasty, Jiang Tian Zen Temple (Jinshan Temple and Park) was a well-known zen temple with more than 1600 years of history. It's named Zexin Temple at first and then named Jianshan Temple for a zen monk, FaHai, who obtained gold during his explorations of the Mountain Jin. Jiang Tian Temple was constructed on a large scale and had more than 3000 monks at its zenith. Tens of thousands of monks were attracted to here by its reputation. In Qing Dynasty, Jiang Tian Temple was ranked in Chinese Four Great Temples with Putuo Temple, Wenshu Temple, and Daming Temple.

Take a look at pics of this amazing active zen temple...

It was getting late so we decided to skip lunch and head on over the upper North East of the map and the Jiaoshan Forest of the Tablets, this is one of the ten famous cultural scenic views in China. We snagged a cab and he took us right to the front gate, for 20 yuan ($1.75) we decided to take the cable car and on the way back we would grab the dragon ferry.

Jiao Hill

Jiao Hill is surrounded by water which is praised as looking like floating jade. The Ten Thousand Buddha Pagoda is situated on the top of Jiao Hill.

Click to see more pics... Shang_Zhenjiang010

The base of the Pagoda is of the elevation of 70.4 meters, the body of the Pagoda is 42 meters high and its building area is 583 meters. The Ten Thousand Buddha Pagoda is built in the style of the ancients of Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty and of Southern Jiangsu style. It has 7 stories and 8 sides with the Heaven Palace on the top and the Ground Palace opposite to it. The hole, dug by manpower, is poured material into to form the pile foundation of the Pagoda of reinforced concrete structure. Inside the Pagoda two sets of staircases are arranged for visitors going up and down separately, and there are outside banisters for visitors to lean on.

The Pagoda was closed when we went, but here is what we missed: There is winding corridor on each story leading to the eight slides of fine viewing. Leaning against the banisters an excellent distant view covers the river and sky entirely. The central pillar rises from the bottom to the top supporting firmly the Pagoda temple soaring toward the sky. At night the Heaven Palace emits eight beams for the ships passing to be guided in the right direction.

Take a look at the cable car ride that took us to the top of the island...

We headed back on the ferry and finally found a taxi and hurried to the train station and on the way Jenn saw a restaurant that boasted about it's beef so we ended up having a meal at Houcaller; strip steak, french fries, a side of spaghetti and a fried egg sunny side up all on the same sizzling plate (like fajitas!). And I had a small glass pot of the best tea I've had here - rose tea, where they put dozens of rose buds and they seep and create the tea. It was an incredible day of seeing and walking through areas we have never seen in our lives, surrounded by people who had never seen folks like us in their lives...:)

Day Tripping: DanYang, Jiangsu Province

After talking with a recruiter on the phone and several emails, we headed out to check out another city where we were being offered teaching positions. DanYang, is on the same train line that Kunshan is on but it took about an hour and a half on the D train this time. The time actually goes quickly on the trains because the seats are comfortable with much more leg room than an airplane, for example. A food cart server comes by every ten minutes or so and the toilets are western style, which Jenn says our readers will appreciate! I could write a whole post on the toilets in this country, but let's just say that most toilets we have experienced here are not western style, instead there is a 'canal' that you straddle and you can figure out the rest. It is also critical that we carry tissue and/or toilet paper with us at all times. There are sinks for washing but rarely any soap and even more scarce are paper towels...:)

So we headed off to DanYang and this time our recruiter was better organized and she actually gave me a contact at the school, the Vice-Principle, Mr. Wang. If we could give him a call and let him know we were coming, she said, and we could find the school, we could interview with Mr. Wang and also see the school - we were excited! I dialed the number she gave me and of course it did not go through. Tried several times, no luck. But we decided to see the city and go by the school and maybe with some luck we could at least see the campus. We headed to the biggest hotel after leaving the station and this time we were given an English map of the city! After a delicious meal of beef in black bean sauce, pork dumplings, egg friend rice and exchanging language phrases with our six servers, we headed off to explore the city.

Eating has turned into an adventure of its own here in China. Most restaurants have pictures that look like they were taken in the early 70's, they are shiny and the colors are unusually saturated making them look surreal. But we try to pick something and in the process we usually end up using our Mandarin book and pointing to Fried Rice, Pork, etc. In an instant, instead of being irritating and receiving less attention from the wait staff - exactly the opposite happens. As soon as we try to speak Mandarin and order, we are mobbed by servers, sometimes as many as four or five will listen and watch us order, then talk amongst themselves in rapid fire Chinese until they figure out what we want. If they can not figure it out one will run off and return with the local English expert, who usually speaks very, very little English, but turns out to be more helpful. All six servers will smile and stand around our table debating and trying to do their best to figure out what we want to eat and nobody leaves until we have it written down and we agree with xie xiea (Thank You, in Mandarin). This is so different than what happens in the states, or most other countries when someone can't speak the language - they are usually met with irritation and in the states they are simply forgotten about until they eventually give up and leave. Not here! We are so impressed with the politeness and genuine concern from almost everyone we meet it makes interacting with the Chinese a real pleasure, albeit a bit frustrating and nerve-wracking sometimes.

DanYang turned out to be a pleasant, clean city not much bigger than Kunshan, but with an additional 1/2 a million people (population is about 3million, vs. the 2.5million in Kunshan). The weather was still cold, about 39 degrees, but we found a nice coffee shop, an incredible bakery, and made our way around easily taking in side streets, stalls, bridges, and the feel of the city was good. Again, we did not see one non-Asian so we garnered a good share of stares but the Chinese are polite and they never, ever frown or act as if they are not happy we are in their city. They simply look at us because we are so different, and mother's will even point us out to their children, but then we smile at them and they both grin and wave. After hours of walking around, we saw a few sights and then grabbed a taxi and went to the school.

The school system in China is complex, and too much to go into in this post, but the DanYang Sr. High School is what we in the states consider a college really. It is a large campus with a park in the front with a lake, rockery, pagodas for relaxing, flowers everywhere and the school itself consists of many buildings, library, teacher apartments, etc. Students pay to come to this school and the competition is fierce; the better your grades the less you pay. Over 90% of students go on to university from this high school. There is a security building at the front but we just mentioned Mr. Wang and they let us through with no problem. Even though we hadn't talked with Mr. Wang we thought we would walk around and maybe we would find someone to talk too. We walked around admiring the campus and within a few minutes a man walked up behind us and said hello. He was Mr. Tang, the Dean of Foreign Affairs and he took us to Mr. Wang. More good luck. I apologized that we could not reach him on the phone but they waved it off and stopped what they were doing and chatted with us for over an hour. We sat and talked and answered questions and we got to know each other and everything is looking good.

Mr. Tang gave us a guided tour of the campus and we said goodbye and headed back to the rail station and headed home after a long day in another new city. It turns out that even though this is our favorite city so far, we took no pictures all day...will have to go back and take some to show you what the city/school is like.

Coming up next, another day trip, this time further North to Zhenjian, Jiangsu Province...

Day Tripping: Kunshan, Jiangsu Province

As we are not independently wealthy, we are looking forward to working while we are living here in the Middle Kingdom for a year or so. I have been searching for teaching positions for us both for several months before we left for Shanghai and we did both get certified to teach English through a company called Oxford Seminars, which has an excellent reputation as the leader in teaching TESL certification. As a result of our formal education (you need at least a bachelor's to teach TESL overseas almost everywhere), we have had dozens of offers - but many of these we just couldn't seriously consider not knowing anything about the country at all.

So, we decided to get on the ground first, get settled in Shanghai, then venture out and learn as much as possible about the local and surrounding areas as quickly as possible. Only then would we consider accepting a position and showing up to a brand new country, new school, and new classroom. Although this has turned out to be a very good idea, it has also been quite stressful because we are now having to search and interview for positions in a country, chatting a bit on the phone when possible (using phones here is another post that is coming soon), and traveling to a city we have never been to in our lives!

But, we both agree it is part of the adventure so here is how the process is working so far:

We learn of the position through email with a recruiter, then we research the city as much as possible (size, location, population, history and significance, etc.). We taxi down to the Shanghai Railway station, get two round trip tickets, jump on the train and get off at the city and head straight to the nearest largest hotel from the railway station.

The trains in China are legendary for their speed and efficiency - and we are certainly impressed! They have regular trains, the fast train, and the incredibly fast mag-lev train that travels over 280mph. Here's some video of the D trains, the only one's we've taken so far, which hits over 150mph almost the entire trip.

At the hotel we figure out how to ask for a map and if we are lucky it's in English (only one has been in English so far!). We then walk all day and get a feel for the city and it's sights, and if we are lucky we even get to see the school (if we can find it). Exhausted, but usually feeling pretty good about our new abilities, we navigate back to the train station, jump back on the train and get home in the late evening and discuss the opportunity over dinner. That's how we are going to decide where we work for the next year - crazy, huh?

Exploring Kunshan

Our first real opportunity was a small city, close to Shanghai, named Kunshan. Kunshan is located in the Jiangsu province, which is right next door to Shanghai to the north and the west and it is also home to Nanjing (the old capital of China). When I mean small, I mean it has a population of a mere 2.5million people, which means it is so small it is not in either of our guide books, (for comparison, Tampa, Clearwater, and St. Petersburg, Florida have a total population of about 3million). It was a quick 20 minutes on D train ride and cost about $2.00.

Kunshan did not leave a particularly good taste in our mouths, for several reasons. For instance, the only map we could obtain was in Chinese, we could not find a place to sit down and have a beer in the whole city, and nobody we met all day spoke a word of English - none. This is not a bad thing in itself, we are almost always the only non-Asians anywhere we go so we are used to that, but no English from anybody means a real struggle later such as menus with no pictures, no street signs in any other languages, and even using our Mandarin phrase book means most people will not understand even basic requests. So this city is almost too small for us already - we want remote but we will need basic functionality.

To be fair, it was raining and bitter cold too, about 34 degrees, but we managed to stumble around and even buy some warmer clothes and enjoy a nice coffee shop, even grabbed a strange bite at KFC (they are everywhere in China!). Whatever the reasons, we were not impressed with Kunshan and didn't feel like we would be comfortable there for a year of living - but it was our first day trip so we had fun anyway!

Take a look at the few pictures we took of Kunshan here...

Coming Up Next...

Our next stop is a bigger city, DanYang, with over 3million people...

Hello from Jennifer!

Hey! This is Jennifer - yes I do really exist! I've been letting Sean get the blog up and running while I take the time to figure out what to write about (I'm a pharmacist, not a writer) but I have finally put my first post together - and here it is!

Shanghai has been much different than I ever thought it would be. Even though we read everything about the city, you just can’t imagine what it is like until you are here. The amount of people, mopeds, taxi’s, bicycles and buses is amazing. When walking through the city, which we have walked almost everywhere, you must be on alert at all times. It doesn’t matter if you are on the sidewalk, if you have the green “walk” sign or crossing the smallest of streets. There is always someone on a bike or moped going the wrong way down a street or up on the sidewalk with the audacity to honk at us to move from their path. To cross the biggest intersections, we find it best to go when everyone else crosses because the street signals mean nothing here. It is pretty bad when you find yourself comforted by walking in the middle of the crowd counting on the “buffer” of people to protect you from being hit. Sean and I have a $100 bet as to who gets hit by the first vehicle. I guess that gives you an insight into our strange sense of humor. And if you are not dodging bikes, mopeds or people… you are avoiding the “spitters”. I knew that the Chinese spit but I had no idea how often and not just in the street… its everywhere, even on the floors of the railway station. Sean says that I shouldn’t look but it’s so hard when you hear someone hocking up something from the depths of their throats.

There is nothing shiny in Shanghai except for the lights. Everything looks like it has at least a months’ worth of dirt on it. The vehicles all look as if they are about to die at any moment. Nothing is new and nothing goes to waste here. The items for sale on the sidewalk look as if they have been used at least once. I could not imagine living the life that most of these people live. There are people that ride bicycles with loads on them that you can’t even imagine how they could keep balanced especially in this crazy traffic. I wonder what they are carrying, how far they have to carry it and how much money they could possibly make for carrying it. And how do the street vendors making and selling food in the freezing cold make a living? Or how does the waitress that I am not supposed to tip make a living when I am only paying 50-100 yuan for a lunch which is only $7-14? I could go on and on about the people and what I see them doing to make a living. I just take it all in and realize that we have it so lucky in the states.

As we walk through Shanghai we can see laundry hanging from most window sills or from lines stretched across two trees. Various birds, skinned and gutted, are displayed with pride from windows or from the chain link fence near the small apartments that these strong people call home. Again, these people do not waste anything and they are used to making “do” with what they have. I have never seen so much ingenuity as I have seen here. And if they didn’t seem so happy, I would feel sorry for them. But they are happy, very happy. And if I ever feel uncomfortable around them it is because of my own issues and not from anything they do. Yes, they stare… I am different. Yes, they push and shove their way through the streets but that is the way it is here. They are not rude, they are not aggressive. They are just living life the way they do it here in Shanghai.

That's it for now...I will write more and keep taking pictures, stay tuned for more.

See ya!