The Impact of Video

Whew...what a day! we just got back from visiting a neighboring province, Kunshan, which happens to be the site of a job offer for us both. It was 39 degrees and raining the entire day - miserable weather even by Chinese standards but there were a few highlights; we experienced our first Chinese high speed train station and ride (check video below), we walked and explored a city (1 million people, which is so small here they are not in either of our guide books), and we had the distinction of being the ONLY foreigners (white folks) anywhere and everywhere we went (I'm not being racist here, I mean there is nobody from any other countries here at all) - we did not see or speak or hear one person other than Chinese which we are getting used to, but to say we stand out like sore thumbs would be such an understatement. I wear a hat over my bald head because I really believe it makes them feel better (and we are all about saving face over here in the Middle Kingdom), but Jenn lets here long, blond locks flow so everyone around us is staring, they stare politely, never intrusively, never laugh or point or snicker, they just look at us like we are aliens. Which, of course, we are...:)



Anyway, great day today over all and it capped a fine day yesterday exploring the other side of the river (we are on the Puxi side), which is called Pudong. It's the side with the impressive skyscrapers such as the Pearl TV Tower, the Aurora building, and the most famous building, the Jinmao Tower, which conveniently is home to the Grand Hyatt hotel on several floors which means excellent food! So, the most colorful way to get over the river is to go underneath it - referred to as the Bund Tourist Tunnel. Here is a video of the tunnel and if you close your eyes and go back in time about twenty years when Disney first opened Space Mountain, there was an escalator that took you through the future, back then it was futuristic but the Bund Tourist Tunnel gets a bad rap in all of our books for being garish and cheesy with awful lighting and silly sound effects - we absolutely loved it!!

After having an incredible buffet at the Grand Hyatt in the Jinmao Tower, we went all the way up to the top observation deck and then all the way down to the bar on the bottom and by that time we were a bit giddy. Plus, my brother, Tim, requested a video of me so Jenn and I played 'follow the yellow brick road' outside of the tower on our way to one of the only Irish Pubs in Pudong, where, as serendipity would have it, we found my daughter, Carley, a real Carlsberg beer jersey. It may be months before she gets it in the mail, we went through the learning experience of mailing out two boxes at the biggest post office in Shanghai yesterday and that was not as painful as we had prepared for, but quite frustrating none the less. They go through all mail being sent out, each box required four forms each, and they went 1/2 by air and the other 1/2 by boat (yes, that slow boat from China) so we have no idea how long it will take to get up to NYC and Vermont but we are timing it just for kicks. The jersey may take months Carley, but the thought is there, sweetie!!

Jenn took a video of me just being silly, I called it doing the Shanghai Shuffle (learned a lesson with the videos, have to keep the camera at a horizontal angle..sorry!!)



And here is Jenn doing the same thing - she loves trying to show me up...:)



It's time to open a bottle of Chinese wine (Grace Vineyards rocks so far!) and heat up some Ramon noodles (surprisingly delicious here in Shanghai) and watch one of the pirate dvd's I have scooped up where today I found 3 for less than $3 - all are movies playing in your theaters right now including Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood. Sweet. Oh yea, the train ticket (on the D train, which is the fast train but slower than the infamous MagLev train which travels at over 300mph) all the way out to Kunshan, which was an 18 minutes ride since we traveled at 250kph (about 155mph) almost the entire trip, was a whopping $2. Cold and rainy, yes - but bargains galore abound in Shanghai and her sister cities!

All Aboard!