Asia, 2017, Starting in Shanghai

walking on the street at night

       36 hours after leaving home, we were in Shanghi, looking and feeling our best we took the Mag Lev Train to downtown and then got a Taxi and found our hotel ($28 per night bottled water included). The taxi ride cost more than the 2 nights we stayed in the hotel. Travel, gotta roll with it.
      If you are aware of the level of fatigue such a long journey creates, you'll expect that finding food and exploring the near neighborhood were about all we could manage. After eating, we collapsed in bed at about 8 pm and were asleep in seconds. I woke up refreshed what felt like hours later. It was 9:30. The whole night was like that with one or two hour naps stacked between listening to and forgetting 20 minutes or so of an audio book. Eventually the stack of intervals brought us to 6 am for showers and breakfast.
      There wasn't a lot of English to draw on in the hotel but with a bit of waving and pointing we paid the desk clerk 20 RMB for a pair of breakfast chits to present to the server who then invited us to pick our way through the breakfast buffet.
      Neither of us is a fan of congee, a sort of rice soup/oatmeal that one enhances with bits of fermented tofu and pickled vegetation but the congee seemed right in this case and we both had it. Rick misunderstood the fermented tofu thinking it was a food item and not a condiment. He may never try it again.
      We also had fried rice, cherry tomatoes, pot stickers, stir fry vegetables, various kinds of steamed buns, and eggs boiled in tea. There were pastries and cupcakes, breads, tea and juices.
      Rick's shoe had come apart at some point in that long journey. On our last trip, one suitcase wheel split in half at the airport in NY but he repaired it by tying pieces together with our extra shoelaces and getting some stout tape at a hardware store in England, where English was our friend. Now we were in China with a broken shoe.

we were number 11 at the bank

      We showed the hotel clerk the broken shoe but pretty much got shrugged shoulders and no help when asking for shoe repair or hardware store. Everyone has their own words and there didn't seem to be a match there.
      Eventually we walked past a hardware store and Rick showed his awkward shoe to a man who smiled, rummaged while balancing a lit cigarette on cardboard boxes and handed over a packet labeled "Shoe Glue", in English. 2 RMB. The problem was the need for a 24 drying period but by putting the glue on every night for a while, the shoe eventually did stay together. (Suitcase wheels, should you wonder, are the same size as a in line skate wheels. On this trip, both of our suitcases rolled on those. That internet has all kinds of information and ideas.)

gardens

     We had changed some money at the airport but the hotel and breakfast took nearly all of it so we went in search of a bank to make an exchange. Well, that was fun. I'll cut this short by eliminating the difficulty in finding the right bank and start with the flower arrangement inside the bank's revolving door. A concierge screens all customer needs and hands out tickets with numbers. Three rows of seats hold those waiting for a turn.
     While seated, we saw a woman come in with an ordinary, plastic shopping bag into which she placed stacks of $100 RMB notes and walkedout with about 10 pounds of paper money as if she purchased nothing more than a box of tissues.
     When it was our turn, we exchanged US dollars for RMB. It required our passports and gave us copies of 3 official documents, written in Chinese characters and duly signed by us. The bank gave us 336 RMB for $50 while the money changer had given us only 285. It was, in addition, a valued cultural experience including bowing.
     Had we used an ATM, we'd have gotten the same exchange rate in 20 seconds rather than 20 minutes and without the signatures or passport. Is it better to slip an ATM card in a machine or to sign documents one can't read?
     In Shanghi, many vehicles are electric making roads somewhat hazardous with their silence and it may not be that pedestrians have the right of way. The street signs are LEDs that give to the minute traffic information. The truck that waters public gardens plays a merry jingle rather like old ice cream trucks.
     We always walk into grocery stores. Here we found potato chips came in "Numb & Spice Hot Pot Flavor" or "Roasted Squid." There were also packets of 2 or 6 preserved chicken feet. We saw eggs packaged in familiar egg cartons but also in small baskets. Foods are always particular to an area.
     Travel always points out how difficult translations can be. What appeared to be a Christian Church was labeled "Beautiful Myth" and a chocolate cake in the grocery store had the name of "Beautiful  Trousers." No guess about the original Chinese name.
     There is a Japanese War Memorial where the sign labels war as waste. Well done that.

bike rentals

     Bike rentals were interesting. This is a mix of observation and speculation without benefit of translation. Bikes had QR codes on them. People would snap the QR on their phone and the bike would unlock so they would ride off. I saw one person stop a bike and using his phone something beeped and the lock clicked closed again. Likely the bikes had codes on them that reported where they were. I wondered if the bikes had little generators so that as the person pedaled, they charged batteries that would unlock and lock the bike as well as transmit a cheery little "Here I am" signal.
     During my 2003 trip to Shanghai, it was common to see people out in the streets in their pajamas. This time we weren't exactly in Shanghai but in the port city near by and only a few men and one woman on her bike were in pajamas. Maybe pajamas are still popular in downtown Shanghai. It wasn't possible to tell.
     We spent our 3 days walking and looking and eating and sweating and being amazed at the signs of wealth in Shanghai. Everyone was kind to us and all our food was good.