Shanghai

Yesterday afternoon S and I arrived in Shanghai after taking the morning train from Nanjing. We quickly dropped our bags off at the left luggage counter and took the train into the city center. We had lunch at a delicious vegetarian restaurant where we ordered lots of fake meat. We checked out the free Shanghai Museum, which had great exhibits on painting and jade. I skipped the gallery with roof tiles- can't look at roof tiles anymore, so sick of them. It is refreshing to be in a really big, modern city where you can get any type of food you want. We are staying with two English ladies who we met through couchsurfing named Sarah and Becky. They are our age and have spent the last 8 months living in Shanghai teaching English and learning some Mandarin. They are really friendly and have opened their homes to us.

Today we left the house at 7AM when the girls left for work. We walked through Renmin (People) Square and the pedestrian commercial strip East Nanjing Road. We stopped into a McDonald's for some time to look through the Shanghai tour books our hosts lent to us during our stay. I never thought I would say this, but McD's is a great place to go when you need to kill time because it is really clean and quiet. As we were looking through the book, we saw cute, young Chinese girls getting trained as workers. They were lined up in a row next to the counter and, as the manager walked by them, they all said, "Good morning!" They really freaked out the first Westerners that walked through their line. After that, we walked through the Bund to see all of 1920-30 style buildings. It looks like NYC's downtown financial district. When we sat down for a rest, we met a nice Chinese man, whose English name is Fred Li. I was interested in talking to him because he was dressed and kind of looked like my grandfather Paco- thin frame, big glasses, high-waisted pants. He was also a gentle soul. He told us that he wanted to be an engineer but had to become an accountant. He was a vegetarian and told us he thought it was just common sense. At that point, S got really interested in the conversation.

We found a great Sichuanese restaurant (spicy) to get some noodles and, on our way to this internet cafe, we met this artist who tried to scam us. He asked us if we were Jewish and, when we said no, he said that Jewish people were very smart people. He perked up when S said he worked at a bank. He kept asking us if we liked art and said his art was on display just across the street. When we said we needed to meet a friend, he became very persistent and kept repeating, "Come with me. 5 Minutes! You like to buy art?" We are going to try to see an acrobatics show while here and will spend tomorrow wandering through the French Concession and checking out some modern art.

Shanghai