Entry for 2011-04-14 Changting, the First full day, Part 1

The food at the Tseng temple last night was the most, err, challenging, so far. Look, the circular wooden dining tables were covered in a thin red disposible Saran wrap. Everything else though was their typical chopsticks, bowls and plates. That is to say, I had no idea how they washed it. As guests of honor, I couldn't exactly go check out their kitchen first, now could I? As I didn't understand this temple's real utility in their lives, I was only guessing it was some sort of community gathering place. And the way that works at home doesn't exactly give me much confidence in cooking inside one here. The only person serving all the dishes was a single woman. Oh, did I mention three were only men seated on our two tables in the temple? I saw no other women, or kids. It is kinda strange where you cannot bear the thought of asking all the questions you want to because your brain is too tired and pressed by everything going on around you, to think about trying to comprehend their answer.

In Fujian, they love their soups. So, of course, they serve lots of it tonight. I am not quite sure if I have impressed the kind of honor the Tseng family seems to be giving my dad. Later, they show me the plaque about my dad and his immediate family, and how he had contributed significantly to build this temple. They make sure to let me know, There is only other such plaque and place of honor in the temple. It is in the first main room you enter, on the right hand side, immediately left of the huge wall diagram of those who have donated significantly to this temple. All of these plaques are engraved in granite stone. Anyway, this dinner has a corresponding impressiveness to each dish, in quality, exoticness, and quantity.

That is to say that each dish would really scare Susan! I found all the dishes to have great weydow, and were quite exotic to me.

[Actually after writing this, i remembered the lunch table on the way to see the toulou. I think it is telling that I forgot that, because it was certainly scarier at first. I remember how the food five years ago on the way back from the great wall was the typical Chinese tourist food, with metal serving dishes, and gooey soupy dishes cooked for way too long. At this tourist trap which our guide (remember, we found this one by a girl under a sun brella standing by the road) had led us to, turned out to be the home of the tour guide. Who was a Hakka by race/tribe. Oh, did I forget to mention, that I only recently discovered that I am of the Hakka people's? So, our little group of four Tseng's, and the tour guide/restauranteur were all Hakka. The way Songtao ordered lunch for us was by standing next the cook and her display refrigerator with the ingredients. It actually looked fresh. The circular table was wrapped in that red Saran wrap. And the bowl,plate cups were in sealed packages. In the end, the food was way better than the great wall tourist trap, and while I didn't dare to eat much, I didn't feel hungry until dinner. Though now that I think about it, I never had hunger or stomach problems on my whole trip! (typing in incheon!)]

The next morning (thursday the 14th), we were woken by knocking early at our door. We had set our alarms for sleeping in, as we thought we were going to have breakfast with that Tseng scholar, who said he had connections with the hotel owner. We even heard we might have breakfast with the hotel owner! When we answer the door, it's that Tseng scholar, who is a distant cousin of some generations older than us. He's here to take us to breakfast! Err, okay, early by 90minutes. I invite him in wearing my skimpy hotel bathrobe, thinking he's our honored guest who apparently thinks we've been keeping him waiting. So I don't really think he'll stay long as we need to get ready to downstairs. But no, he's here to stay in the hotel room until we go down with him. Wow they really do things differently.

Typical Chinese breakfast. That means fried rice, lots of fried vegetable dishes, various tofu, cookies, cakes, toast, Breakfast Intestines, chicken pork soup with spinach, Yoou tiaou, ex-puffy tsoon yoou bing, a cook was stationed at the soup station, where they could poach your egg, or layer on chinese greens on your soup. There was no omlettes to be had here! Dad loved it. The hotel owner never showed up.

After breakfast, the Tseng scholar takes his leave. Songtao arrives with his cute 4 year old daughter and I get to introduce her to my iPad. Of course that warms her up to me a bit. Xiangching arrives on his motorbike, to help escort us back to his house. He leaves the bike at the hotel, and we squeeze in one car. Eh? Aren't we just going to his house? Why did he need to come to the hotel to squeeze in songtao's car? Songtao might have been gone from Changting a few years but... Anyway.

When we go back to Xiangching's house, there are more fireworks in the daytime! And then finally, we get to relax a bit, and meet the family members.

When I am introduced to someone, usually they think a moment and tell me the generational ranking we have to each other and thus what we call each other. Something like big brother, uncle, first cousin once removed, etc. NEVER, do I hear their names! I don't have to introduce myself using my name, Chinese "shun fuu", or "Larry". When the more familiar ones have to call me by name they usually pronounce my Chinese name as if were "Shamu" the sea world killer whale. I adapt. At least I don't have to memorize all their names at once.

I just realized, some readers may not know what i mean when i say i am of the same generation as another person. It does not refer to our actual age. It refers to the difference in hierarchy on the Tseng family tree dating back 26 generations. My dad was of the 23rd generation. So I am of the 24th. Jackson and Jenna would be of the 25th. Songtao and Xiangching are of the 25th. So, even though songtao and I were both born in 1968, he calls me uncle, and I call him nephew. Err, you should also know that his father is actually the son of the brother of my father. While I am diagramming him, I should mention at same brother of my father is also Xiangching's grandfather. My father had eight brothers, and two sisters. Only one of his brothers produced offspring. We meet dad's last remaining blood sister later today.

I can not keep straight who is who. never mind I am not expected to know their name. I cannot even keep straight what generation they are since generations can Span so many ages. Later dad tells me that when he apologizes and asks someone their specific name they don't answer. It is not part Of any introductions. Only their generation relationship is made clear. Apparently it is just not good manners to have to introduce yourself with their name. When self reintroducing themselves to me they stress the relationship ranking. Call me uncle, or call me big brother, or call me nephew, etc.... Agh! I wonder if this has anything to do with the Chinese sense of self worth. The family/hive is more important than the individual. [tongue in cheek here, I am getting tired.]

Oh, I forgot to mention something important since at first dinner at the ancestral temple. They like to drink. A lot. And it is encouraged by lots of toasts to individuals, especially the guest of honor. Oh, they know my dad being older than almost all of them, and there's a lot, can't keep up, and don't expect him to. So, they make me! My journalling suffers. I am typing this and actually the last two posts before this one on the way home.

Photos of Xiamen

Entry for 2011-04-12 Visiting Xiamen

We found another BreadTalk next to the hotel. The selection is quite limited at 9:30am. Still I find a number of yummy buns or Danishes.

All four of us go visit Xiamen university. Despite a security guard telling there is no parking inside, we go in and park. It's a very scenic campus, that seems built around a man made lake. Dad does not remember any such lake back in his days. There is a big group of uniformed high school students visiting the campus. I guess it is to motivate them to study hard. I later learn how many hours they spend in school.

First year college students all sit in the same classroom and desk for the whole year, teachers come in to teach thei various subjects. So they don't have to take books around, all their books are already in their desk.

We see lots of new buildings, as well as some old buildings that dad remembers. There are a few signs for the century anniversary that the college just celebrated.

Nanputao temple is almost connected to the university. So we visit that too. It has monks studying as well as hordes of tourists and worshippers. There is a pagoda statue that folks are throwing coins into the window orfices. Presumably a wishing well tradition. We see a lion with a ball in its mouth and so Songtao points How the ball is often constructed within the teeth. Xiangching buys a bag full of treats to take home for the family. I wish I thought of that.

We pass a small market with assorted items and I notice the rolled up tshirt tradition is still alive. I think it must just be too cold for the natives to demonstrate this earlier.

We see a space like a playground on the university, but it is filled with wooden gymnastic parallel bars. That must be a sight to see during pe class.

We have Lunch at a Thai Vietnamese restaurant. After parking for lunch, I comment that there is a guy handing tickets out of the parking gate machine. It seems like quite a water of man power to do something a machine is already in place for. Songtao later explains patiently to me that he is the only dude for parking fees. No one at the exit. So he has to manage the fee with some duration variations. Thai Vietnamese is not like the us version. It could be a variation for Chinese tastes. There isn't phad Thai. :(. Still it is yummy, and yet another difference I experienced.

After lunch, we take the ferry to gulangyu Island, where they do not allow any gas vehicles. It's a place for locals to go for relaxing, and perhaps to gawk at the foreigners architecture left there decades ago. The Ferry charges 1rmb for upstairs, which is much less crowded and have seats. It is standing room only downstairs. After we get there, I admit the view back to xiamen is particularly nice. But it seems to have as many people on the island as there were back in Xiamen downtown! The streets are filled with tourist shopping, and surprisingly a number of fresh seafood mongers. When we finally sit down for some tea by the sand beach, we are gouged by the plastic tabled entrepreneurs, and are charged 70rmb for a little bag of cheap tea. Still this island is quite different from how dad remembers. It used to be full of embassies of european nations. There is a piano museum full of pianos left by those embassies.

You cant help but wonder about the cars as we drive around xiamen. There are a few american brands. But mostly japanese cars dominate. Thee are chinese brands, but they are more rare than the american. There are a large number of bmw's, and audi's. There are a very large number of porsche cayennes. The rich got to flaunt it here. Songtao says the rich have so much money they pretty much have to work hard to try to spend it. At least thats how i choose to interpret him.... Numerology is still strongly believed here. License plate numbers considered lucky are very much desired. Songtao would like an Audi Q5. I never see one, lots of late model q7's though.

Perhaps in response to my complaints about the expense of Dinner last night. Of which Songtao again paid for completely. We try going to a Food court above a shopping center. It is the kind where you pay for a card loaded with some yuan. Then you go choose your food with that card, and you get a refund of money off the remainder on the card. It's rather adventurous food to me, though I say i could manage. Dad finds some food that reminds him of local Changting cooking. But in the end, we decide it isn't good enough. Dad tells me later that it must have been my face that said: go somewhere else.

We choose a Ginger duck restaurant that we saw advertised in the elevator up to the food court. It was quite yummy, and frequented by plenty of locals. [as if I could recognize a local.] the restaurant service had one interesting feature. After the waitress took our food order, a Tsingtao girl took our beer order. Apparently, it's an agreement the restaurant has with Tsingtao.

-Larry
[Sent from my iPad]

Entry for 2011-04-11

We headed out to Hongquao airport early this morning since we both got up before the alarm rang. We saw Nanjing road emptier than ever before. Of course in china that just meant that several groups were using the space for their own purposes. We saw a toupe of ribbon drummers chatting, tai chi swords folks, and several dozen tai chi kungsoo. Wouldn't that be cool to see on Broadway?

Although dad resisted and wanted to just take a taxi, I wanted to bookend our airport trips in and out of shanghai with transport by metro. I should have taken it as a bad omen that we couldn't find a down escalator into the underground, but I forced dad to let me carry his small luggage as we continued the adventure. Tickets for both of us cost only ten RMB ($1us). Our luggage goes through xray security as always for shanghai metro. Then we decend into the train platform. There we see everyone is queued neatly into two lines for each train door opening, because there is a human at each door holding a sign to teach everyone how to orderly board a train! Each door on both sides of the platform (westbound and eastbound)!!! All of the lines are 4 to 5 deep, and when the first train arrives, it is packed. A few dribble out our door, and about eight folks push there way in. Dad and I are left standing amazed with our luggage at the door. The professional sign holders aren't laughing. The next train arrives in just one minute (as promised by the station tv display). It is also packed but since we are at the front of our little door queue, I coach dad to push his way in with his bag and I will follow. Amazingly, we make it. After two more stops he even gets a seat that someone vacates. The whole trip to the airport takes about forty minutes. I found the people watching fascinating. I saw two guys next to each other with the same eyeglass frame style. I noticed two folks watching video on an android tablet, and on an iPad. One girl had pierced her inner ear lobe. After we got to the airport I think the experience wasn't too bad. Thee was very little distance to walk to the checkin gate. I have never gone to a NYC airport by subway before so I can't compare that. I guess the question is whether dad will prefer a taxi on the way back through shanghai. I should note for those thinking about using these two airports for transfers that there was some way to checkin for flights at pudong while you were still physically at the Hongquao airport. The airport struck me as modern as most any in the states. Plenty of space, amenities and organization. Free wifi. Free drinking water; cold or hot. I liked the latest Porsches on display every fifty yards, each stationed with a friendly car show girl. However, the one assigned to the cabriolet was only focused on her iPhone 4.

As expected for a Chinese domestic flight, our plane boarded thirty minutes late. We arrived about a hour late. Dad recognized Songtao and Xiangching immediately after the baggage claim. We were very excited to finally meet each other. I felt bad Xiangching had taken the bus to get to Xiamen and then had to wait for our late arrival.

Songtao parked in the single line of parking just on the oth side of the road for arrivals. Yes, the airport parking lot is that small. Songtao takes the less traveled but new coastline highway. It is nearly empty for miles, for it is far from the city where everyone works and lives. When we do drive in the city, I find it is packed as you might expect for a city of 3 million people. The coastline reminds me this is a tropical resort town, with a sandy ocean beach. I see a windsurfer in the distance.

At the same time I see tremendous luxury condos and a development of Miami vice style mansions built on stilts fifteen ft apart. Songtao says land is just too valuable for more spacing. I think it's just that people have no expectations of privacy.

Actually everywhere is major commercial and residential building construction. The weird thing is that there is so little finished, that one could take advantage of. Our hotel, the Wyndham Xiamen, is an amazing modern first class hotel. It has the usual show of excess, like the Lamborghini dealership, artificial fifty foot waterfall with with a huge buddha on top. The inside has wealth with more taste than I saw in china before. It is surrounded on two sides with new high rises, unfinished. On the backside is the equivalent of slums, probably just waiting to be bought out and demolished for more development.

Actually, that is the theme of what I witness today in china. There isn't the obvious awkwardness we witnessed five years ago. There certainly isn't the embarrassing t shirts I witnessed twenty years ago. The architecture even in Xiamen is varied, modern and impressive. Songtao tells me there are three million living in Xiamen. It is Vancouver sized, but just starting their growth.

Songtao drives us around this city which i slowly grasp as the small town my father went to college in. We notice school uniformed kids just being released from school. It is five thirty pm. They go to school from 8am to 12pm, go home for lunch and siesta, return for more school 3pm-5:30pm, and then return for more school at 6:30-9pm! This is the norm in china! Not much time for anything besides studying. The evening school time is for practice work; no lectures at that time. They do not have homework. The time at home is usually for play.

My Chinese is highly stressed trying to have conversations with my cousins. It takes me a lot of concentration to understand a tiny fraction of what they are saying, and most of the time I find the topics fascinating. For instance, there is no income tax! I don't think I have paid any sales tax either. Restaurants often ask if you want a receipt; because they will give a ten percent discount if they don't have to report it to the government! I am exhausted by evening, and my understanding and memory for Chinese words very obviously deteriorates after dinner.

Songtao takes us to "the Eight" restaurant. It is in the park island in the middle of a wide river. The restaurants in this park have a feel of an exclusive club. You only come to this area for these clubby restaurants. In the Eight, they apologize they don't have a private room for us. The chairs have these huge backs, perhaps for private conversations. The prices have gone up many times since Songtao visited last. The dishes have gotten more esoteric. The serving portions are for individuals, for Chinese food mind you, and seem to be small for the price. I detect a bit of nervousness, and I try to indicate to him that we can leave and find a more reasonable place. I am a little worried he might feel obligated not to lose face. He says it's all okay and proceeds to order way too much food. The food seems to me very Chinese. The flavors are not at all western. Later songtao and Xiangching tell me this restaurant is catering to foreigners taste. I think this restaurant is the best introduction for me to what the chinese call weydow, flavor, as far as I can translate. Xiangching thinks American food, as demonstrated by McDonalds, does not have any weydow. It is very interesting flavors. And I think Susan might even like the flavors of most all the dishes, if she didnt have to see them.

[Songtao is on the left, Xiangching is on the right of the picture]

Entry for 2011-04-10

We found BreadTalk, the Taiwanese bakery chain, this morning. They had only just opened, but they had a lot of yummy buns. I tried the "Mexico" because it had chocolate chips on the outside. I didn't realize it would have a bean paste on the inside. At least it wasn't red bean. It was a almond color.

We planned to do some shopping. The air quality was much greyer than yesterday, so we decided to skip the observation deck of the world financial center. Looking out our hotel room window, the pearl tower had grey colored balls instead of their usual vivid red. The pearl tower is only two km away. Ick.

So, we decided to start our shopping at the mall next to breadtalk. This turned out to be rather like a NYC department store, each little store was branded, except each appeared independently run. We didn't see knockoff brands, but what appeared to be strong brand marketing. I wanted the sporting goods store on the top 7th floor, so I was forced up six escalators. The had a nice badminton department, but I couldn't use their bags for my squash racquets. Darn. I couldn't find any running hats either. They had lots of branded caps though. I liked the Jeep brand being heavily promoted. I guess it was the American masculine tough image it provides -- to sell lots of underwear.

We wandered through the people's square to try to find the famous brand market on the otherwise. I found the people's square to actually be a nice park. It reminded me of NYC central park. It's surrounded by skyscrapers and upscale shopping. Inside, there was a small amusement park with some scary rides. On the other hand, in a Chinese style there was a few tents full of public notices. I thought maybe this was a way to promote public expression, maybe even allow some criticisms. Ha! It turned out to be listings looking for friendship. It seems some matchmakers would list your statistics and maybe some other facts about you on this bulletin board, presumably your suitors would contact you through the matchmaker. I was too shy to try asking someone that would actually know how this works. Besides I liked imagining how it might work from what I could observe. There was also another area of the park where you sit yourself, post your facts on a little board standing in front of yourself, and you wait for suitors. Does this sound like speed dating in the sun? Did I forget to mention most all the folks for the listings were over sixty years old?

We never found that knockoff market, though we did go through luxury car corner with Porsche, Mercedes, Ferrari, and maserati all facing each other. We saw the Godly GongDeLin Buddist vegetarian restaurant, we weren't quite hungry enough then. But after all the searching we decided to try the street Shyaolongbao that we were looking for last night. We found it was open, but they were sold out of shyaolongbao! So we went across the street to try Yang's shengzhenbao and dried tofu puffs and vermicelli soup. There was a small line outside their doors to get the freshly fried dumplings, but then we went inside, and up to the third floor to find an empty table. They then brought the soup to us. This was definitely a hole in the wall. The presentation was scary from a food safety point of view. The dumplings were fried upside down compared to every other instance of this dumplings we've tried. Maybe they found it helps seal in the soup better, as we discovered the soup liked to squirt out more than any other version too. We ate 12 of the dumplings, but only half the soup. The soup was curried, and interesting, but I wish the dishes looked cleaner. I'm not sure if it really helped any that we brought along our own chopsticks instead of using theirs.

We strolled back to the hotel in a different route, avoiding the touristy Nanjing road. It was like a different city! We saw the construction supply stores all together. We saw more food shops for locals. I came back later for another CoCo cafe. I like how they use a machine to seal the top of the drinking cup with a thin wrap. You puncture the seal with a straw when you are ready to drink.

I was thinking how wonderful I didn't see any kids peeing in the street, but then I did. Today I also saw too much more spitting, uncovered coughing, and hocking. I guess the honeymoon is over. On the other hand, I saw a nicely dressed woman in heels on the subway platform dragging along a chalk covered sledgehammer. Errr, is there trouble coming? No, it turns out she's just helping her tired looking hubby who appears to be coming home from work.

We stop at a kids department store to see what they sell to the kids. Of course the toy department is all the way at the top on the seventh floor. More escalators. Ugh. We find on the top what you might expect at home. There'd are saleswomen in front of every branded toy type to help demonstrate the toys. We see very few kids for a weekend afternoon. It is mostly young parents who don't know why they should buy one toy over another. We found some expensive performance yoyos but no Chinese ones. They sold jeep branded clothing too. I didn't see if they had the underwear.

We got back exhausted at the hotel. Dad seems to be holding up to all this walking and standing around better Than me. He gets back to the hotel to lie down saying he just needs a rest but not a nap. He is napping inside of ten minutes. My lower back is aching a bit; enough to justify a massage if I can find the right place. :/ the hotel spa wants about five times the street rate, errr, I mean the rates advised on billboards, I wouldn't know what the solicitors want. Ewww...

We make a reservation at Fu 1039 for dinner. Then we take the metro to Tianzifang, the next Xintiandi. It has the authentic shikomen architecture. But the alleys are much narrower, and we see a lot of bamboo scaffolding for the facade renovations. There are a lot of art galleries, and cafes. It's kinda funny how crowded the alleys are with the occupied cafe tables and the crowds milling past them, snapping pictures of the stone doorways as they go. I haven't seen more foreigners in shanghai than here. It was fun getting lost in these twisty alleys. Every time the alley makes a split or turn, you want to explore all of it to see if they threw in a few more stores there. Most of the time, even for the narrowest of twists, they did find another hole in the wall to fill. These stores are a far cry from the tourist stalls we were channeled through on my first china trip. Only two photographers opened two different locations within Tianzifang. They were cool images, but just repeating maybe a dozen shots in various enlargements. I liked the creative t shirts some artists produced, but I couldn't wear any. Just not my style.

We went back to the hotel to rest before our big dinner. I went to the MTee store down the street for that I saw advertising in a the metro. I couldn't resist picking up one interesting overpriced tshirt for fifteen bucks.

Dinner at Fu1039 was in an old mansion. It was hidden down a wide driveway, manned by five doormen. Excessive Man power is still in evidence in china. They had a pianist playing the godfather theme music through almost the whole night -- you have to feel for him. I ordered a drunken chicken covered in wine ice, yummy! We also had grandmother's fried fish sticks in a stack as appetizer, a little bony, but interesting. Our first main course turned out to be baby shrimp with egg whites. Too much egg whites for westerner tastes, but it was easy to pick through to find the tastiest shrimp i have had in a long time. We also had a slightly orange sweet and sour spare ribs. The meat was only the tiny tips of the ribs which made eating dangerous with the little bone fragments. My lest favorite dish of the night. Lastly, there was a beef dish with a hint of red peppers that I think they must have slow cooked and finished with a deep fry. That seemed to be an apt demonstration of the Chinese cooking philosophy targeting full flavor. Yum!!! I had ordered way too much for two people but it was still only $70us. At ten pm, We walked out of the driveway, and quickly flagged the first taxi that drove by in less than a minute. It felt like cheating when we got back to the hotel so quickly. We even contemplated taking a walk after such a large meal. Nah.

Entry for 2011-04-10

We got up feeling pretty rested this morning. The beds were pretty comfy, and the air conditioning just right. We started our day on Nanjing. Xi Lu and walked towards people's square. We found a Chinese bakery, and played Chinese roulette with filled buns. Ok. I cheated and asked my dad to translate the tags, but the handwriting was atrocious for a marketable product (as if I am an expert). Anyway, I liked my cream filled bun, bun the other bun smelled of boiled peanuts; ick. Now I know why they seal all these items in plastic bags. We went next door and splurged 61 RMB for a hot chocolate and a mocha with 5 RMB whipped cream! I think I will have to find another morning drink while in china.

We took the metro to the 2010 world expo. We just wanted to see the china pavilion in person. We were greeted outside the metro station by hordes of ticket scalpers, who all claimed we did not have to wait in line. The line started snaking back and forth over the wide boulevard at least a block before the building. I saw someone change the wait time sign to 2:30 hrs. I read the inside of the pavilion was not worth the hours of waiting. On the other hand, the building from the outside was an impressively tall and massive structure. I liked the traditional elements, but was surprised how little detail over the flat surfaces of the roofing rafters there was compared to the traditional wooden Chinese roof. Maybe that's the modern twist they wanted to express, but then why add the decal design on the end of the rafters? It made me think they took the blueprint of the plastic souvenir of the building, and used it as the blueprint of the pavilion with a new scale factor. On the plus side, I didn't see any evidence of a snaking exit path lined with souvenir vendors. I remember that being a mainstay in many other Chinese tourist traps. On the other hand, my dad couldn't escape without purchasing a set of overpriced postcards from some solicitor.

After some mistakes on the uncrowded metro, I finally got us to xintiandi, where we strolled the stone mouth soirée houses (I forget the pinyin of this famous 1800's architecture at this moment). I heard this shanghai architecture is compared to the hutong of Beijing. I think that means they have equal pull for tourists. Xintiandi seems to have upgraded their hoity toity-ness a few notches since the lat time I visited in 2006. It was packed with the well heeled. Oh, and just like our family trip to Italy last summer, whee we ran into Fashion Week in Florence, It's Fashion Week in Shanghai! If I actually cared to spend money on the superficial, I could enjoy dressing the way I see some Chinese men do. I might actually find fashionable clothes that fit me too! Then again I was watching a show at the hotel where some fashion expert was telling the young ladies to wear bright aqua leg warmers over their high heels; and that the single rhinestone shoulder strap/brouche should be worn without any earrings, which would be like putting x on a y (x and y being some funny reference in pop chinese culture apparently).

I dragged dad to "ye shanghai", an excellent restaurant that I wish I discovered on our last visit here. We had the medium brunch deal for 125 RMB each that gave us all you can eat dim sum, a choice of duck dish, and some bubbly. Yeah, normally I would stay away from any all you can eat Chinese, never mind dim sum, but I was already planning to splurge on a lunch meal at this restaurant. It was not a mistake. The service was top notch, we ordered at least ten dim sum dishes off their regular menu. Dad decided we should have the bejing duck. YUM! We got our first reference sample of Shenzhen boa. I thought it was going to have really thin wonton wrappers like shiaolongbao, but the skins were more like the steamed bread that wraps tsasao boa. Hmmm.. Dad really liked the sweet pork ribs, I thought mom's are better. The cold poached chicken, Spicy shrimp dumplings, shanghai spring roll (fresh baby romaine wraps with a spiced pork filling) and even the mango creme pudding were wonderful preparations.

We decided to walk off our excessive brunch on the Bund. We quickly found a taxi an I sat in the front passenger seat to command the driver. I tell him we want to go to nanjing dong Lu, next to the hu. I look back at dad to make sure I got that all right, he nods. The taxi driver looks at me like i have the weirdest accent for a Chinese looking guy, and repeats the location back to me, which I understand perfectly since it's exactly what I requested. So he then proceeds to make to left turns. Uh oh. We were going the wrong way. Maybe he knows a freeway to get us there faster, and taxis are cheap enough I don't want to complain right away. He asks me a different question about my destination that I don't quite get. So I look back at dad to help out. He's just relaxed and enjoying the now and nods his head at me. Well, eventually I get a tourist map out, and point to my intended destination. This confuses the driver greatly. And after a series of twenty-one questions, he finally figures out that I have been saying the word dong for east instead of the opposite word xi. In other words, I mixed up west for east. We share a good laugh, and he gets us there for less than three bucks.

We were strolling along the Bund, taking in the view along with thousands of other tourists (no exaggeration). When a little old lady comes up to us asking for some help. By this time I have been lecturing dad for talking to all those solicitors, and beggars. So I am refusing to acknowledge the existence of this person. She has a sd card and says she has run out of batteries, and would I please take some photos for her. I think this is a new scam, that presents all sorts of risks. In particular I remembered how the postcard salesman forced a sale with dad by getting him to hold the package of postcards. So again I am refusing to play her game. She goes away. Uh oh. She goes back to her husband and another friend. Err... they don't look too much like beggars on closer examination. Ok. I seem to have made a mistake -- and a very, rude one at that. So, I may as well offer my apologies and make up for it. They are very kind, and seem to enjoy letting me take several pictures of all three of them with their sd card.

I am still not sure what I should be learning from this experience. I mean appearances matter here. How people treat you, can depend on your dress. I think there are a lot of attention getting wardrobes and hair styles here for men and women. And I guess that is a key difference between American culture and Chinese. Maybe the huge number of people combined with the limited hair color and facial bone structure screams for them to declare some individuality. They are begging people to take notice of them. In america, it's easier to feel or at least look unique, so there is a smaller number of folks that need to declare their individuality. Maybe it is also a rebellion from the rigid uniformity of the earlier communist days. Maybe I like the fashion here because it so often looks so ridiculous that I think I could pull it off, and get susan to laugh at the same time. I can definitely say the fashion watching here on nanjing lu is rather more interesting compared to Bellevue square.

Jia jia shyaolongbao street food restaurant was closed for dinner, and after an hour searching around, we finally ended up at some neighborhood restaurant. At least it felt like only Chinese would go there. We ordered more shengzhenbao (not nearly as delicate as ye shanghai), and a local whole fish. It was surprisingly tasty, but I thought dad ate too much. He seems to be enjoying the food part of the trip. When we ordered dinner I asked for the best beer. The waitress named some beer. I asked for the price, and probably made a face with her response. In hindsight probably because I didn't understand the reason for the number of numbers she responded with. Any way she then said I would be happy with another beer, and off she went. She came back with a big 650ml bottle of room temp suntory premium, it tasted like a wheat pilsner. Well, not like home, but it went well with the fish.

Entry for 2011-04-08

The day to go arrived way faster than I thought it would. I think all that researching on the Internet made me think I could prepare and plan the whole trip from home. When I finally realized Songtao would drive us, I finally let go.

I really like how my Chinese language brain centers are reactivating after a very long sleep. Folks actually seem to understand me. Then again I shouldn't count the street vendors who would probably keep talking to a brightly colored signpost.

We had a worry on the eleven hour flight to Seoul, our airline's hub airport. Our plane was about fifty minutes late into Seattle. We left maybe forty minutes late. That eventually put us into Seoul an hour late. Our flight to shanghai was leaving in thirty mins. We were seated in row 50 out of 53 rows on the 777.

Plus, We had to go rough transit security station that another agent in Seattle had Told us we wouldn't have to go through. That added another line for a security check. Then it was a mad dash through the interesting malls of incheon airport! We saw several marketing booths filled with sales women hawking their product. Some had spin the wheel games, it felt like a Vegas trade show.

We did make it into the plane. Even more amazing. Our checkin luggage did too as we discovered when we got to shanghai.

Immediately after baggage claim, we had to orient ourselves with the airport layout and find the maglev train. I feared it would be a labyrinthian undertaking as I read of taxi drivers trying to tell you the train was broken, tring to lead you away from that. But I found it was like any train at an international airport. We just missed one. But even at this late hour (last before shut down), Another came in fifteen minutes. Don't forget to show your airplane boarding pas for a 15 yuan discount. At night they slow the mag lev to only 301 kph, but the scenery was mostly dark outside anyway. At the end of the maglev line we transferred to the metro just down the stairs. Boy if we knew how easy this all was back in 2006, we could have done this with our big luggage! Our hotel was very conveniently located just next to a station off the 2 line.

Sofitel was easy to find off Nanjing Lu. I left dad at the hotel as I hunted for a snack. I was hoping for shao long bao or better, shengzhen bao at a chain I had mapped out a few blocks away. But they were almost closed, and didn't have anything appetizing. I ended up next door at a bubble tea and crepe vendor. Yum! Note to self Next time buy only one thing to eat while walking....

Walking around the heart of shopping shanghai at ten thirty at night felt safe because there were citizens matching they number of hawkers. I noticed the bikers, motorized and not, were never using their headlights. It was good practice for me to increase my city presence senses. You know, knowing when a pedestrian is walking up behind you, or a cyclist is about to zip around the corner u just crossed....

Yay the hotel lobby has free wifi! I got skype working and called Susan and the kids just as they were going to get ready for school. Email seems flaky, failure mags.... Facebook appears broken, possibly by the great firewall.

Now to try to adjust to the new timezone. Good night!