Shanghai

Hi all!
We are in Shanghai, and we have a computer in our hotel room! It's really exciting. The overnight train from Beijing was not as bad as it could have been-- the train station was a bit of a mess, because basically they open the doors and everyone just pushes to get to the train. It doesn't really make sense because we at least had reserved seats, so who knows. But once we got to the train it was good, private room for the two of us with a private bathroom, so we only left the room to go to the dining car. Turns out they do room service, so everything really was easy. Most of the staff spoke at least some English (and all the signs were in English) because everyone is trying to get ready for the Olympics.

It has been totally awesome to see our friend Kristin, who is living in Shanghai. She speaks pretty good Mandarin and knows lots of fun restaurants and bars. The bar we went to last night was in a really utilitarian building, and you had to guess which button would open the door for you. If you got the wrong one, a different door would open with a mirror behind it. Also the bathroom doors had knobs on the wrong side and no light switches (the lights turned on when you locked the door) and some of the doors were also false with mirrors on them. Pretty cool, I guess there is a huge ex-pat culture here and those are the bars and restaurants she goes to. Very different from moving to Australia, I guess.

Shanghai is a cool city, much more modern feeling than Beijing. Beijing had all of the old buildings and small alleys to make it feel very old world, like a Venice or a Toledo (but with absolutely NONE of the charm of those cities). Shanghai feels like a modern city anywhere, with some cool old feeling parts and some weird anachronisms like people selling vegetables on the street outside of these skyscrapers. I would definitely move to Shanghai before I would move to Beijing.

Alright, I guess that's it. Basically we have eaten our way through Shanghai-- lots of good meals, and we end up just chatting with Kristin for like two hours, and then walk around the city until it's time for another meal. Not a bad way to do it.

We are off to Hong Kong in the morning... I will try to get in touch from there!