Home Again

The day started with another neighborhood walk, down another street. The place where people were exercising was actually the "Area Designated for Stateless Refugees" - a park now, but the original Jewish ghetto for Jews who escaped Germany in WWII and went to Shanghai. The Japanese restricted their business and homes to a few blocks, some of which is now this little public park. We saw people doing tai chi, and some just drop their bags, and begin doing a few movements here and there; others are doing it together as a group. Men were sitting on benches playing chinese checker type of game. Some had brought their songbirds out for air. The birds are housed in little bamboo cages, and people bring them out, and hang the cages in the park trees for morning singing - and they were.

As we exited the park, a gentleman walked by and asked if we spoke english. When he found out we were Americans, he cited the good deeds of US in WWII in China. This is something that everyone seems to have learned, as both several of the tour guides also made reference to this piece of history. Anyway, the man said he'd walk with us around the block, and see that we got back to our hotel. He discussed some of the sites along the way - pointed out the internet cafe that I'd wish I'd known about; the price of food in the market as compared to our hotel gift shop; and shared that he is "off job", 55, an engineer with bridge building crane experience. Wife works in textile factory. 21 yr old daughter is in college studying German. He offered to show us all over Shanghai, and when he mentioned his daughter's coin collection, and did we have any US coins, I began to figure out that this was an independent tour guide looking for a day job. But, since we were leaving in 1/2 hour, the best we could do was give him some coins. I took his pix, and gave him a postcard of Col River Gorge; asked him to write his name in my travel journal and then he asked to trade pens, so that he could have souvenir. During this exchange, the lady running the little market emerged and got in on the conversation; smiling, etc. I don't think anyone in China has private business.

Our tour guide got us to the airport early so that we could be first in line to get good seats on the plane. However, the desk was closed. So he sent us off to look around the airport while he stayed with the luggage, having checked with the desk people who said they'd open at 2ish. When we got back at 1:45, not only were they open, but about 100 othe people had lined up and were already getting served. Tour guide made a deal with one person in line that we could go every other one (one of us; one of the ones who lined up after us). That didn't set too well with some of the folks in line, but we worked out. The lady that was somewhat nasty, ended up losing her boarding pass later ... we tried to take no pleasure in that moment. I guess our payback on that was, having asked for two aisle seats, we both got stuck with being assigned the middle seats in the 4 seats mid-plane (another 10 seats across on this one). They ran out of English customs declaration forms, so luckily the man sitting with us was bi-lingual and translated for us, as we filled it out.

Before I complete this travelogue, there is one thing I forgot to mention, and now that I've seen them all, I think I can safely discuss. China is gearing up for the 2008 Olympics, and 2010 World Expo. They are upgrading everything. We passed the Shanghai Kohler showroom today on our way out of town. We ran into very few squatty potties. In most of the places we went to, the biggee landmarks, our hotesl, and restaurants we ate at, all of the airports, western toilets have been installed, and there was toilet paper about 75% of the time. The worst restroom was at the Great Wall (not counting the neighborhood latrine at the home we visited). The best: Shanghai Museum. Given discussions prior to trip, I knew some of you would be interested!

Ok, back home safe and sound. My pedometer tracked at least 30 miles. My suitcase is stuffed to the max. I've been up about 28 hrs getting back, so I am signing off.