This kind of jetlag that gets me up at 7 AM during the first couple days in a new place is new to me. It gives me a false sense of getting the most out of a trip, when what it really does is make maggie one tired girl by around 9 PM.
Saturday was my first full day here. I felt great, naturally. I woke up at 7 AM, and read a bit of a new Murakami I picked up (Dance, Dance, Dance) while waiting for Gurie to get her lazy bones out of bed. Once that happened, we left for lunch at La Casbah: the most NY deli-like place in all of Shanghai, and one of Gurie's Singaporean roommate's favorites. In some sense it was very Shanghainese in that the city is a duality of cultures, east and west. That's manifest destiny for you.
The three of us shared a very-thin crust pizza and salad, while the Americans to our right had one pizza each. I shouldn't be so judgemental; they might have been Australian.
The rest of the daytime was spent getting things in order, like figuring out how to get my Linux-based laptop hooked up to a wireless hub (which also had to be set up before anything else could get done). It involved a few hours over Skype and AIM with my little brother Kahmyong, aka Master of Computer Science (according to UC Berkeley and UCLA, anyway). He was a huge help. Not sure what could have been done if not for his brain.
The next issue was getting to my blog. Seems it's on the list of blocked sites out of China. What to do. So Kahmyong worked some magic, set up a proxy server, and now every time I visit wordpress.com from China, it's via somewhere in California. Neat.
In the evening, we headed out to a local jazz club called JZclub, down the street from another called the Cotton Club. JZ was a little swankier, with velvet accoutrements and dim lighting. In contrast, the patrons of both establishments were in typical Shanghai summer garb: very casual, very light, and most likely with sandals. Saturday night's music was by the RGP, or Red Groove Project. Very funky. Not my favorite kind of jazz, but it was fun for a set.
It was a nice evening -- not too hot, not too humid, and there was a pleasant breeze -- so we walked home.
Sunday progressed from productive, to amusing, to miserable.
I spent the first part of the day working on modules 4 and 5 of EatWell (and I owe them module 6 by Wednesday). I also posted a few new videos to my youtube account from our crazy hijinks at La Casbah.
The big outting for the day was a trip to the Pudong (east) side of the river, across from the Bund (a famous, brightly lit, strip of buildings along the river). Every Sunday, there is an outdoor swing dance in a plaza area in front of the Red Dot, which is a restaurant, behind which you can see a whimsical building with large spheres that change color (and which don't not resemble red dots). This is their "empire state building" in terms of tourist allure.
I'm teaching a dance workshop for the Shanghai swing dancers on Thursday, so it was important for me to attend the Sunday event to meet my contact and the other dancers in person. I was greeted with, "you look taller in your pictures." To which I dumbly confirmed, "uhm, nooo..." as if saying, this is it, this is all you get, I am verifiably tiny. It was fun enough, but my god it was H.O.T.
Afterwards, Gurie and I went for shaved ice at a specialty spot on the river. [They were shooting a scene for a B-movie right outside for awhile. If swing dancers show up in the background of some obscure b-list Chinese movie, that was us.] Shaved ice (which I imagined as a snoopy snow cone) consists of ice shavings and interesting toppings like sweet beans, pineapple, and tapioca.
We decided it would be nice to take a ferry back to the west side of the river to the apartment in the French Concession (once a west-sider, always a west-sider). So we walked, and walked, and walked to the ferry. Then we waited with many other sticky sweaty people -- some on bicycles, some on motorcyles, most on tired feet -- in a dark holding area just a few feet above the river water.
Ouch. what was that? My right hand started to swell. And what was that stinging sensation on my left shin? I was being eaten alive. Currently, my right hand looks like it got into a bar fight, and my left leg is speckled with vividly crimson welts resembling world geography.
We got off the ferry and walked, and walked, and walked to a bus stop. We walked through a bit of old Shanghai -- the Shanghai that is full of character, and so of course, is slowly being torn down for its real estate value -- but I was honestly too exhausted, enervated, and swollen to appreciate it.
The good news is that once we'd gotten on a bus, it would take us right to our street corner. Except that, of course, it drove right past it and didn't stop for several blocks. The perfect end to a perfect day.
I will say this much, being tired and dirty makes showering off the day a godly experience. And that is how I end each day here in Shanghai. I scrub every inch of me, rinse off in luke warm water, and go to bed in an air conditioned room. Good night.
