tbaroundtheworld

Well here I am back at home once again. The trip back was a mixture of the mundane and the unusual, those two sides of the coin that seem to describe every day I spend on the road. The trip to the airport was interesting mainly for the route taken. We had borrowed one of the Intel drivers for the drive out and I had tried to discuss our route given that I was aware of some serious traffic problems on one of the routes. Despite his comments on the high quality of my Chinese, I knew he didn’t understand what the heck I was talking about. We headed out on city streets in a direction I recognized from our many trips to the design firm. Roughly in the direction of the airport but not a way I had gone before. Eventually we circled around what was pretty much a giant block of the local neighborhoods and then ended up heading in the opposite direction of where we should be going, along a road the cut across our regular walk home from Hongmeilu. I mentioned this and my companions were reluctant...

I made two women very happy today. The first was this afternoon. Between work and dinner I came back to the room to pack and get organized for tomorrow’s departure. I was piddling around when my doorbell rang (yes, we have doorbells in this hotel) so I opened the door and the day maid was standing there with a Kit Kat candy bar in her hand. She smiled and said hello and rattled off something in Chinese and I nodded and she said “Minibar, Minibar, Minibar” and proceeded to invite herself into the room and head over to the cabinet that held said Minibar. On the way, she made some comment about the drapes being open that I interpreted as “they shouldn’t be open” and so I just stood their grinning stupidly in the doorway. She opened the Minibar, took a look inside and shook her head and walked back out to her cart with the Kit Kat. Figuring we were done I went to close the door but she turned around and came back in, scanning the room. She walked over to my closet, opened it and rustled ar...

Last night we decided to go out on a limb and try another new place. You hear about different restaurants from expats and visitors and you file them away for future reference but like all things this way, they get forgotten. For whatever reason this one popped back up and a bit of research brought it forward as a legitimate candidate. The Face Bar as it is known, is located in the French Concession along Mingmao Lu. With locations in Shanghai, Jakarta, Bangkok and Beijing it promised to be interesting. This was a particularly nice part of the Concession as evidenced by big plane trees that completely spanned the street from sidewalk to sidewalk. Crossing Huahai Lu both sides of the street were lined with very fancy custom tailors and dressmakers interspersed among trendy boutiques. The driver deposited us at the gate to the Rujin Hotel where the guard gave us some friendly directions and we were on our way. To the left, the path and trees around a small lake were lined with yellow tube...

Or so claims an article in the human interest section of the Shanghai Daily. “A dog with highlights will not adapt to its brand-new looks and feeling immediately after neomg dyed. Though dogs are color-blind, they can feel the change. Typically, dogs will suffer from loss of appetite and depression.” “The the owner should encourage his or her god to rebuild confidence. Several days later the owner’s constant praise should restore the dog’s good spirits.” The horror! This fad seems to be sweeping prosperous China where little white poodles are now being subjected to this demeaning practice. Next time you’re over, you can check out the poodle supply at Shanghai Naughty Family Pet Co. LTD on Hongqiao Road. (No, I am not kidding.) I must have done something to anger the night maid because last night I didn’t receive the regular turn down service. It doesn’t matter all that much aside from my dwindling water supply. Managing your water in a 4 star hotel is a lot like rationing it for a trek...

This morning I was awakened by a call on my cell from a woman speaking rapid fire Spanish repeatedly yelling “Hola, hola, hola” into my drowsy ear. Wondering for a moment where the heck I was, I mustered my best “Tu tienes un numero incorrecto” but she wasn’t having it, switching instead to an equally emphatic “Hello, hello, hello.” Freidman is right, the world is flat. Did I mention the other day that the street cleaning trucks here play the first four notes of “How Dry I Am” as a warning of their approach? Still trying to kick the last of my weekend malaise, hoping to put the bugs to rest before I board the plane on Thursday. Looking at the IP Cluster map on the sidebar of my blog, I noticed we’ve added a viewer on the west side of Hudson Bay. Do they have internet access up there? It’s turning into an eclectic little community. On our side of the world we have Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico and somewhere in the middle of the country. That plus upstate and downstate New York...

Feeling a bit better today I decided to take the trip we’d planned for yesterday, the ride to the end of the northern subway line. It goes to a part of Shanghai that none of us had been to so we figured it would at least be worth the 50 cent fare to go and have a look around. But first, Ikea beckoned. I’d not been to one and so it seemed only appropriate to have my inaugural visit here. We caught the southbound train at Ya’an Station and rode it a couple of stops to Caobao Lu. Outside the station was a little clutch of street vendors selling rabbits, chicks, ducks and mice, none of which appeared to be doing all that well sitting in the late morning sun. Ikea was assessed to be identical to every other Ikea in the world and so I was now satisfied that I’d been there and done that. Interestingly, all the happy, smiling people in the in-store advertising were westerners. One might have thought that they would at least modify that aspect, but perhaps it works better for sales here? We hea...

Today’s title is a line by Michael Kelly borrowed from his definitive text on the Gulf War – Martyr’s Day. Following his coverage of the war in Kuwait, Kelly made his way north and continued writing on the situation in Kurdistan. At one point on his journey, he realized he had come down with some sort of malady and knew that he had to make his way to reasonable health care in a short time, or else. Through the help of his Kurd companions, he finally found himself in a refugee clinic before he succumbed to the dehydration that often comes with these types of diseases. As a postscript, Kelly was one of the first casualties in this current war in Iraq, having been killed while embedded with one of the advanced divisions. I realized I was getting sick yesterday after breakfast. Something didn’t feel right and things went downhill from there. I’m guessing food poisoning – maybe an egg, maybe the custard in the little Danish I ate. Or maybe it was the whipped cream on the hot chocolate I had...

This morning was glorious - cool, dry, bright blue sky - unusual for urban Shanghai. You could actually sense the closeness of the sea in the air. I hit the street for an easy walk in the park pretty early – across Ya’an Xilu at 6AM. The park was not yet fully kicked into gear, the first time I’ve seen so few people involved in their daily activities. One of the blue clad street cleaners was cleaning the marble insets in the sidewalks with a rag mop. “Mopping the park”, certainly fodder for some sort of future idiom. The ubiquitous White-vented Bulbuls, normally busy at their day were mostly sitting on bushes preening. Even they were not yet up to speed. I followed the path among all the regular folks, up and across the Sky Mountain in the center of the park. It dawned on me at that moment that the landscape architect had done an interesting thing here, planting shorter trees and evergreens on this little urban bump to depict the flora expected at a high altitude. Interesting little tw...

We often joke that there should be a Ninendo game called "Shanghai Taxi Driver" the goal being to get from the airport to Hongqiao as fast as possible but with a still running car. The driving these guys and gals produce is our inspiration for that little inside chuckle. Shanghai has a bunch to choose from and they're pretty inexpensive. When it rains, they all disappear. The rest of the time it isn't hard to find one. I won't comment on the varying quality - would never want to cast aspersions on them individually. Let's just say they vary wildly and perhaps you can discern the hierarchy from the condition of the cars in the pictures. .

Yesterday began with a fanfare – literally. Walking out of the hotel on our mission to find the Tianshan Road subway station, we heard a rather sketchy version of The Star Spangled Banner being produced by some sort of horn. We found the culprit almost immediately, a man sporting white gloves standing in front of the office building next door with a gleaming coronet, playing his heart out. I tried very hard to get a photograph but he finished just as we passed by. He was done playing and was now engaged in lovingly wiping down the horn with a white bath towel in preparation for loading into his bicycle basket. A small opportunity lost. At midday I took my friend Ling to a part of Shanghai that he had not seen. This despite the fact that he grew up here. It wasn’t much though, just a weedy path that provides a shortcut between the skyscraper where we work and the skyscraper where we were heading for lunch. More exciting perhaps is the fact that I took him to a restaurant that he did not...

I've always had a general liking for Garlic Toast, that is until it showed up on a desert platter as the partner of a blob of Yam flavored ice cream. But more about that as the tale wears on. Late spring is upon us here and even this morning was pretty sticky as we headed out for a morning walk. Even at 6:3o, the streets were buzzing and it was easy to work up a patina with even the slightest notion of a power walk. We decided to head down to Rotting Patrol Boat Park but walked past and on to the bigger version across the street. It was busy in there today with many people waving flags and doing tai chi. Exiting on the far side and planning to re-enter on the other side of the block, I noticed the Carrefore store looming in the distance. Lo and behold I had discovered a short cut to Zhongshan Park. Let no challenge be left unaccepted is my motto and so off we went to the bigger, better greenspace up the road. Zhongshan was even more mobbed but the walk was pleasant. Lots of kite fl...

It was a tough slog today. We boarded for an on time departure and then waited. And waited. And waited some more. The captain came on and told us an interesting tale – while loading the baggage containers, the maintenance crew noted “damage” in the container pit. Now I don’t have a clue about what a pit is doing on a plane, but I do know that the word “damage” and the concept of keeping a multi-ton aircraft in the air might be considered at odds. At least those two terms would be at odds if I was running the show. He told us we had a couple of options – try and assess the nature and threat of the damage or move everyone to the shiny, new 747 that was standing by out back. Neither good options, but perhaps the latter is a share better than the former? Which is no doubt why they chose the former. Goes to show what I know about running an airline. The crew chief came on after a bit and told us that they’d solved the problem and that we’d be on our way in 15 minutes. They would move all th...