Random act of kindness 

Yesterday I got on the bus in Xi’an, heading to the airport to fly to Shanghai, and my tour mate Ruby handed me a bottle of water she had frozen in her hotel room refrigerator, in effect creating, just for me, a large bottle of ice water for me in a land where I cannot partake of any of the ice without risking intestinal parasites and I was just so happy – it was like finding the jar of peanut butter in the Beijing hotel.  I was particularly in awe of Ruby’s refrigeration skills because I too had tried to make ice water in Xi’an and had failed to grasp the setting levels of our refrigerator, even after laying myself on the floor and peering in there for minutes at a time, all the while giving Ron a play-by-play of my continual button rotations while he tried to jump out the hotel room window.  I finally even got Ron down on the floor to give it a whirl, but we could make no cold water.

So you can only imagine my joy on the bus- and it was this very giddy feeling that buoyed my spirits and transported me through the litany of my other daily failures.  First, we went to an art museum.  Enough said.  But then we got to “DO” some calligraphy art as a group and the teacher walked around the 18 of us, commenting on our work and she said good job, nice work etc. to everyone and then she got to mine and she said NO PROBLEM, which pretty well cemented my feeling that I am not an artistic creature.  Then, at the Xi’an airport, continuing my quest for a Filet o Fish, I discovered that there was no American fast food at all and I had to have an ice cream bar for my lunch, supplemented by some Keebler crackers I brought from home.  We hit Shanghai, though, and our fortunes turned as this place is the most modern and western city in China, and I say that in a positive and grateful way, and here we are at the McDonald’s trying (and failing) to place an order at the kiosk.

We spent about 10 minutes there trying to make it work, then moved to plan B, which was approach the cashier and look sad and hungry, which worked well as she handed us a picture menu so that I could just point to my Filet o Fish.

Although my meal reminded me that I don’t really like McDonald’s at all, we were, in our current state, so happy with the meal that we then wandered right over to the Haagen-Dazs store and had ice cream cones and then we followed it up with a visit to Dunkin’ Donuts and each had a donut and I feel a lesser person would not be brave enough to admit all of this to you.

In terms of actual travel details, I cannot offer much yet.  Shangai is perceptibly different than Beijing and Xi’an.  Beijing has a very old and sort of third world feeling to it and Xi’an is somewhere you visit once to see those soldiers and then never return.  Shanghai feels more cosmopolitan.  It’s a funny mix though.  Here’s a Buddhist temple right by our hotel, and it sits right in the middle of this big shopping district…I really love the positioning of the Old Navy store.

One thing that makes Shangai seem different is that there’s these “concessions” within the city – the French and the English – which were areas that the French and English populated and got to govern at some point and, while they are Chinese now, their architecture retains its European flavor.  Here’s a little street right near our hotel that’s part of the French Concession:

We’re headed out for sightseeing in a bit, so there will surely be better pictures in my next post but I wanted to leave you with these.  The first one is a pic I took on the bus as we left Xi’an.  It’s some of the hotel’s housekeeping staff, all gathered and dancing in the parking lot because it’s something like World Housekeeping Day.  There’s a funny group mentality thing here (hey!  Communism!) that just makes me chuckle because, self-centered American that I am, I try to imagine a US company having success with some sort of morning exercise like this and I just cannot.  Morning stretches in the Metro Mart parking lot??

The next one is the necessary result of having so many bodies in such a small space – and I have no electrical engineering acumen whatsoever, but even I perceived there might be a shortcoming in dealing with electrical wires in this fashion:

And here’s some traffic in either Xi’an or Shangai…can’t recall…but look at the bus next to us…what the heck was that driver thinking?  At least everyone else is going the same general direction:

The air here is the dirtiest of the 3 cities.  It’s pretty mind-boggling, especially since the city is so green and tree-lined, for China.  But here’s the air as we drove in yesterday and yet, somehow, here’s a green park right next to our hotel:

Got go go here. Hey – I just previewed this thing and something has changed with my font and other stuff. What the heck happened? Hope it posts ok !!!!!!!

TTYLFS/BITADH/VFS/BA/JD/RR