Not being able to read your own blog is kind of like talking but not being able to hear the words that come out of your mouth. But lest I make the situation out to be more dire than it actually is, I can see the blog, but only in its pre-published state. That is, although I can write it and edit it, I can’t see if it comes out the way I want it, and being an anal perfectionist, that makes me crazy! But again, we are so lucky to have it at all.
We are leaving early tomorrow for a long day of travel, happily one of only a few on this trip. We fly from Shanghai to Hong Kong, then to Bangkok, and then on to Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar (Burma) where we will spend a night at leisure before the tour begins the next day.
We are signed up for a 13 day tour of Myanmar, the new name for Burma. Burma, to me, conjures up old Bob Hope movies. Wasn’t there a Road to Burma movie, or maybe it was the Road to Mandalay. Of course the Road movies are before my time (ha), but somewhere I dimly remember Bob Hope and maybe Bing Crosby or Don Ameche or somebody bumbling their way through Rio or Burma or some other exotic place encountering head hunters or quicksand or evil sorcerers, but mostly enjoying beautiful native girls happily helping them out of their current mess with promises of untold pleasures ahead.
Tomorrow on the several plane rides, I hope to have enough battery to give you a few thoughts on the new Burma, which I suspect is nothing like the old Bob Hope version. But for now, we are still in Shanghai and I have given it short shrift.
Some thoughts on Shanghai: for one thing, it’s impossible to see a city of this magnitude in three days. We have been without benefit of guide, by choice, so therefore we probably have missed many of the highlights, or at least the explanation of them. I’ve been trying to find out the population of Shanghai and the various sites say anything from 13 to 20 million people. Suffice to say, there are A LOT of people. We are staying in a relatively quiet neighborhood, the French Concession as I’ve mentioned before, but as soon as you approach the more touristed areas, you are overwhelmed by the crowds and the teeming masses. They don’t seem to mind, though. It’s normal for them.
My general impression is that Shanghai is not as sophisticated as Beijing, although that could be totally off base and of course we are not privy to the seats of power. Last year in Beijing, we were astounded by the beautiful people, the fashion, the sheer size of the boulevards and the general air of excitement. Here, we see people of much more modest means, many blocks of run-down neighborhoods as we travel by taxi, and for sure, it is not nearly as clean. Last year, we couldn’t get over how clean Beijing was--people literally dusting the streets and very little trash or litter. Here, there is litter everywhere and while we see the requisite street cleaners, they don’t have the spring in their step that their Beijing counterparts had. Again, I may be totally off base, but that is my impression.
Last night we had dinner in our hotel. There is a restaurant on the top floor ( the fifth) run by a brand new chef from San Diego of all places. Our little buddy Emilio, the concierge (christened Emilio by his Spanish teacher but of course Chinese) was giving us a tour of the place the other day and took us up to meet Sean Jorgenson, a young American chef newly hired to transform the rooftop restaurant into a happening place, after having fallen out of favor in its previous incarnation as an Italian restaurant. The food now is nouvelle American--salmon tartar, mussels in coconut sauce, crab stuffed sole, etc.--and the place was packed with ex-pats and traveling business men (and women) who seek out the Mansion when in Shanghai. There was a Swedish couple who had adopted a beautiful Chinese baby, whom they named incongruously HILDA, but she was so adorable and the mum was chasing her all over the restaurant clearly not wanting to cramp her style by confining her. We struck up a conversation and the dad said that the Mansion was the best hotel in Shanghai and that he was pretty well connected to the ex-pat community which is impossible to understand unless you are part of it. At the restaurant there were at least two couples where the man was a Westerner (either Brit or American) with a MUCH younger Chinese woman and we had seen the same thing the night before at the French restaurant down the street where we had dinner. Clearly there is a whole world of foreign involvement in this very Chinese city.
We have spent much of our time walking--happily there is a lot to see that way, unlike Beijing where everything is so big you can’t begin to walk it. Today we went to People’s Square and the Shanghai Museum, a fantastic display of all the Chinese art you could want. There was a current exhibition of “Gu Embroidery” which I had never heard of, but being my hot button I was fascinated by the intricacy of the work. The stitches are so small they look like painting.
Then we walked down the boulevard surrounded by enormous buildings and millions of people toward the Sunday Ghost Market, called so because it starts so early only ghosts would be up. It was a little difficult to find, but once again, we stood there looking perplexed and pretty soon a Chinese couple came up and with no English simply pointed us in the right direction and there it was. Block after block of vendors selling every imaginable ware from watch to bag to sunglass to fake jade to silk scarf to you name it. There were very few big noses there although the vendors would seek us out and say ‘you want watch, bag, sunglass.” I would say “no watch, no bag, no sunglass” and they would good-naturedly retreat. It’s a scene, though, and maybe I’m getting jaded but there was not a single thing I was tempted to buy.
And with that I will close and see what happens when I try to post this. More tomorrow.
We are leaving early tomorrow for a long day of travel, happily one of only a few on this trip. We fly from Shanghai to Hong Kong, then to Bangkok, and then on to Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar (Burma) where we will spend a night at leisure before the tour begins the next day.
We are signed up for a 13 day tour of Myanmar, the new name for Burma. Burma, to me, conjures up old Bob Hope movies. Wasn’t there a Road to Burma movie, or maybe it was the Road to Mandalay. Of course the Road movies are before my time (ha), but somewhere I dimly remember Bob Hope and maybe Bing Crosby or Don Ameche or somebody bumbling their way through Rio or Burma or some other exotic place encountering head hunters or quicksand or evil sorcerers, but mostly enjoying beautiful native girls happily helping them out of their current mess with promises of untold pleasures ahead.
Tomorrow on the several plane rides, I hope to have enough battery to give you a few thoughts on the new Burma, which I suspect is nothing like the old Bob Hope version. But for now, we are still in Shanghai and I have given it short shrift.
Some thoughts on Shanghai: for one thing, it’s impossible to see a city of this magnitude in three days. We have been without benefit of guide, by choice, so therefore we probably have missed many of the highlights, or at least the explanation of them. I’ve been trying to find out the population of Shanghai and the various sites say anything from 13 to 20 million people. Suffice to say, there are A LOT of people. We are staying in a relatively quiet neighborhood, the French Concession as I’ve mentioned before, but as soon as you approach the more touristed areas, you are overwhelmed by the crowds and the teeming masses. They don’t seem to mind, though. It’s normal for them.
My general impression is that Shanghai is not as sophisticated as Beijing, although that could be totally off base and of course we are not privy to the seats of power. Last year in Beijing, we were astounded by the beautiful people, the fashion, the sheer size of the boulevards and the general air of excitement. Here, we see people of much more modest means, many blocks of run-down neighborhoods as we travel by taxi, and for sure, it is not nearly as clean. Last year, we couldn’t get over how clean Beijing was--people literally dusting the streets and very little trash or litter. Here, there is litter everywhere and while we see the requisite street cleaners, they don’t have the spring in their step that their Beijing counterparts had. Again, I may be totally off base, but that is my impression.
Last night we had dinner in our hotel. There is a restaurant on the top floor ( the fifth) run by a brand new chef from San Diego of all places. Our little buddy Emilio, the concierge (christened Emilio by his Spanish teacher but of course Chinese) was giving us a tour of the place the other day and took us up to meet Sean Jorgenson, a young American chef newly hired to transform the rooftop restaurant into a happening place, after having fallen out of favor in its previous incarnation as an Italian restaurant. The food now is nouvelle American--salmon tartar, mussels in coconut sauce, crab stuffed sole, etc.--and the place was packed with ex-pats and traveling business men (and women) who seek out the Mansion when in Shanghai. There was a Swedish couple who had adopted a beautiful Chinese baby, whom they named incongruously HILDA, but she was so adorable and the mum was chasing her all over the restaurant clearly not wanting to cramp her style by confining her. We struck up a conversation and the dad said that the Mansion was the best hotel in Shanghai and that he was pretty well connected to the ex-pat community which is impossible to understand unless you are part of it. At the restaurant there were at least two couples where the man was a Westerner (either Brit or American) with a MUCH younger Chinese woman and we had seen the same thing the night before at the French restaurant down the street where we had dinner. Clearly there is a whole world of foreign involvement in this very Chinese city.
We have spent much of our time walking--happily there is a lot to see that way, unlike Beijing where everything is so big you can’t begin to walk it. Today we went to People’s Square and the Shanghai Museum, a fantastic display of all the Chinese art you could want. There was a current exhibition of “Gu Embroidery” which I had never heard of, but being my hot button I was fascinated by the intricacy of the work. The stitches are so small they look like painting.
Then we walked down the boulevard surrounded by enormous buildings and millions of people toward the Sunday Ghost Market, called so because it starts so early only ghosts would be up. It was a little difficult to find, but once again, we stood there looking perplexed and pretty soon a Chinese couple came up and with no English simply pointed us in the right direction and there it was. Block after block of vendors selling every imaginable ware from watch to bag to sunglass to fake jade to silk scarf to you name it. There were very few big noses there although the vendors would seek us out and say ‘you want watch, bag, sunglass.” I would say “no watch, no bag, no sunglass” and they would good-naturedly retreat. It’s a scene, though, and maybe I’m getting jaded but there was not a single thing I was tempted to buy.
And with that I will close and see what happens when I try to post this. More tomorrow.
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