I have just had a major breakthrough. I discovered how to operate my blog website in English! I think part of my previous technical difficulties had to do with the fact that the blog was in Chinese. This is a beautiful thing.
It's about 11:00 p.m. on Monday night. Before I tell you about today.... let me offer some general observations on Shanghai. It is hot and humid. Like sometimes I'm sure that it's raining out but it's really just that I'm pretty much standing in water-filled air and soaking in my own sweat. Also, the air really is tough to breath. Picture standing about 10 yards behind a bus and inhaling its fumes.... constantly. But enough about the negative. Shanghai is beautiful and huge. It's like 10 large US cities put together, and it's obviously still growing. It's really hard to believe that much of the city did not exist 10 years ago. I had pictured in my mind that Shanghai would be constantly full of crowds - like a permanent Taste of Chicago. To my surprise, it hasn't seemed like that. This afternoon at 5:00 was the first time I really felt that crowds and the hustle and bustle.
We went to the GM plant today. Although it was interesting to see a car plant, the tour was a little bizarre. A GM representative read a few powerpoint slides, then we looked around a showroom with some new cars (my favorite part), and then we were basically set free to follow some arrows through the plant. The arrows eventually led to the bus. No one talked to us, or explained anything. It brought a whole new meaning to "self guided tour." I suspect there is a happy medium between the last tour I took (of historic homes in Savannah, where the tour guides explained every detail such as what year each toilet was purchased and what fabric the pillows were made of) and this tour where we were abandoned. The arrows took us through the employee cafeteria, which included a big sign that said "Chinese Food." That kind of made me laugh. Anyway... a few observations: the factory was clean and pretty quiet. I only saw one female working. I was surprised how automated the manufacturing was.
Lunch was full of interesting food, including some fish scales, tiny riblets (no one asked from what animal the ribs came), and a plate of cubed fat pleasantly presented over some lettuce. Luckily, there was good rice and tofu, and Mike K. was kind enough to give me his protein bar to supplement my tofu! As usual, the beer was flowing.
A group of us finished eating early and walked over to Starbucks and McDonalds. The Chinese people surely thought we were nuts when we gathered around Ronald McDonald for several pictures.
My favorite part of Shanghai so far was the Urban Planning Museum. They have the most incredible model city that really brought home how huge Shanghai is. Then we went into a virtual tour of Shanghai, which really felt like we were in a little spaceship cruising through the streets and skies of Shanghai. It was even better than virtual kayaking at Dave & Busters!
After a lecture from Dr. Harvey Chen, we went for dinner on our own. My team and Bumni and her husband went across the street to a cool mall and had an authentic Chinese meal: Papa John's. Nothing like a little cheese pizza to cure my food issues! The mall was just like something you would see in a big city in the US, except there was no Panda Express or Auntie Anne's pretzels. In fact, the food court was quite interesting. Tom suggested that he felt like he was walking through the setting of Hello Kitty (which is an interesting thing for a grown man to say out of the blue, but he was actually right on!). Just then, we stumbled upon an entire Hello Kitty store. Very nice.
After dinner, we went to a Chinese Acrobatic show, which was pretty incredible. I confess to taking a short nap during the show, but that is not surprising seeing as I napped during Wicked, Mamma Mia and every other live performance (non-sporting event category) that I've ever been to in my life.
Ok, tomorrow we wake up at 5:15 (or at least we're supposed to, which means I'll wake up at 5:50) for a 6:00 a.m. departure to another city. So I better get to bed. Good night!
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