Shanghai - It took Marco Polo over 3 years to get to China,, so I guess the 14 hour flight from Newark to Shanghai wasn’t so bad, especially with the extra leg room, but still.. Anyway the flight was uneventful save for the magnificent view out the window of the coast of Greenland. What, we wondered were out fellow passengers taking pictures of out the port side windows? And surely it was an awesome sight. Backed by the red sunset horizon were icy coastal mountains and dark fjords cutting into the coast. Of course our cameras were in the overhead, so you’ll have to trust me that it was magnificent. I never would have thought we would be going over Greenland to get to from Newark to Shanghai, fortunately I am not the navigator.

So a book, a movie, 2 naps a few games and some TV; and next thing you know we are in Shanghai. Ha ha Marco Polo.

Being rather adventurous, we decided on getting an air bnb in Shanghai, city of over 24 million people! That's more that all of all of Scandinavia, with a couple of other European countries thrown in! We were smart enough to arrange for a cab to pick us up at the airport (when I say we, I mean Svend) otherwise we never would have found the apartment which was at the end of an alley. The building was a little sketchy, but the apartment was just fine. Clean and comfortable. While waiting for Svend and the cab driver to figure things out, I stood by the cab with the luggage. We were fairly obviously not natives and were the subject of many stares. One nice gentleman decided to practice his English and said "Good afternoon" already beating me in the language game. Somehow he said the word teacher, I said I was teacher (not exactly accurate, but close enough) and he had a few other good words, "wonderful, beautiful" After that, he managed to be out on his balcony several other times as we were coming or going, always saying "Hello, USA teacher, wonderful, beautiful". I say his English was pretty darn good! He may have been the village axe murderer, but he was pleasant.

View of zucchini climbing palm tree

We scoped out the neighborhood, which had a lot of charm. It was a few subway stops from the heart of the city (The People's Park) and was near a very busy intersection, but because it was a series of alleys off a small road, it seems very removed from the hustle and bustle. Of course we were exhausted and went to bed early, only to wake up at 3:30 AM, thinking it was time to get up. We were    out raring to go at 5:30 AM. You would think a city of 24 million people would have coffee available at 5:30 AM, but no. We took the subway to the People's Park, but the people weren't there yet. The good news is the subway was not too busy yet. 

We found coffee in a hotel lobby and were back to being happy enthusiastic travelers. Oh did I mention the rain? It was getting worse by the minute. I, having paid attention to travelers advice and weather reports had a nice raincoat, an umbrella and my seriously good New Balance walking shoes (no bad weather - only bad clothes) Svend was trying to be all Viking but was finally convinced to a least buy an umbrella from a street vendor ($1.50) Our plan was to get a 48 hour hop/on hop off city tour bus pass, but they didn't start until 9:00Am it it was still only about 7:30. So we went walking in the People's Park and lo and behold we found what you would expect in a park in China - people doing tai chi (under an enclosure, remember the rain?) I'm not ready to join in yet, but it was only day one, who knows what the future will bring. OK fast forward, we get on the bus, Svend wants to sit on the top level where it's really wet. I of course never complain so that's what we did. No seriously after I stopped griping and wiped off the seats and the rain stopped and I had my trusty scarf to sit on, It was the better choice.

So 24 million people means lots of high buildings and traffic, and pedestrians and mopeds and bicycles and you know what? Somehow it all works.