Day one Shanghai Heaven

SHANGHAI

Shanghai is GORGEOUS! The moment we stepped outside of the Pudong airport and onto the Maglev train I felt at home.

If you didn’t read before the maglev uses magnetic levitation to suspend, guide and propel vehicles from magnets rather than using mechanical methods. WOW.. 431 kilometers per hour roller-coasting us right into Shanghai. WE love amusement parks and big cities, and that is the combination that was felt in Shanghai.

We transferred onto the line 2 metro. What a fast paced place, there’s so much user-friendly technology available. For not being able to speak the language, getting around was cake. We stepped off the train and climbed the subway stairs, which are deeper than New York subways. It’s more like D.C..

There we were in our very own Shanghai time square, fresh off line two, with absolutely no WiFi, which meant we HAD NO IDEA where we were going, because we were meeting up with our friend Kendra, and had NOO way to get a hold of her.

If you are wondering why we did not get ahold of her before this…well we tried, but she was teaching a class at the time, and then our Chinese governmental friends censored what we were up to, and blocked our apps ability to work.

We downloaded a VPN to combat the censory powers here, but for a while we were out of commission. Fortunately, Kendra looked for the only Blonde on the block and found us!!! It worked in the midst of tons of people!

Kendra led us through the city, helped us get metro cards, and then brought us back the their place to drop off our gear. We changed and then took a Taxi to meet up with Jeff Lindsay to eat! Kendra and Jeff have really picked up on the language, which made it super easy to get around.

The sky is mostly overcast in Shanghai, maybe because of smog, (always good for taking pictures) but as we arrived at the restaurant the cloud opened, rays beamed down at the doors of this Chinese restaurant, and heavenly Angels began to sing…hallelujah, Hallelujah, HALLELUJAH…. I was confused, but I went with it.

We walked into this swanky place. The walls had beautiful photos on them, that Jeff mentioned had been changed since earlier in the day. They greeted us at the door in traditional Chinese attire, and walked us to our table.  We looked at the menu, picked a few things to eat, and then we all caught up from our 3-day split since Korea.
 We talked about our travels, and each made up a use or reason for the huge metal earphone on our plates, A hat?, An earphone? A megaphone? A funnel? We will never know because we did not ask and they came and took them from us and brought us our food. A faint chorus of hallelujahs started again.  Shaking my head in confusion, I took a piece of the cooked chicken, and placed it in my mouth. Trumpets sounded, the heavenly host was loud and clear now, the sunrays broke through the curtained windows, we began levitating, serotonin was shooting out of my finger tips… “YES, YES…it tasted sooooooooooooooooo good”. I looked around me, and then over to Curtis to say how I was feeling, but noticed that Curtis too was beaming and reveling in every dish. Had we died and gone to heaven?

The meal was over, and we were full. We were at peace with the universe, our chi was strong and positive,  we had good feng shui…WE had arrived. I don’t know it at the moment, but I will get the name of that restaurant so you may eat there also!

To make a great night greater we took a refreshing walk around the Bund a few blocks from the Lindsay’s place. There was a beautiful circular walkway that beat many of the walkways in all the other big cities I have traveled to and lived in. Absolutely amazing architecture! The Bund is lined with gorgeous neo classical, Gothic, art deco, and several European influential banks and buildings on one side, and then out across the water are all these enormous space age sky scrapers. I'm pretty sure several of them were actual alien space craft from a previous alien invasion.

We walked through the apple store into the mall for ice cream, and BELIEVE ME I was nervous. Remember “bubble gum” ice cream in Korea? Well, my unhealthy love for ice cream has been, well, more healthy since then. I keep my distance much easier, but everything seemed so perfect….so I took the risk. I ordered dark decadent looking chocolate gelato on a chocolate covered waffle cone.

Ooooweeemama! St. Louise cheetah bears in sparkly flats! I mean…, what do you say when there are no words for complete and utter bliss. The gelato was incredible!

 (said in an Italian accent) and MORE than that, the chocolate dipped waffle cone did not taste like wax like at Coldstone, it tasted like waffle-cone with chocolate! ??? Right!!

We jumped on a train and hurried home to do Readeo with our niece and nephew a.k.a the Lindsay’s grand kids!!! It was soooo fun! Thank you Readeo for making it possible to read books to our kids from across the world!!! Then we talked to my sister and shared the adventures of Shanghai, and of course being famous as a blonde in China!

I took a warm relaxing shower, we group hugged goodnight, and settled into THE most comfy pull out bed I’ve ever experienced in my life.

I <3 Shanghai and our Lindsay Fam!