Chronicles of Leisure

Ninety minutes from Xian on a China Eastern Airbus A320 took me to Shanghai. Ryan Petersen, a good friend of my cousins Chris and Dave, is living in Shanghai and offered to put me up at his apartment. Ryan met me at the airport as he was just coming back into town from a business trip to Guangzhou. My first question was  “So what the hell were you doing in Guangzhou, and for that matter, what are you doing in China?” Turns out Ryan is exporting Chinese goods to the U.S. and selling them on Ebay. Right now it is Shiatsu massage chairs, an entire cargo container about to make the trip across the Pacific to Long Beach, CA. Apparently the margins are quite profitable. Ryan has been in Shanghai since February and his Chinese is impressive. I’m impressed in general with what he is doing, it seems like a great experience.

On the first night in Shanghai, Ryan and I went to the Jin Mao Tower where we met up with a couple of guys that he is doing business with. It was a nice introduction to Shanghai, enjoying a tasty Jack Daniels on the 88th floor of the tallest building in China, the fifth tallest in the world. Great views of the Shanghai skyline, high rise buildings everywhere.

In Shanghai, there are still some Hutong neighborhoods like this one in the foreground, but they are rapidly being leveled to build new high rises

That’s Ryan’s building on the left in the background, he has a sweet penthouse apartment with an enormous balcony to look out over Shanghai.

Shanghai may be modern, but this is still China. Uhhh, do the chickens have large talons? What about the H5N1 strain? I wonder how you say pandemic in Chinese?

I pretty much just took it easy in Shanghai. Ryan hooked me up with his wireless broadband connection in the apartment, they had a massive DVD collection, and there were plenty of local restaurants that delivered. It was all I needed to hear, and just what I needed to do. Relax.

Learned how to say cheers in Chinese – Gan Bei! Translated literally, it means empty glass, and apparently when you say it, you must drink your entire glass. That happened a few times at one of the bars we went to, especially after Tim from Wales showed up. Turns out there is a huge expat community in Shanghai, and from what I could tell, they seem to be enjoying life. Particularly the night life.

After a few fun nights out and some lazy days for me while Ryan was busy working, it was time to go. Shanghai’s magnetic levitation train runs from the Long Yang metro station out to Pudong Airport

The train literally rides on air, suspended about 10 millimeters above the steel guideway. Powerful magnets suspend the train, and other magnets provide braking and propulsion. It was a really smooth ride, even when we hit top speed. There is a little display that shows how fast you are going

That is 267 mph! Did I mention this is the fastest train in the world? It’s pretty amazing looking at the world going by at that speed. The 30 km trip is over in about six minutes, but what a cool six minutes. And with that, I bought my third ticket on China Eastern Airlines in eight days, and flew to Hong Kong.