Street scenes, the Subway and Blooming Tea

A large part of my time here is spent in transit, either on foot, in a cab or on the subway. This post is dedicated to the things I’ve seen along the way. I think I’ve already mentioned that my feet will never be the same due to the amount of walking I’ve been doing, seriously like over 10 blisters within the first few days but I got some sweet new tennies and now Iook like a real resident of the US with my shiny New Balance’s and dress clothes en route to work.

The subway has been very entertaining for a number of reasons; many of you know and love me for my shamelessness and this is one of the few things that I feel I have very much in common with Chinese people. They are completely shameless, which makes people watching better than ever. My most recent subway saga involved walking through the Guilin Lu station and having the girl in front of me stop dead in her tracks. Naturally, this caught my attention and I followed her gaze to a tiny little brown mouse scurrying along with the rest of us apparently headed for the number 9 to Middle Yanggao Road. Well, a girl who was probably 18 or older also noticed the mouse and began furiously chasing it until it slipped back up into the wall. The animal excitement didn’t end there; I need to preface the next part of the story with this little caveat. Security is pretty serious on the subways you have to walk through a metal detector and if you make eye contact with the guards you have to put your bag through an x-ray machine before you can scan your transit card; there is a long list in Chinese (and pictures for the rest of us) of all of the items and behaviors prohibited on the subway among them no smoking, no spitting and no animals. Well imagine my surprise, in the same day as the mouse incident, as I exited the train at Middle Yanggao (the end of line 9 I might add) when a man walked off with a pigeon in a cage. Yes. A pigeon. It was a perfect subway day.

The other experiences that stand out are the adorable 5-year-old named Kevin who, prompted by his parents, talked to me one night on my way home. He told me his name, his baby sister’s name- Mia, and tried to feed me potato chips in between blowing me kisses. It was quite a spectacle for the full subway car needless to say. Then there was the day that a guy my age sat down next to me and asked in perfect English if I spoke Chinese. This was fairly startling, but I was thrilled to speak with someone in English since it was only my second or third day commuting. He told me I was very beautiful and asked if he could have my number because he was a photographer and wanted to take my picture. I burst out laughing and said well no, and he seemed surprised so I explained that I didn’t know who he was and I wasn’t just handing out my number. He ended up telling me about the art school he went to in China and that he works for an ad agency and offered to show me some of his work on his tablet. He is a good photographer and I shared my blogs with him, he gave me his number and told me to think about modeling for him and to call. He also offered to teach me Chinese, which I would seriously consider. Needless to say, I haven’t called him yet but if I do I will definitely update here.

Here are some photos from our adventures around town and the subway. Notice the Hotel Thing Confluence, that’s where we go to get all kinds of random kitchen and household accessories. Its literally a market that sells anything from dishes to cleaning supplies to furnish hotels or locals such as ourselves, they also have tailors making uniforms for the multitude of service industry jobs. There are a couple of photos of a restaurant in Pudong called East West that has house cats, which I of course LOVED! Trent forbade me from petting them on the grounds that the last time I was there they circled and attacked a dog. Hard to believe when you see them grooming one another, sigh, needless to say I heeded his advice. Although the calico came right up to me and wanted some loving, I resisted and just documented them thinking all the while of my little Gus back in the mitten. I really do miss the little beast and can’t wait to bring him here in January. Even though, his caregivers have renamed him the bully I still miss him.

The sidewalk scenes are my route to work on the Pudong side, with a detail of these whimsical pink flowers that fall out of the trees and litter the sidewalk which I love and I also walk past the Chia Thai Life Style everyday which is a shopping mall connected to Lotus, my preferred grocery store so far. The only issue is for some reason I always want to call it Locust, which amuses Trent and so now I say it on purpose of course. Last but not least, Jasmine tea that blooms when you drop it into your hot water. We saw this on a documentary about Shanghai that we got from the library back in Milwaukee, and I’ve been dying to try it. Its delicious and beautiful, I’m hooked.