Arrival in Shanghai

The flight from Chicago to Shanghai is normally a little more than 14 hours. I say normally because that duration does not apply when you have one passenger slap another before we even leave the gate. One passenger and several luggage removals later we are already delayed over an hour. I cat-napped across the Arctic Ocean, frozen ice with long thin cracks running through, reading 3 weeks worth of Economists when not sleeping.

Shanghai is the New York of the 21st Century. The architecture reflects unbridled creativity and optimism, full of spheres, towers, cones, inverted pyramids, and spikes, spread out on both sides of a curving river. The people exude youth and happiness. My hotel is on Nanjing Lu, a pedestrian street lined with shops, department stores and Times-Square style neon lights. I spent the evening walking Nanjing Lu, fending off touts and prostitutes, investigating the shops and taking pictures, gawking along with all the Chinese tourists. For dinner I ate tofu vegetables and a Shingtao beer at a side street restaurant with an english picture book menu. It was really good, and quite similar to the Chinese food we have in America. In Shanghai, it is easy to see that the future belongs to China, unburdened by a culture war, banking crisis and economic collapse or road rage. Everything is youthful energy and optimism. Better get used to it, America.