Day 10: Shanghai Knight

Day 10: Shanghai Knight

Today I met a complete stranger and had a great time. My good friend Lippy saw that I was in Shanghai and asked if I wanted to meet up with his cousin who lived there. I figured, what the hey --- I don't really know what to do or the language, so the worst that could happen was I "get busy" and just head back to the hotel. But after a brief online introduction through Lippy, I figured he'd be a pretty cool dude to wander the city with, and that's exactly what we did.

Eric met me at my hotel after taking the subway in from his home in the suburbs. It was like a 40 minute ride for him, so that alone was a pretty hefty investment of his time. But he loves his adopted city of 27 years, and, as Lippy mentioned in our initial text, loves to show it off.

After brief introductions, we hopped in a cab destined for 1933 Building, which was a cool Art Deco locale that was set-up as a Bund slaughterhouse. The building is original, still containing the chutes that crossed from one side of the open plaza to the other and up all 4 levels of it. Now it's populated with trendy shops and architecture firms. It was a cool little spot to start the day, and I realized that architecture was Eric's biggest interest. I'm not particularly adept at it, but I can appreciate it enough since the Mrs. is an art and symmetry geek.

Next stop was another cab ride back to the French Concession. We wandered around a bit there, taking a look at the various buildings in the area, now mostly shops and banks. It's a neat bit of history here, as it looks more like Niece than it does Beijing. This was the only thing on my wish list for the day, so everything else was just under Eric's direction.

Our lunch stop was at a place called the Reservation. A western-style brew pub, my order of salad (Eric said I could trust it) and mac gratin required me to pick up my first fork since I'd been abroad. The food was dang tasty, and I had my first Chinese beer that I liked: a sampler of hoppy wheat, hefeweizen, cherry stout, and IPA was enjoyed in that preference order. God, I missed a good draft beer.

After this, Eric and I wandered around a bit, alternating between Art Deco, high-end shopping malls, and places where he was currently working on. His job is the owner and manager of a high-end brass door handle and railing factory and company. His work is ornate and beautiful to see online, but when we stopped at the 2 locations that workers were currently constructing, that added an additional appeal. Needless to say, Li Jun would hardly have had something like this on his travel guide list, so it was nice to live like a local.

After that, we wandered the streets for a while and, between catching our breath in the intense heat and humidity, would stop occasionally for a water or a pint. We capped off our night at a Mexican-infusion restaurant, complete with tapas and perfectly satisfying gazpacho. Then we headed back towards Nanjing Rd where I'd been yesterday to try some stinky tofu and then called it an evening.

This blog post is largely absent of photos and an extensive itinerary because, most of all, it was nice to make a new friend and have some good conversation. We literally had a free flowing dialogue from the time we met at 10:30a through our departure at 8:30p. It was fun to learn about how Eric got to Shanghai in the early 90s (he was a psych major from Drexel who just took a chance on manufacturing here), his family (3 kids who all seem to have their feet about them), his wife, his work, his adoption of the culture, the Chinese language, international relations, politics, religion, music, architecture, education. You name it, we talked it - and pretty much fell within the same wavelength most of the time.

By the end of the evening, he implored me looking into teaching at the American School here in Shanghai. I told him I'd look it up (I'm always down for adventure), but, I hardly think it'd ever be something Devin would go for. That's especially doubled down in buying our new house and having her family so nearby. But, at the very least, if we ever make it back to Shanghai (and I hope to bring Devin and Jonah), we know we have a friend to be our Shanghai Knight.

I'm off to bed tonight with some good news in my head. Our renter who previously backed out is, I think, now back in and committed as his transfer has been finalized. That's great news. I'm looking forward to packing my bag, catching a cab to the world-famous, and fastest train in the world (called the MagLev) as it zips 30 miles at 268mph to the airport in just 7 minutes in change. Then I'm on my plane back to the states. I'll literally move with the rotation of the earth, departing Shanghai at 3p and arriving in Chicago about the same local time. Then a 5-hour layover before getting into BWI at Midnight and, hopefully, to the new homestead by 3a.