Shanghai and Mighty (Days 15-18)

We started our explorations on Sunday, July 13 by patronizing the Guinness World Record Highest Library on the 60th floor of our hotel, the JW Shanghai Marriott. Over the next week, I tore through Dr. Paul Brand's part-biography, part-medical history Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants, a great find off the shelves of the 757½-foot high library.

Sadly, 'Garfield Shoves It In' was checked out.

In the library, as if we were part of a spy movie or ghost story, a host showed us a secret hidden bookshelf panel that swung open to reveal a door to the hotel's outside observation deck. 

We took in the view of the city looking out over People's Square on, looking back now, one of the few days where the pollution was "bad." Our first and last day in Beijing were the only other noticeably smoggy days where one could taste and smell the oily air and visibility was limited. Otherwise, pollution was virtually a non-factor throughout the trip.

It burns!

That afternoon we enjoyed one of the most lavish meals of the month on the 30th floor in the Marriott Café; an international buffet with a variety of dishes from India, Japan, China and beyond. We had our fill of oysters, crab, shrimp, sushi, pâté, lamb, beef, vegetables, pasta, desserts and bottomless glasses of champagne for the adults. The service was impeccable and the view was lovely, so we milked it for all it was worth and decided to not regret spending almost US$400 for a meal like that once a decade or so. 

After another visit to the pool (where we went through our usual routine of begging the kids to stop jumping in and out of the water, quit throwing kick boards and cease yelling at each other before the staff inevitably joins in), I set out alone into the hot and smoggy night air in search of a grocery store.

This posting near the hotel pool offered both  emergency preparedness and a new nickname.

On the advice of a bellman, I hopped on the subway for a few stops and then took a short walk to a Carrefour, an old friend from Europe and the main department store in Shanghai. The shop I found was a multilevel Walmart on Chinese steroids. Over all, it was a somewhat confusing experience; I had to check my backpack in a locker, where I needed assistance to understand the ticketing procedure, found the maze of busy aisles oddly organized and had to ask for help finding broccoli. I decided to take my time to explore every corner of the store and see all of the merchandise. Just about everything considered edible is available including bullfrog, pigeon and live turtles, and one can buy everything else from hiking gear to house paint. 

Kids' bikes from US $32 to $92, luggage for $36 and fabric softener for $4.

Bottled water and beer: sold everywhere in China, available in bulk at Carrefour.

At the checkout line, while waiting to pay for some semi-familiar food and beverages to take back to our kitchen I watched a store manager and young couple shout at each other for about five minutes. I was glad to get past the cashier without committing whatever offense had made the manager so irate. (It was one of a number of times we witnessed a loud verbal sparring match between various Chinese citizens. A couple of times I was able to take a photo or video but I failed to capture The Grocery Conflict.)

These guys were about to throw down by the Bund but they kept it to a heated staring contest.

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On Monday the 14th (day 16, the halfway point of our journey), we woke at 3 o'clock in the morning to watch Germany's World Cup final victory over Argentina. The play wasn't as exciting as some of the early round matches but we enjoyed seeing the championship atmosphere. It became a sports morning when we switched to MLB.TV to catch an Angels victory over the Texas Rangers. We are excitedly following the Halos' chase of the Oakland A's for the best record in baseball and I may or may not have used my brief forays into Buddhism and Shintoism to give our favorite teams some extra karma. 

Thanks to us the Colts are Super Bowl bound.

Not coincidentally, that afternoon the kids and I visited Jing'an Temple, a Buddhist temple on the eponymous West Nanjing Road, one of the busiest in Shanghai. The temple was first built in 247 AD and then moved to its current site in 1216. Soaring glass, concrete and steel now surround the temple, which has crumbled a couple of times but was rebuilt over the centuries until taking its final form during the Qing Dynasty. Further changes took place when the structure was converted into a plastics factory (!) in the early 1970s during the Cultural Revolution. Fortunately, traditionalists in 1983 led a charge to eventually return the structure to its original purpose. According to the back of my ticket (kids were free, mine was ¥50 / US$8), "since 1998, a large-scale reconstruction work had taken place in the monastery area, the main facade, bell and drum terraces...the Dharma pillar...Thai Buddha Hall, Golden Buddha Hall and so on had been continuously completed." 

That's their way of saying renovations are ongoing as there are always improvements to be made. The stone exterior and the woodwork, while built with ancient techniques, felt "new." However the temple and grounds instilled a deep sense of spirituality with artwork, idols, altars and offerings that provided direct links to the past.

Make an offering, touch the idol,  be a musical prodigy.

Make an offering, bow to the idol, be a fruit-stacking sensation.

Offerings have been generous enough for the admission ticket to congratulate the "enormous number of Buddhists (who) have shown their devout faith of the Dharma. Their donation has accomplished the sterling silver Buddha statue weighted 15 tons for the monastery."

The glow of sunlight hitting a thin layer of tarnish made the silver look bronze or gilded that afternoon.

The 8.8-meter, or 28.9-foot, statue sits in a structure made of dark Burmese teak supported by 46 columns; the Precious Hall of the Great Hero. Surrounding the Buddha are prayer banners, wood and metal statues, elaborate paneling and three intricately carved and painted wall hangings depicting scenes from the Buddha's life.

Detail with facial expressions.

Today, the devout can gain potential admission-ticket immortality by donating to "the following project of making a solid gold Buddha statue weighed 2 tons (that) is currently in its fundraising process." Count us in.

Our following project involved exploring a mall adjoining the Jing'an Temple subway stop. It was filled with pricey shops and restaurants but we eventually found the busy, less expensive basement food stalls. Our senses were quickly drawn to a bakery with such an irresistible array of breakfast, lunch and dessert buns that we ended up contributing to their fundraising process multiple times over the remainder of our Shanghai visit.

The mall price of acute inflammatory arthritis is too high but the mascot is adorable.

"Yippee!" yelped the youngsters upon the  yielding of yuan at yummy Yamazaki.

After another swim and upon Betsy's arrival, we walked to a bookstore that we found online in our effort to find some Mandarin DVDs and instructional materials. The shop was in a five-story building and  pretty much felt just like any other large book chain - only everything was, of course, in Chinese. Quinn was able to ask the sales lady for guidance and we left with a bulging bag of mostly Disney movies and workbooks for vocabulary and character reinforcement. (As if the land of Chinglish is the place to turn for such things!)

Do these street vendors know they're offering rejected parts?

On the way back to the apartment, we stopped at a small street-side food stall that offered about 20 different bowls or platters of various local foods. I chose two dishes, ordered some steamed rice from room service and proceeded to disrupt Kung Fu Panda with my enthusiastic enjoyment of the garlic-and-ginger-infused crunchy fungus and chewy tofu skins.

Just like mom used to make.

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The next two mornings, we were up early to watch live English broadcasts of the MLB Home Run Derby on a rainy Tuesday the 15th and then the All Star Game, featuring MVP Mike Trout, on Wednesday the 16th. The other Tuesday highlights were avoiding the persistent downpour by sticking to the indoor pool and using the subway for our second bakery visit for some egg and meat sandwiches, breadsticks and chocolate pies. 

We had to get out on Wednesday so the kids and I decided to check out the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. We discovered animal exhibits, space and communication technology, medical displays and a ping pong robot that humbled both boys. All of the descriptions and guides were in Chinese and several of the video stations and interactive opportunities were out of order but the museum had a nice flow and the displays were generally user-friendly.

This is what happens when  science meets technology.

Sadly, these and three toy souvenirs were the only pandas we saw on our trip.

Our favorite parts were the rooms with dozens of stuffed and mounted animals from all around the world, the pathology displays with examples of real arteries, veins and organs and the space equipment including satellites and rockets. After a 2½ -hour visit, we wandered around the adjoining subway area where we found a shaded garden and one of the area's several fake-goods markets, complete with aggressive merchants enticing passing shoppers and tourists into every store. 

Our choice of eateries won out over a nearby competitor, which lost - or maybe gained - a point for promoting this entree on their front wall:

While a bargain at just US$2.60, we deemed this R-rated dish to be unsuitable for minors.

After the waitress told me which chair I was to sit in (so I could be in a better position for them to serve me all the dishes for distribution she said, when asked by Xander)  we finally ordered some duck to go with some wide noodles, a big bowl of eggplant and our favorite, sword beans. We would be advised later that we should have had the famous Peking duck of Beijing but we agreed the meat and sauce were pretty tasty - once we picked away the thick, rubbery skin that is included here with poultry dishes.

A major theme of this trip: Pretty Tasty.

Hope you're enjoying. There's still more to come covering our last three days in Shanghai and our week in Tokyo.

We Kowtow in Lantau (Days 10 and 11)

On Tuesday, July 8, fully intending to get caught up on our hotel-sink laundry effort, I signed the kids up for a two-hour Chinese Art class in the Kids At Art studio in our hotel. (That effort would be thwarted as I spent most of that time trying to contact Wells Fargo in an effort to allow us withdraw even more funds even more frequently.) However, with a promise to return with full payment, I left the kids to enjoy the full focus of the attentive staff. 

I asked the teachers to use Mandarin as much as possible as they guided Xander, Vaughn and Quinn through new techniques with ink and paint. The kids created several paintings each with the intent of presenting their favorites to Betsy for her upcoming birthday.

That afternoon I continued to shirk my laundry duties, opting instead to sit and write by the pool as the kids frolicked in the cool water. When Betsy joined us after work, I commented on how very friendly the pool service staff was as they brought us our sandwiches, lemonade and beer. When we got the bill for HK$1,457 (US$188), we realized why. Holy hot pot, there went our dinner plans!

Pictured: $57 worth of beverages

Still the pool was the most beautiful one we’ve seen so far; overlooking the harbor and with a waterfall at one end. Plus we were treated like kings so we decided it was worth it and retired to the hotel room for the evening and curled up with some ramen and Chinese television.

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July 9 was busy and memorable Wednesday as we left the hotel early for a day-long tour of Lantau Island before departing for Shanghai that night.

Lantau Island is twice the size of Hong Kong Island and the largest among the approximately 256 outlying islands within the territory. The tour began with a 40-minute ferry ride from Hong Kong to Lantau through the busy harbor filled with cargo ships heading off to or returning from long voyages. Luckily for us on a day where temperatures climbed over 100 degrees, we hopped from the air-conditioned boat to an air-conditioned bus that offered salvation after each broiling tour stop on the island. A sign posted at the front of the bus offered this sobering advice:

I've always been suspicious of my right thumb and now I'm on high alert.

Many of the 120,000 inhabitants of Lantau have jobs in Hong Kong (2 million total) and must make the daily ferry trip to work. They ride their bicycles from home and leave them parked together on the dock. 

But not a bike lock in sight.

Our guide says there is very little crime on Lantau because most people can trace their family lineage back for centuries and very few people migrate to the island so basically no one can get away with anything. There are, however, several prisons (apparently for criminals from elsewhere) including a juvenile detention center that offered a nice incentive for good behavior for the day.

The first stop on the tour was a refreshing visit to the pristine Cheung Sha beach. We were pleased to see a barrier ringing the shore after hearing about the six fatal shark attacks around the island over the last 15 years and happily waded into to the warm surf.

The bus then took us to the unique Tai O fishing village, a former haven for smugglers and pirates that is now a popular tourist destination. We enjoyed a short boat ride that gave us a close-up look at some the remarkable, yet dilapidated, pang uks; fisherman's homes that are built on stilts to better endure flooding. 

Fishing long provided the primary means of income in the village but overfishing has forced the inhabitants to rely on tourist spending. We passed stall after stall of very ripe, sun-dried, salted  examples of meager fish, shrimp and mollusks that neither we nor anyone else on our tour dared to bring back on the bus.

There's something fishy going on around here.

We visited a temple where we had our first experience burning incense as a symbolic offering. In Chinese Taoist and Buddhist temples, worshippers light and burn incense which they wave our raise above the head as they bow to the statues or plaques of a deity or ancestor. One makes says a prayer of hope or thanks and then places the stick or sticks in a receptacle in front of the idol.

Next, our bus climbed the winding road up the mountain to the Ngong Ping plateau for a visit to the majestic Tain Tian Buddha Statue and the nearby Po Lin Monastery, where we were served a delicious vegetarian meal.

The monastery was built in 1907 and plans for the Big Buddha were made over sixty years ago with the project finally coming to fruition in 1990. The 202 separate pieces of bronze were gradually shipped to the island and then trucked up the hill before they were assembled in 1993 to form the 112-foot, 250-ton statue. The serene and dignified Buddha rests on a bed of lotus flowers with his left hand in his lap, signifying the giving of the moral treasures known as dhana, and his right hand is raised, representing the removal of affliction.

The structure beneath houses three separate exhibition halls of worship and six smaller bronze statues surround the Buddha praising and making the various symbolic offerings required to enter into nirvana. 

Our tour of Lantau ended with a ride aboard the Ngong Ping Skyrail, a 25-minute cable car that offered stunning views as we descended from Hgong Ping plateau to Tung Chung New Town near the airport, from which we would depart a few hours later. 

We shared our ride with a South African/Australian expat and her daughters, aged 10 and 8, who gained our admiration as they described their earlier four-hour ascent by foot to the Big Buddha in the day's intense heat and humidity.

Our flight that evening from Hong Kong to Shanghai took just over two hours, transporting five sleepy travelers to the third stop on our journey for new round of adventures, cuisine, friends and hilarious mis-translations.

We Visit Heaven (Day 2)

With more humidity and a high approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday, we set out early by foot for the Temple of Heaven via Wangfujing Plaza, making sure to note the various shops and eateries we might visit later.  

Very promising bizarre foods just around the corner. We'll be back.

The Temple of Heaven, or Altar of Heaven (Tiāntán), is a complex of religious buildings situated in the southeastern part of central Beijing. 

The temple was visited by the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer and fasting for good harvest. It was built in the early 1400s under the rule of the Yongle Emperor, the same one responsible for the Forbidden City. The temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is described as "a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design” that laid the groundwork for centuries of Far East architecture and planning. 

Much like Jingshan park, the beautifully maintained Temple of Heaven gardens are a popular place for locals to exercise and relax or participate in ethnic singing and dancing. 

Betsy found her "dream pergola."

Tourists and locals alike visit the temple halls which still house sacred altars or new displays about the history of the grounds. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is the most prominent of these. The magnificent triple-gabled, completely wooden and nail-free circular building (in panoramic shot, above) was exactingly rebuilt in 1889 after a fire caused by lightning destroyed it.

Detail of rainwater spouts on the terraced steps of the Hall of Prayer.

Once again we enjoyed meeting people who were excited to see us. One funny moment came when we sat down for a rest in one of the display halls and found ourselves drawing as much attention as the exhibits in the room. Families would mosey by, pause to consider and discuss us, then move on.

The line marking the 2008 Olympic marathon route through the temple remains.

We were happy to get a taxi back to the hotel and made a beeline for the pool to cool off before jet lag got the better of us and we crashed. We were out for eleven hours but of course up again at 3 a.m. We are fortunate the World Cup games start here in the middle of the night because the games are a nice early-morning diversion.

Some travel notes:

In an effort to avoid unwanted microbes, we not only purchase bottled water constantly but we then drink that through bottles we brought with us that have filters inside. We’re even brushing our teeth with it...so far, so good.

We are doing almost daily bathtub laundry and hanging our clothes all over our hotel room to dry. With the heat, we’re going through it about as fast as we can clean it. Not only haven’t we seen a laundromat but our confidence in successfully utilizing a washer and dryer with Chinese instructions is very low. It was hard enough in Europe!

We are able to communicate quite effectively with people we meet. The kids understand much of what they hear but find that the people speak very fast. Xander, having completed 4th grade, is our go-to translator. All the kids have been congratulated for their excellent pronunciation and all have been able to ask and answer questions to help us out or make new friends. On occasions when we are unable to connect because our Chinese or our conversant’s English is too weak, someone is usually close by to help out.

Compared to our experience in Europe, the streets are actually a little cleaner, there is slightly less smoking, people are generally more friendly and everything is so much cheaper. One has to bargain just about everywhere, especially in tourist areas but the price always comes down and things are quite cheap. Breakfast of wonton-noodle soup and dumplings for five, for example, at one local eatery cost us only the equivalent of US$5. We may never leave!

Finally, the winner for best Chinglish of the day goes to this sign a few blocks away from the temple:  

For modest people with aches and pains, this is the way to go.

Arrival, Sunday in the Park and New Friends (Day 1)

Finally in Hong Kong with unrestricted internet access! 

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We arrived in Beijing at 10 p.m. on Saturday, July 28 and quickly found the car Betsy had arranged to take us to our hotel. Though sleep on the long plane flight was tough to come by, it was 10 a.m. Minneapolis time when we reached the Crowne Plaza Wangfujing so we stayed up and watched some World Cup action (Brazil over Chile) before we finally settled in for a long nap.

On Sunday morning, we set out by foot to wander in the general direction of the Forbidden City, just a half-mile from our hotel. It was a quiet morning in Beijing; families strolled with their children and/or dogs as we delighted in the new sights and avoided some of the new smells. The kids and I bought some pork buns for breakfast and we stopped for a taste of authentic Chinese food.

They didn't have any ketchup.

We strolled around a bit of the exterior of the Forbidden City but with plans for a visit on Tuesday, we opted to explore a park immediately north of the former palace. 

Jingshan Park encompasses 57 beautifully maintained acres dating back 1000 years and featuring a 150-foot high hill made of material hauled over from construction of the moats and canals in and around the Forbidden City. That and four other similar, smaller peaks are all topped with centuries-old, elaborate pavilions once used by officials for gathering and leisure. A climb to the top of the Wansui (Long-Life or Ten-Thousand Year) Hill gave us our first glimpse at locals worshipping and afforded a wonderful bird’s-eye view of the Forbidden City.  


In what will be a running theme in the blog, we also delighted in our first lost-in-translation Chinglish. Enjoy along with us, won't you? 

Since it was Sunday, many people weren’t working and instead were gathered in groups singing songs accompanied by traditional instruments (though we did hear a rousing accordion version of “Roll Out the Barrel” from one corner), doing tai chi, dancing or engaging in some other form of exercise. One popular activity is kicking around the jian zi, a cross between a hacky-sack and a badminton birdie. Many ladies twice my age were more adept at keeping it aloft than any of us will ever hope to be but we bought one of our own so we can start practicing. In fact, most of the people relaxing at the park seemed to be “grandmas and grandpas” as Quinn says. We figure the weekend is their time for themselves as the grandparents usually take care of the kids on weekdays while mom and dad are working.

We were initiated into celebrity life as we could hardly walk a few steps without being asked to have a picture taken. Walking around with the kids here is like being with Tom Hanks. Heads turn everywhere we go and people nudge their companions to share the sight. If they don’t ask us to take a picture with them or their kids, they have one sidle up on the sly and then snap a photo. It’s unusual to see blond hair, let alone a family of five. Of course, when the kids open their mouths to say hello in Mandarin and then respond to questions, the crowd really picks up. So far, they mostly enjoy being ambassadors of goodwill, happily answering questions and posing for photos. Betsy says she usually gets the same amount of attention but people are less likely to approach her or ask her to come over when she’s by herself.

One highlight of the day for us and some locals was when one offered a large paintbrush so the kids could try their hand at writing characters on the sidewalk. I doubt anyone expected Quinn to write her Chinese name and the characters for “Chinese” so beautifully! Each of the kids had a go as the people around us beamed.

They quickly dispersed after she wrote some controversial statements on Taiwan/China relations.

It is extremely humid here this time of year with temperatures in the high nineties so we beat the midday heat with the first of our almost daily visits to a hotel pool. After cooling off, we entered the heat again to meet up with some wonderful new friends that Xander's 4th-grade teacher, Lixia Shi, electronically introduced us to prior to our visit.

Sun Miao picked us up from our hotel and drove us to her office on the grounds of the Zhi Hua (Wisdom-Attained) Temple, a 600-year old Buddhist construction. The complex contains one of the only wooden structures and group of buildings from the Ming dynasty to remain intact in Beijing, and provided our first close-up view of traditional, nail-free Chinese architecture. It’s amazing to imagine the artisans assembling the hand-hewn pieces like a giant three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle and to see it standing strong after all these years. Thanks to our hostess and her friends, we gained access to the second-story of the main temple too view more of the rarely-seen 10,000 gold leaf-covered Buddha statues and had all of our questions about the history of the temple answered. (Photography is not allowed in side the temples.)

We fondly remember tossing around a football (American) with some friends of the Miao family after the tour and a spot of tea. We taught a father and son to throw spirals and when Abu caught a tight one from his dad on a slant route, we all raised our hands in triumph! 

They were flagged for holding but it was still a nice play.

Sun, her husband and seven-year-old son Bo Han then welcomed us into their home where Sun's parents had been working all day to prepare a tremendous home-cooked meal in our honor. 

This was an amazing opportunity to see the daily life of a Beijing family with some gracious and inquisitive hosts. We enjoyed dumplings (jiao zi) and noodles (mien tiao) along with other delights and great conversation as we compared and contrasted home, school and work life in the U.S. and China. Bo Han got out his English workbook and read some passages for us. 

“Banana starts with B. Yellow is the banana.” Direct quote.

It was tremendously eye-opening to see how this happy family of five shares a living space about half the size of our basement. A small apartment in the city can easily run the equivalent of US$1600 per month. The meal they produced was even more amazing when we saw the kitchen (with a single sink and no dishwasher) where two people could barely fit side by side. 

A meal worthy of a fine dining establishment is cooked every day right here.

The rest of the apartment is a main living/dining area that also has three beds, a single separate bedroom, a thin balcony and a bathroom. The bathing area consists of a shower curtain and a stack of five basins on the floor. Our hosts accepted us proudly into their home and we felt the warmth, friendliness and comfort of a family that lives, loves and laughs together. It was a night we’ll never forget and some day we hope to return the favor in some way. 

Until next time, friends…

Who's bad? Here are three candidates.