American in Shanghai

Finding a good map of Shanghai has not been easy. The best ones I have seen so far are on http://www.travelchinaguide.com/map/shanghai/shanghai.htm and the latest English subway map (same site) is http://www.travelchinaguide.com/images/map/shanghai/subway-map.jpg Here is a link to Shanghai bus routes in English and are pretty much up to date http://msittig.wubi.org/bus/ Sorry I cannot hypertext these links at the moment -- I am limited posting only text for now. Ditto for adding any pictures.

The good thing about China's internet blockers is that it trains many of us on new ways to use the internet if we are determined to do so. Hence I am able to post now. I believe that helping pave the way for others' success is one of life's important meanings. If you are someone in China that needs a way to your blog, email me.

Friday at 4:00 I took off from work, backpack in tow, for the subway on my trek to find a way to go fishing in clean water somewhere near Shanghai. I was looking for a good place to fish in water where the catch can be safely eaten. My search took me to Zhoushan, where there is a series of islands to the southeast of Shanghai. I do not own a private car in Shanghai so I opted to take line 2 of the subway, then changed to line 4 to the Luwan Bridge station where I bought a bus/ferry combination ticket to Shenjiamen, one of the main ferry ports of Zhoushan. Luckily I was in time to get a bus leaving at 5:30 for the 4-5 hour trip (which actually ended up taking 6 hours.) Unluckily I had to change my seat because some families with babies had got the tickets for the front of the bus. I got seat 25, which was sandwiched between a mom and her 18-or-so month old girl in front and the husband/father seated behind me. This was the most talkative and energetic 18 month old I’ve ever seen.

Be careful how you copy an idea. When something is a cute gimmick for one organization, for another to take the exact same idea is pretty obvious. Take Cleveland Opera, whose blog I follow. It has its 'chicken' spokesman. It's cute, it works, it's fun. Now my local Yakima Symphony has suddenly out of the mysterious blue taken on its own ugly "Teddy's Tales," by a spoiled looking doggy. I am not amused and I think it is entirely unclever. On the home front I have a new recipe to add to my cookbook project: Fiery Pasta Verde! Perhaps this project will be my impetus for inspiration throughout the year. I am still shying away from another writing project although I did get one lonely little idea for working on that too. I am in the middle of reading Sydney Rittenberg's "The Man Who Stayed Behind" of his personal accounts of his work in China, working with Mao Ze Dong, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De and colleagues during the revolution. It is pre