Sardine Central - Shanghai

The good news is that Will bought me a nice small digital camera, the bad news is that the instructions are in chinese. So I'm still trying to figure it out and then how to download the pictures. Will is out of town until Saturday so I was on my own again today.

Today I hung out with Amy Klibaner (as we all know and love her "Asian Amy" - our other friend Amy Mckinley is known as "white Amy" - coined by Patty's driver Samuel). Amy K is from NYC and is a big time foodie. She has been in Shanghai less than a year and goes back to NYC often so it suprises us all on how she knows were all these great restuarants are. We met for lunch at this cool little Mediterranean place in the French Concession area of town - the cool groovy part of town - mix of rich and poor, clubs, hip restaurants, shopping). I'll get pictures soon I promise. After lunch we spent 3 hours walking around where Amy lives - it is such a vibrant place. We then stopped off for gellato and then went to get a massage. Not bad, right? I'm not finished yet!

The most fun I had was on the way home - it always seems to happpen to me that way. I decided to be a local and take the metro (subway). I made it to the entrance and realized that it was 6pm on Friday - RUSH HOUR. Metro 1 is like the locals metro and even during the day it is packed. So what do I mean by packed. I have never been able to get a seat. Today was WORSE! I have never seen so many people packed in. You definitely didn't need to hang on to ANYTHING because we were packed in there so tight - like barely breathable. It was EXCITING - well it was exciting because I knew I only had 2 stops before I could get off - and when I did - I was basically shoved off from behind with all the people following me - I was a rock star shoving back through the crowd while another crowd was getting on. Sardine Central alright. But I made it back and am sitting here with a bowl of cereal (my favorite) and a Heiniken - it was that or Tsing Dao (which I'm sooo over) or budweiser which the locals actually like. I'm going to go put in my ripped off DVD of Memoirs of a Geisha (since Will won't watch it with me) and tuck myself into bed! Sweet Dreams of Will coming home tomorrow and telling him we have an Ayi!