Shanghai and Some Change

Though we were sad to leave all the wonderful aspects of Grandma’s house, we opted to leave Friday with a free ride back to Shanghai rather than to stay a few more days and then have to pay for a bus back to Shanghai later. We had managed to secure train tickets for four days after we arrived, as well as places to stay, given that it was still the holiday, and we didn’t have internet at Grandma’s.

After arriving in Shanghai, we managed to remember what line our hotel was on so that we could be dropped off by a subway station for that line. Then we miraculously remembered the stop that we would need to get off on. We even guessed the correct exit and made it to our hotel and checked in with no trouble. This seemed like a huge accomplishment for us, given the trouble we’ve had with some of these aspects in previous cities thus far. We decided that since it was still early that we’d find some dinner, then find our hostel that we’d have to move to the next day. All this accomplished before 9:30pm so we could walk around at our leisure checking out the river-walk where we would be running for the next few days and even buy some fruit for breakfast the next morning!

The remainder of the time in Shanghai was spent fighting with the hidden ISP service and the internet and the blog, trying to send emails, eating some of our favorite street food, and running. There was also a hefty amount of thinking done.

As I said, we have train tickets leaving Shanghai and heading to Zhengzhou on the 9^th. We are heading there to begin the process of learning tai qi. We will spend a month at a school learning and then practicing our new skills. We will spend about 7 hours a day training, 6 days a week. This much is planned. This much is certain. This much is a first for us. We haven’t had more than a day’s worth of plans ahead of us since we left. Now we have a whole month’s worth!

Trying this change on for size, some of the thinking that’s been done lately is along the lines of trying on some other changes. Some such changes include a change of country after we finish tai qi—and not just to restart our 90 days in China. Another is a change to this blog, or rather I should say, how we are blogging. But this will be revealed in the coming days. So stay tuned folks, we’ve got some exciting things on the horizon.