ALIVE IN SHANGHAI

Meri and I almost had a heart attack last night, certain we must have died somewhere along the way from Mongolia to China because the train last night was heaven. It made my head explode, the stark comparison to the Russian trains we'd been riding on. THE TRAIN LAST NIGHT WAS NICER THAN MOST AIRPLANES I HAVE TAKEN. Everything was WHITE and CLEAN and NEW and smelled good and was synthetic duvets and not 8,923,979,238 goose feather mattresses that smell of the babushka who slept on it before you and it was COOL and they a gave you complimentary water and slippers and there were MINI TVS WITH HEADPHONES...????? We were in a state of hysterical shock. China is nuts. But I love it. We've met a couple of people -- one guy from Maine, about Genny's age -- who have just up and moved to China without knowing any Chinese and they love it..... new life plan for after Wellesley??? I could probably use my Russian in China somewhere, right? We've now seen a total of SIX Russian tourists here and each time it blows my mind -- two women in a nail salon, one of whom was of Chinese descent, then an old man climbing the Great Wall by himself, and then a younger shirtless (of course) Russian man on the top of the Great Wall who asked us to take his photo for him and then we got him to take our photo (ON TOP OF THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA AND OUR PHOTO WAS TAKEN BY A RUSSIAN, HOW APPROPRIATE) and before doing so he didn't know where to put his empty water bottle so he just chucked it over the side of the Great Wall (typical) and then three women in the Summer Palace, strolling and chatting in Russian.... anyway, now we are in Shanghai, as I said. It's different from Beijing -- fewer Russian-Soviet vibes, much more vertical, much more like New York or a big Western City, while only parts of Beijing were like that while the rest was one storey small houses like Irkutsk or Ulan-Udye -- and full of banks and seems less artsy, but it should still be good despite the fact that it is even HOTTER and even more HUMID than Beijing. After Russia, this is a huge huge HUGE change. Anyway, that is all for now. Thanks again to Mr. C.R. Bartels, Jr. for posting again... soon enough I'll be out and then can post again on my own, seeing what they are like in Japan...

-- e.b.