My 4th trip back to Shanghai

After 15 months I am back in Shanghai.  This trip seems routine but things have changed.  Like the last  times I flew through San Francisco but this time I took a 777 over to China.  I prefer the 30  43 year old 747 over the 777.  My travel time was over 26 hours which may be a new record but on the bad side. Instead of the cab from the airport I took the Maglev train which gets up to 186MPH, it ends one metro stop from the D1sney bubble.   I am back in the Kerry hotel but the last time I was here the Hotel and Mall had only been open for a couple of months.  Now both are really full and the mall is finished.  It was amazing to see all the locals walking around.  On my other trips it seemed the mall was built for the Westerns staying in the hotel.  

This week I did some new things: 

• Maglev train was non-eventful, I took video out of the window but ended up deleting it.  The footage did not seem that fast from inside because it was so smooth. There were just a few bumps here and there.  On the display between cars was a speedometer display that showed the train getting right up to 300Kmh
• Had my haircut by a non-English speaking stylist
• Went to the local Hardware store, like a US Home Depot to get a small screw for a camera mount. Played a nice game of charades  with one of the thousand floor salesmen
• Took the number 7 subway to Xujiahui where there is an electronic mall.  Like Hong Kong it was overwhelming and it is not a browsing type of place so I did not stay long
• From the Electronics mall I thought I could walk up to the French Concession area, but the 15 minute walk took 90 minutes as I got lost in one of the many neighborhoods
• Had a St Patrick ’s Day eve dinner of Bangers & Mash
• Ate a Chinese currywurst for lunch
• Ate something black in my noodles and did not like it, when I asked what it was I was told it was fungi
• I found a new Singapore/Malaysian noodle dish that might be my new favorite Asian dish
• I ordered two types of curry, yellow and red, the waitress put a dish of cut watermelon on my table just out of reach.  When I finished she clapped and indicated the watermelon was in case I found it too spicy.  Seems I impressed her.

Sunday will find me resting, doing work and hopefully an hour or two on a spin trainer

Shanghai traffic near the electronic mall; this GoPro picture was from an overhead pedestrian way

My bosses window desk that I am borrowing this week