Shanghai 2005
Posts and such from my trip to Shanghai, October, 2005.
I've done my best to stay within a 2 square kilometer area of the city I can -- there's no wanderlust in me. So if anything, I've got a very small view of a very big city. How big? Try 41,000 square kilometers. About 12 million people live here. Of them, I'd say I know maybe 25 of them somewhat. Most of these have been my students. They've been good to me and I've enjoyed being here with them. The others are the hotel staff. In short, what I know of China isn't much different than it was where I got there. For all the other things I've had to say about the place, this one thing is true: I've actually seen, felt, smelled and tasted so little of it that I shouldn't talk much about things in a general sense.
If you somebody like me: Not from a huge city, not very adventuresome and more interested in your work that doing the tourist thing, coming to Shanghai is going to be a mixed experience. Its easy to get overwhelmed. The sheer scale of things here is impressive. There's a crush to things like I've only experienced in places like New York and Chicago. And I suppose the less of it you see, the more magnified these things become. I think I'd probably not mind coming back as a tourist -- provided I had a good guide and stayed in the part of town. Its taken me five days to get comfortable with it.
Signing off from Shanghai, next posting from Omaha.
... and I've not found much.
You'd think that being as much of a fan as I am of Food and, particularly Asian cuisines, I'd be in heaven here in Shanghai. Sorry, try again.
For the most part. I'm finding the food to be fairly bland. For example, last night I tried "Sushi Tei," a rather large traditional Tokyo-style Sushi bar and restaurant. I wouldn't say I was disappointed in the food, but Zach and his team back in Omaha don't have much to worry about from these folks. Even the Baby Octopus in Spicy Brown Sauce as... bland.
Now that's not to say that all of the food here is that way. For example, I went looking for "the Peoples' Cola," which is actually call "Fei Chang," or "Very Special" Cola. What I grabbed instead was a Vanilla Coke. It was probably the most pronounced flavor of anything I've had here yet. Well, there's been more thing. On the route between the Microsoft offices and the Hotel, there's an actual Western style Coffee house. And I had an honest-to-goodness Mocha last night. Strong and sweet and bitter all at the same time.
I'm even more reminded of this in something I saw on my way back to the Hotel, Mocha in hand. By the fountain I mentioned yesterday, there was an area set and what sounded like electronica-meets-traditional Chinese music was blaring over tower mounted speakers. In a well-light area near by, fifty, maybe sixty couples were dancing. But they were doing Western dance. I recognized what some were waltzing, some were Tangoing and a few were fox-trotting. And none of them looked happy to be doing it. Utterly bizarre to me. Maybe they were and I just couldn't tell.
There's an old Foodie adage that I suppose I really should be keeping in mind before lamenting too much. "Flavor is where you find it." Maybe I just need to look harder.
Same but different. How Rod's words ring in my ears even over here.
Yesterday I asserted that Shanghai is much like a mix of Chicago and New York. I'm going to stick with that story, but I'm starting to notice the lack of some things that let you know you're not in Nebraska any more.
- Birds. I suppose this makes a lot of since when you stop to consider the Avian Flu, but I've have yet to see a Bird around that wasn't a duck.
- Coffee. I think I'm lucky that hotel I'm staying even serves coffee as I've seen very little of it elsewhere in this part of Shanghai. The hotel serves it up, but in Espresso sized mugs. Makes me want to go grab pot and warmer and move up to my room.
- Water. The drinking water here -- at least for us from the West -- is found in plastic bottles. Hard to get a full glass of the stuff with a meal.
But then Shanghai is a big city. Just how big? Here's another view of it, taken from the elevator lobby on the 17th floor of my hotel.
Not much new to report from a touristy point of view. Walked home last night along the park-side of Hengshen Lu and found this fountain, a gift from the people of France. The photo just doesn't do it justice.
If you want to skip to the good part, start here: http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/photos/ktegels/category1064.aspx
So after more than 15 hours in the air, I finally made it to Shanghai about 2300 local time last night. Staying the the Regal International on Hengshen Lu. The city really reminds me of a cross between Chicago (you can just feel that this is a working person's city) and New York City (horribly aggressive traffic, but one difference -- there's no law against blowing your horn here.) And while there's lots of cars and taxes and buses,
My day started like it usually does around 0530. I'm pretty sure that locals stay thin by walking (I'm doing the 2km to the Microsoft Office on foot, thank you) and riding bikes. Even the bicyclists are pretty aggressive. You'd better stop as they won't.
A long the way, I pass by Xu Jia *** Garden. Its like a public park, I guess. Very nice piece of peaceful green in the middle of all the chaos around it. I also walked by the French Embassy, a police station (there's a lot of police here and man do they chew people out), and a phone booth. I also go by a KFC and a McDonalds. Oh well, guess I won't go too hungry -- too bad there's not a Taco Johns though.
I got lost a bit on my way home, but sort of enjoyed that. Walked by a fruit stand tended to by a very nice young Lady who quite didn't understand why I wanted to take pictures of her produce. I have no clue how to say "Sorry, I'm a foodie and this is fascinating to me. I want to eat it all" in Shanghanese. It looked pretty tempted, but I passed, at least for now. I also walked by a statue dedicated to the thousands of Chinese who helped build the American Trans-Continental Railway. The Statue itself is made from over 3,000 spikes.
One of the very cool things about working with DevelopMentor is that I've gotten a lot of airline miles built up. So far this year I've been too:
- New York twice
- Denver
- Atlanta
- Las Angeles three times, one for PDC
- Orlando for TechEd
- Dallas twice, once for PASS and the MVP Summit
But tomorrow is by far my longest trip. I'm off to Shanghai to teach Essential SQL Server 2005 at the Microsoft Offices for five days. While I'm dreading the flight (its at least twenty-hours from Omaha to Shanghai going via Detriot and Toyko), I'm looking forward to being someplace I've never been before. I probably won't be blog much technical for the next few days, but I will be posting my trip notes and photos on this blog. Specifically:
Blog posts about this trip: http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/ktegels/archive/category/1063.aspx (RSS: http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/ktegels/rss.aspx?CategoryID=1063)
Photos (feed): http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/photos/ktegels/category1064.aspx (RSS: http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/photos/ktegels/1064/pictures_rss.aspx)
When I get back, I have a few days to adjust then I'm off to Boston to teach this class again (love to see you in it, details at http://www.develop.com/training/course.aspx?id=180), then a brief rest and I'm back to LA to do it again. on November 28, Niels and I will be team up to deliver DevelopMentor's famous Guerrilla SQL Server 2005 in London (http://www.develop.com/training/course.aspx?id=231) and I must say that I'm eager for that. Finally: If you're in the Redmond area, we'll be rolling into the Microsoft Conference Center the week of 12/12 as well (http://www.develop.com/training/course.aspx?id=245)
Note to my fellow Microsoft MVPs: Don't forget that DevelopMentor wants you share in the fun (http://www.develop.com/press/MVPProgram.pdf)! Please let me know if you are interested in taking advantage of this offer for our Boston or LA Essential SQL Server 2005 offerings.