Today I awoke to another dusty day to frame my visit to the world-renowned Army of the Terracotta soldiers. I shall spare you the grim details of the local bus ride there (except thank you Lonely Planet for misplacing the bus station on your map). Two thousand years ago this Emperor cleverly foresaw his eventual death and had thousands of soldiers sculpted from clay in order to fight for him in the afterlife. Life is a battle, death is a battle, after death is another battle. Only a man could think this way. He must have started this project as soon as he was old enough to shout an order. And I don’t even have a will but, hey, I’m a Boomer. I eat right and exercise. Who knows? Maybe they’ll think of something to eternally postpone that day of doom. Speaking of eating, as I returned too late to see another tomb, I returned to the Muslim Quarter for further food studies. That place has the most numerous, varied, succulent and unusual street food I’ve ever seen. Block after block, there are women rolling out pastry, stirring up stew, stir-frying fresh veggies, rice and tofu, deep-frying patties and selling … Continue reading →

Do I have to like every place I visit? I hope not. Fortunately my original plan to take an airport bus to the town center and then a taxi to my hotel, the Jinjiang Inn, was derailed by an insistent taxi driver. Otherwise I never would have gotten there as there actually is no transport in Shanghai. No transport! Let me be clear. Walking is an obstacle course as the whole city is a construction site. Yet more skyscrapers, desperately-needed metro stops, luxury hotels and new plumbing lines are under construction day and night. Buses have information exclusively in Chinese and are unusable for foreigners. The metro lines are nowhere near sufficient and are far from anything a tourist would want to see. For taxis the demand far outstrips the supply. Even if you manage to find one (good luck with that) they will not take you any distance less than 2km. Driving? Traffic is legendary here. Cars, motorcycles and fearless cyclists are entangled in a slow-moving knot on every street that thins out only slightly for the three daily hours between the interminable “rush hours”. And the noise! Drivers think nothing of driving an entire block leaning on the … Continue reading →