Resting

SY and I arrived in Shanghai yesterday, and are staying in a great little hotel. It reminds me of places like Best Western or Red Roof Inn, though at 300 RMB ($37) it's not nearly as cheap on a PPP basis (purchasing power parity).

Today we're just resting, trying to relax, and exploring the area known as Xujiahui (徐家汇, more on that here). We went to McDonald's in the evening, but that didn't turn out to be such a grand experience because of the more localized nature of the chicken sandwich -- it's a lit greasier and more closely resembles actual chicken meat. Finding myself surprisingly more American than I realized, I discovered I prefer the thoroughly processed stuff.

Western menus are harder to deal with in China than in Korea. If you can read Hangeul (which once you get the hang of is a bit like reading Spanish) you can handle yourself in Korea. You can even try saying stuff like "ice cream" in English, since that's an import word.

You can't do that in China. If you don't know the character, you can't read the menu. They get around this my pulling out a menu from behind the counter that you can point to, but I don't like that -- I'd like to be able to improve my skills by learning the characters. SY's more humble than me in this respect -- she has no problem with the much simpler and much more effective "Zhe ge, yi ge. Zhe ge, yi ge (This. One. This. One.)"

This brings up another issue. With that tactic she gets stares from people who don't understand why this Chinese-looking lady can't speak or understand Chinese. Though she knows how to explain that she's Korean, doing this with everyone she meets is going to get a little tedious.

With the free internet access in the hotel, we were able to download and use Skype for the first time, which was exciting. We called our families and chatted for a bit, and let them know we're doing OK.

Tomorrow, we meet our guide from Triworks (her name is Seven) at the wee early morning hour of 7:30 to talk to landlords about renting an apartment. With Shanghai as humid as it is, it doesn't seem like a lot of fun.