down dogs

Yesterday I took my first metro ride and met Sean near his office (that area is called Lu Wan). The entrance to the subway is a couple blocks from our apartment, and I only had to take one line, so it was easy. Overall, I haven’t felt like things are too crowded for a city of 30 million people. Our neighborhood is very quiet–mostly home furnishing stores. I didn’t get a seat on the metro, but I wasn’t squished, either.

Lu Wan is “fancier”–lots of upscale goods stores (Apple Store, Cartier, Tiffany, Coach, etc.) and people were a little less casually dressed. There was a UNIQLO store off the metro stop–I don’t know why I find UNIQLO so exciting to spot, but I do. . . . There was also a Dunkin Donuts, so I witnessed the alleged Bonito Flake donut in person. (See pic below–top shelf)

Generally things are more expensive here or about the same. We went to IKEA the other day. The store is exactly the same as in MN, but the turns of the hallways are opposite–very confusing! The prices mostly were more expensive than at home.

Sean did not take me to Tiffany’s, but instead for a bowl of hand-pulled noodles (we saw the guy do it–so cool) in a sesame/spicy peanut soup. Then we walked around the neighborhood’s man-made lake, which was nice. Notable here were two boys who kept walking inside the DANGER line, talking and laughing, and eventually one threw his ice cream stick in the water (I *knew* he was gonna do that!) and the other boy farmer’s-blowed his nose into the lake–you’ll see a pic of them below, one with his arm around the other, laughing after that triumphant moment. Too funny.

Also exciting in the area of the “lake” were several funny dogs–IN DOWN JACKETS! One with hoodie even! That dog looked a lot like Fozzy the Bear and it was hard to not stay and watch him frolic all day. Hooray for cuteness!

Off the lake is a neighborhood that looks old-school Shanghai, but it somewhat recreated (Sean was unsure to what extent, but we think maybe a mix of original and new building materials) called Xin Tian Di. Shops in this area included: Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, a Thai restaurant, Starbucks, some fancy Italian chocolates/pastries, massage spa, and some tapas bars. Oh and Haagen Dazs. So, yes, old and new!

Speaking of massage, last night we walked all over the place looking for massage. The place one of the roommates liked recently closed. He told us this just as we walked out the door (boo hoo). There is a “silent” massage place not too far that was closed for renovation–we wonder if that is a blind massage place (there is a tradition in many parts of Asia of blind massage therapists.) We’ll have to check again in a few weeks. And there are lots of other “massage” places that give you the feeling they are not really massage. So we tried to identify suspicious factors: overly-blinky signs, open 24-hours, completely closed off windows, certain Japanese phrases, etc. We did end up getting decent foot massages right next to our building, within a hotel. Not sure what all goes on in that particular place, but I thought the woman who worked on me had a style similar to shiatsu, so that is awesome. She said she was from Sizchuan province and Sean’s therapist was from Hunan. I think we’ll go back there another time. They also advertised cupping, Chinese medical massage, and something like traditional Chinese massage.

Okay, here are the cute dogs + more! (I haven’t figured out how to add captions when not on the computer, so real quick–there is also a view of the subway, a dude whose collapsible shop doubles as a chair (fantastic!), DD, a man doing tai chi, the Xin Tian Di area, apple store crowd, etc.)

–J

(the Apple Store)