time, curiosity, a naive smile and a “ni hao”: my current top assets

First off I must note that IT’S SNOWING!!!  It’s not supposed to snow in Shanghai, so this is very exciting.  It’s sort of rain-to-snow, so it won’t accumulate, but it’s still a thrill.  To celebrate my northern pride at this meteorological episode, I am listening to Prince as I type this post.

Yesterday I spent the bulk of the afternoon retracing our steps around the neighborhood, testing whether I could return to places we’d been without getting terribly lost.  Success!  As I walked around I thought about how, at least until school starts, time, curiosity, and a naive smile with a “ni hao” are my greatest assets right now.  This means I can spend my day playing games like:

* can I find IKEA again?  (my first trip was following along after Sean in the deepest fog of travel and jet lag)

* can I make that old man or woman in padded clothing smile back at me?

*  can I squeeze through this small space in a crowd without actually bumping into anyone?

* can I successfully pantomime that I’d like a napkin (not hand sanitizer?)

I am at the fun time when I bumble around illiterate and mostly unknowing, able to avoid small talk or much responsibility.  The novelty inevitably wears off, but it’s fun for awhile.  Probably ’til about Sunday, which is good because Monday school starts, and then I have to get down to business with being Responsible with the Chinese Language.  I finalized my registration and picked up my schedule and books today!

But here I am in limbo time and that means I also come up with projects like “Take a Picture at Every One of the 30(ish) Floors from Our Apartment to the Ground,” which I completed–lucky for you!  I say “30-ish” because they skip 13, which you’ve probly seen before, but they also skip any floor with a “4″ in it, because the word for 4 sounds  a lot like the word for death!  (Sounds approx. like “Tss”).  I don’t know what happens in a building with floors into the forties–I’ll keep an eye out and report back.

So here is your pictorial tour from our outer door to the ground floor lobby and out the front door!  It’s subtly–mainly you’ll notice a building across the way getting shorter and shorter.  But the light changes, too, if you watch closely.  (It would be great for some sort of flip book–tap gently on the slideshow and you get that effect).  One floor had no window, as you’ll see.  One floor either had food  or vomit (also food, I guess) tossed against the wall, but I am sparing you that image (which I shall never forget).  The floors also got taller as I reached the bottom, so I had to hold my phone over my head.  Incidentally, the office is on the 8th floor–they had a tall green planter at the entrance to that floor (not pictured).  Oh, hm–8 is a lucky number here, I think–I wonder if that is just a coincidence?  I’ll keep you posted on any #8 developments as well.  (I did take it as good luck that I am in the #8 group for beginner Chinese.  Why not?)

I think the snow and Prince are making me ramble.  On to the pictures!

–J

p.s. tons of pics have been going up on twitter–you can see that feed on the jk.com home page