East Coasting

Back in Shanghai now. We are not staying in the Ritz Carleton this time, because Formula 1 is coming to Shanghai this weekend, and everything is booked up tight for the weekend. We are staying in a very nice hotel though, called the Jin Jiang, and we are actually close enough to walk to work in the morning. The hotel is located on a very ritzy road called Mao Ming rd. It is lined with shops that make your wallet hurt just by looking in the windows. All big time designers I've never even heard of.

Since I haven't taken any great pictures since our tour of Wuhan, I'm going to use pictures of a cool wood cabin we saw in East Lake park in Wuhan. Check out the various types of mortise and tenon joints used in its construction. There's also some interesting splices and end joints that I don't know what to call. Pretty cool! I'm still on a mission to find some really good wooden boxes though. All I can find so far are the traditional lacquered type, with boring mitre joints. Nothing hand crafted. We'll probobly hit Taikang Road, an arts street, this weekend. Hopefully we will find something there.

Jonesy, I took some pictures of lunch today, but actually this meal was kind of westernized Chinese food, so it's not the best example, and the pictures are not great anyway. I wish I had taken some pics of the food in Wuhan. Most meals go like this: one or two plates are brought to the table. Everyone has a piece or two. More dishes come in, every one takes a piece or two... repeat until the table is completely covered with dishes of all kinds. And here, they don't just put on the feedbag and chow down until full, like in America. I have to make a concerted effort to eat a little, then pause to chat, then eat, then pause, etc.

We're going to try to make it out to the Jin Mao Tower before the weekend - 1380 ft., and there is an observation deck at the top. There's also a lot of skyscraper construction going on in Pudong, the new part of Shanghai (where the Jin Mao is), where you can see welders unloading massive streams of sparks and molten steel from at least 60 stories up, and it bounces off the lower levels before disappearing. It's really spectacular and I know I won't be able to do it justice w/this camera, but I'll try.