Melted in Shanghai!

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday I melted in Shanghai. It was sooooo hot and humid! We had a free day,
so I used it to get oriented in the city. I found the little B&B I'll
be staying in the last few days before coming home. It's in a really good area,
right around the corner from the Hilton. Nice shops around and an attached restaurant
that serves 'fusion-style' food. A mixture of East and West.

I went to the Best Buy today because the group has been trying to figure out a nice
gift for Prof. Rick and Ming. Most thought that a GPS similar to mine would be
great. Some of them say it's a 'guy-magnet' : ) In Guiyang, people
were always asking what the elevation was. It's really nice here in Shaghai
as well, because I can know which is N, S, E or W to figure out which side of the
road to go to get a taxi. Well, anyway, even here in Shanghai, they don't have
anothing similar.

Taxi's are really the way to go here in Shanghai. I read about a man who got
crushed to death on the subway a few days ago, because the doors were not closing
correctly, so I don't think I want to give that a try. You see, the Chinese
do not know how to line up in an orderly fashion. Once a month, they have an 'orderly
queu day', it's on the 11th of every month I think. Well, even then, they
don't....they always want to push to the first and front of whereever, and us
Americans are shoved and pushed to the back of the line. It's pretty weird,
really. Cause most times, they push up to the front of whatever and then have to
wait...anyyway, taxis are cheap and fast, I took four taxis today for a total of
about 80 yuan (about $10). A couple of drivers tried to sucker me, one asked for
200 yuan to travel probably less than 2 miles. You have to make sure they start
the meter and then always get a reciept when you pay, and there's no tipping.
It works
well, you just have to get the place you want to go written down in Chinese. I
have a book that has the Chinese words written so I did OK.

Also, today I went to the Old City to see the Yu Gardens, typical Chinese-style
gardens, surrounded, of course, by commercialism. I wormed my way into a tiny HaagenDaas
when I was about melted to the size of a Chinese child and nursed a mango milkshake
for an hour in the AC. I have a really good photo of it, but as usual I am experiencing
technical difficulties. I will try to get some photos posted by tomorrow night.
My earthlink won't come up here in the room, but will come up down in the business
center. But this hotel charges alot to use the internet, so I have to go in an
be really prepared to get things done quickly. I'm writing this from Yahoo
and will send it to my Earthilink, upload to my blog and try to upload a few photos
quickly.

Finished my last lecture yesterday!!! : ) The people going on to Hong Kong have
about 5 or six more lectures to look forward to, but the rest of us gave a "BIG'
hurrah at the end of the last one yesterday. Tomorrow we visit the new Shanghai
Museum which is supposed to be really good. yesterday, we visited the 'Pearl
of the Orient' and did the museum on the history of Shanghai. Very well done,
it was. Also, tomorrow we visit the Bund and, I forget what else. So I will send
photos when I can. Hopefully, I won't melt away completely, but dang, it is
HOT!!! Looking ofrward to lots of swimming soon! I probably will not get out of
the pool for days!!! Remind me next January how hot I was in Shanghai...

Hope everyone is well...Matt...write....Give Mika and Cap't Jack a hug for me...Love
Steph