Lost and Sweaty in Shanghai

Today was mostly a low-key day except for one very stressful hour this morning. Caitlin and I met at 6:30 for a run. Our goal was the People's Park, and I had scoped out the map to figure out our route there and back. We set off (at a brisk pace because Caitlin is fast) and quickly got to our first landmark: a sculpture garden. We took a turn or two around there before setting our sights on the massive People's Park. We found it a few blocks later with no problems. Then it was 15-20 minutes of looping through the park. We saw the usual: tai chi exercises, old people walking backwards, men "walking their birds," random small carnival rides, badminton games, etc. Then we thought we'd leave the park and run our final mile back to the hotel and then walk the final few blocks to cool off.

After what seemed like forever, but was only about 9 minutes, Caitlin's GPS watch bleeped, signaling that I could finally start walking. (NOTE: I should start running faster instead of shuffling along like I usually do.) Strangely, during our last mile, we didn't see anything familiar, and we passed over a large overpass and a waterway which had not been there on our outbound journey. In our sweaty, dehydrated, early morning haze, we didn't think anything of it. I thought we were headed west, back toward the hotel, and in a block or two we'd hit a familiar cross road. Well, about 10 minutes passed and nothing looked familiar. At this point, it was almost 7:30, and we were due to meet the group in the hotel lobby, showered and breakfasted, at 8:15. Caitlin pulled out her hotel key card and we figured that some of the Chinese characters on the card were probably our address, and we'd best start asking for help.

We walked up to the next man we saw: a typical man in China, sitting on his stool outside his shop, not wearing a shirt. We pointed to what we hoped was the address and made question-faces as best we cold. He pointed us back in the direction we had been walking and chattered away in Chinese, signaling the numbers 10, 4, and 7...they use a cool sign language for numbers here. OK, so we were maybe 10, or 4, or 7 blocks away?

At this point it we started to run again. Ugh. We proceeded to ask two more people for directions. One man pulled a Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz and pointed in two opposite directions. I'm sure he was probably telling us we could walk one direction or catch a bus in the other, but when you don't understand any Chinese, pointing in two directions doesn't help.

At 7:40 we asked another man, and he had a bit of English, and he told us we were too far to walk and needed to take the subway. Caitlin and I looked at each other, thinking, how are we too far away, we ran here! With still no real idea of where to go, no phone, no money, and limited time, we decided to hail a cab.

I'm sure our cab driver hates us. We got in and pointed to the "address," and crossed our fingers hoping that's what it really was. In my mind I was worrying that maybe it was some general address for a whole chain of hotels and our driver was going to take us clear across the city and we had no money to pay him or call someone for help. This fear was further inflamed when we got onto the highway. The highway! We had run for less than 40 minutes! We tried to ask the cab driver if the hotel was near or far, but he didn't speak English. So, we just held on tight and stared at our watches.

The thing with this Fulbright trip is, it's free, but you DON'T miss lectures. As the minutes ticked by, we had to start thinking that we were going to be the jerks who showed up late and drenched in sweat while everyone waited and worried for us.

Finally, we turned on to Shaanxi Road. Our hotel is on Shaanxi Road! Woohoo! We pulled up to the hotel and Caitlin sprinted up to her room to grab some cash while I sat uncomfortable and sweating into the guy's seats. At 7:59, Caitlin raced back out with some cash. As she shoved it toward the driver, I yelled, "Xiexie, xiexie, xiexie!" (Thank you, thank you, thank you!) and jumped out of the car. All that was left of us was two person-shaped sweat marks on his back seat.

Taking the stairs two at a time, I raced to the 4th floor, showered, and changed before sweeping through the breakfast buffet grabbing what I could in about 30 seconds. Hair dripping, still sweating, we made it into the lobby right on time. I forgot to grab a packet of instant coffee, and Caitlin forgot deodorant.

Later we looked at a map and realized that we left the park heading north rather than heading east, and that got us all turned around. We actually weren't too far from the hotel, but it was good that we got a cab because we definitely would have been late if we'd stayed on foot.

Lessons:

1. If you plan to run home on Nanjing Road, make sure you ARE running home on Nanjing Road.
2. It's not a bad idea to shove a $20 in your pocket when you're running in an unfamiliar city. Maybe you'll need it for a cab rescue, or maybe you'll have time to stop at Starbucks instead!
3. Sometimes having a little adventure before 8am makes the whole day a bit better.

We also had a great lecture today where we got to hear from actual teachers about their teaching practices. Shanghai leads China and much of the world in education, and these teachers were some of the top teachers in Shanghai, so these people knew their stuff!

We also visited an art museum in a crazy modern building. Then it was an afternoon in a shopping/eating district. Aside from the first hour and a half of my day, it was all pretty relaxing and uneventful.

Tomorrow is quite lecture-heavy, but on Thursday we have the night river cruise!

This is the China Art Museum. It is massive. I wish there was something in this photo to give it scale, but the entryway alone there is probably 2-3 stories high.