Scenic walking route in Shanghai

Today was filled with presentations in the conference room of the hotel. AmCham, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, talked about doing business and living in China. They help Americans set up businesses in Shanghai and to develop networks. They have many different international locations—will be interesting to see if they have any offices in Latin America. Laurie Underwood, who wrote China CEO, and an ND alum from Hawaii gave the presentation and Q&A. We ate lunch at the Mei Lin Ge (Motel 168) motel, Merrylin restaurant. Afternoon, we had a presentation by Dr. Harvey Chen from First Light Academy, GEM group, who talked about the changing dynamics of China and the business climate.

We then had 1.5 hours of free time so Adam, Megan, Solstice and I took a walking tour to find a nearby temple. Never found the temple and we learned that you can’t just make 4 left turns and return to your originating point in Shanghai. We walked through a small city park and saw people practicing ballroom dancing. We ended up getting lost and thought we could just hail a cab to return to our hotel. But, the major flaw was that it was 5:30pm and every cab was full. We must have seen 75-100 cabs go by. I chased a cab dropping some people off in a hotel alley, but tunred out the cabbie was from the suburbs, and didn’t know our hotel location. Fortunately, a man and his 4-year-old son came up to us. He knew English and wanted to try to help us talk to the cabbie. After the cab didn’t work, he volunteered to walk with us to get us on track back to the hotel. Very nice man and it was almost like he was an angel. We had 15 minutes to return to the hotel and board the bus. The fact that it was not just an older man by himself, made it less suspicious of any other motives than genuine altruism.

Went to dinner at Si Chun, which had a lot of spicy food. Yum! No one really ate the bowl of small fish with heads on. The shrimp here are served whole. They didn’t look very appetizing and they taste very fishy. The Chinese opera performance was actually a dancer that magically changed masks while he danced. About 25-30 different masks…it was amazing.

Rode the bus back to the hotel and Gabe, Megan, Adam, Pauline and I went to the Crystal Bar next to the hotel. Was about ready to leave when 5 others arrived at the bar and we stayed another 75-90 minutes more. Megan thought maybe she was served a knockoff liquor.