It turns out there are some additions to the last post. Something I didn't realize I missed: squirrels. They're funny.

Something I won't miss at all: The Great Firewall.  However, I am without home internet at the moment, so you may encounter a slight delay in the blog's irregular programming. Sorry!

Guess what, folks, it's time for me to head home. It's been a great adventure, but at some point I was going to have to rejoin the world of the gainfully-employed, and that time is... well, as yet indeterminate, but rapidly approaching. I still have a few things to write about, so it's not the death knell for the blog just yet, but in the interests of transparency, future entries will not in fact be Made in China.

I thought I should take some time before I leave to reflect on my stay, and the best way I could think of to share some of that summary with all of you was to give you the following Top 5 lists. (After all, who doesn't like lists?)

Five Things I Will Miss About Shanghai
1. Chinese New Year fireworks -- 'nuff said.
2. Fresh food markets everywhere
3. (Relative) proximity to a large portion of my family
4. Fish in the subway and other things on the street that make me smile. There's another pedestrian passage that has big Van Gogh paintings for billboards. I like public art. And public oddity.
5. The non-waste mentality -- everything here that can be reused in any shape or form is. It's a nice break from the consume-dispose cycle to see things valued regardless of how old or used they may be.

No specific foods on the list -- are you surprised?  Sure, I like the dumplings, but they are in fact available elsewhere.

Five Things I Won't Miss About Shanghai
1. The layer of construction dust in the air -- I'm curious to see whether the tickle I've had in my throat for the last couple months goes away. And Shanghai is among the better Chinese cities in that respect.
2. Getting run over by wheeled vehicles on the sidewalk and the no-yield driving policy
3. Smoking in the elevators (restaurants, police offices, etc), despite signs, and all customary safety regulations to the contrary
4. The smell of stinky tofu
5. Chinese TV. Honestly, it's pretty bad. I can tell even when I don't understand the dialogue, that's how bad it is.

Mmmm, fresh veggies.

Here in Shanghai, residents have the choice of shopping for produce -- and often meat, fish, and tofu -- at a supermarket (and a variety of supermarkets, at that), or the traditional way, at a wet market.

The wet market is so named because, well, it's wet. The floors are usually getting hosed down, or fish are sloshing water out of their pans, etc. Let's just say it's not somewhere you would want to wear your good clothes. A dry market, by contrast, er... well, I suppose a supermarket would count. Or it might be somewhere that sells grains and spices, but "dry market" isn't really commonly used. It's all about the wet market.

This is one of the larger wet markets near downtown Shanghai -- there's a whole 'nother double-sided aisle running parallel, where all kinds of meat pieces, products, and the like are for sale. Wet markets, by the way, are not for the faint of stomach; if you don't like thinking of what you eat as having been alive or having a face... well, in that case, you wouldn't be Chinese.

You could, however, still focus on the farmer's market aspects -- fresh, pretty local (I would bet that most items qualify for a 100-, if not 50-, mile diet), independent vendors. I hold out hope that the wet market tradition will persevere in the face of development, if only because they're still relatively popular in ultra-developed Hong Kong and Singapore (although supermarkets have definitely risen in the latter over the last decade), but with the big names -- chains like Carrefour, Tesco, Krispy Kreme, and Baskin Robbins, not to mention the fast food and restaurant places already here -- moving in apace, part of me worries that China will sacrifice a little too much in its race to catch the West, and won't be able to go back.

You might think, especially if approaching from behind, that a morning line 30 people deep was for the bus (or buses, as there are at least two that share this stop). But no, it's for the steamed bun seller.

I'm pretty sure the local Starbucks doesn't get this kind of line.

And now, for something completely different...

I'm considering using a couple of blog posts as writing samples for the inevitable applying of jobs. Some of you have professed to be regular, or semi-regular, readers of this blog, so I am enlisting your help. I have my favorites, but I'm not exactly objective -- so if you've read a fair number of entries here (more than, say, 3, and not just the pictures), I'd like your opinion. Do you have a favorite entry or three? Let me know which ones (if any!) stick out for you! You can leave a comment here or email me backchannel.

And yes, I'm aware these are not the standard writing samples. I'm not asking for best grammar, most informative (although those might be among your personal criteria) -- just the posts you liked the most.

Thanks!
LT in Big C

Yes, there are more. These ones are my faaaavorite.

Also pork, but not much broth. Both steamed and fried (simultaneously), so they have the crispy underside and the soft upper. Aside from not being soup dumplings, they also differ from the other dumplings in shape: they're closer to a crescent or half-moon shape than spherical. They're don't have the sweet tinge of sheng jian bao, and they're not quite the same taste as the xiao long bao, although I'm at a loss to describe the difference.

Guo tie aren't exclusive to this part of China, and are the dumplings that you're most likely to find in other parts of the world (they're also related to Japanese gyoza -- and, sadly, to the disturbingly named "Peking ravioli" that you find in New England), although the quality and contents can vary tremendously.

When I said "these" are my favorite, I meant the ones in the picture, from this vendor. He stands in an open stall, facing the sidewalk, so that the dumplings (and their aroma) are smack next to you. Best. Advertisement. Ever.

I think Urban Chicken WBAGNFARB.

I know this is a little late, seeing as the Olympics have been over for more than a week, but in my defense, this was from the final day.

Certain of the larger bus stops in Shanghai are outfitted with flat-screen TVs (and no, nobody tries to break them, steal them, or spray-paint them. There is something to be said for civilized society, and you may read that as you will). Most of the time, as far as I know -- it has to be said that I don't pay too much attention -- they are either off or showing ads. On a Sunday in the not too distant past, however, this one was showing the US-Spain gold-medal basketball game. It drew a much bigger crowd (I counted as many as 25 people in the last five minutes of game time) than the Chinese guy in the boxing bout that preceded it.

Why, how do you get your trees delivered?

This isn't a toilet blog, really. But sometimes I just have to share, and this is one of those times.

I recently had occasion to hang out in an airport first-class lounge (said occasion being a guest of a first-class traveler, not that my travel budget has suddenly seen a windfall), where I encountered what is either the coolest or scariest toilet I've ever seen. Really, I think it was even a step above the ones at Narita (Tokyo's airport) and Google.

The first scary-cool thing is that when you walk into the stall, the cover lifts up by itself. That's just weird and freaky, and made me want to look around to see if someone was watching with a remote control. But it's also a little geeky-cool. And good for the ultra-germ-aphobe, I suppose.

Another thing the fancy toilet does automatically is warm the seat, or maybe the seat is just kept warm 24-7. Either way, again: weird-freaky-cool.

The control panel was bad enough, but what was really intimidating was the instruction sheet glued to the wall. It all seemed very complicated for what is usually such a simple process (pull cord/press button/push handle) --just far too many options. Classic paralysis of choice. I counted 16 buttons, the only one of which I was confident in using turned out to be unnecessary, as the self-opening, self-heating toilet is also self-flushing. But I did feel the need to go back and get my camera to document them. I'm sure the woman at the mirror didn't think there was anything remotely strange about me going into the stall and beeping.