Barbara & Bruces' Asia Adventures continue (China, Hong Kong and Korea too!!!!)

Greetings from Shanghai, this time from me (Bruce).  Barbara has already posted twice about our adventures, but I have some additional thoughts and photos (especially ones of her, which of course she can't take--especially when she's dancing!) to share.  In the photo below we see her at People's Square (part of the heart of Shanghai), where she's been moving to the music and steps while watching people vigorously dancing dances from of one of China's "national minority" groups (our best guess) on a lovely spring day.  A woman noticed and began showing Barbara some of the steps, which led to one of the men asking her to dance! This kind of thing tends to happen!  The further education and training Barbara got in her 50's as a Marriage and Family Therapist was an outgrowth of her earlier work as a Dance/Movement Therapist, which in turn grew out of her work as a professional dancer (we met when I was teaching at St Olaf College in the late 80's...

Our first day’s explorations helped us re-orient to both new and previously explored areas nearby. We passed fragrant jasmine bushes in bloom, lively corner markets, young people flirting by the side of Suzou creek as well as grandmothers smiling proudly as they attempted to keep up with a grandchild. We were pleased to discover that we were within a short walking distance of M50- an old ‘slub (cotton) mill’ that had been renovated into an arts and art studio complex.  We are also fairly close to the Huxi Mosque, which we visited last time during Ramadan (and booked marked as a place to which we want to return this trip). Exhausted by our exertions,  we returned to crash/sleep. (Did I mention it was a long flight???) 1933 building- slaughter house to arts venue The next day,  we had more energy and wandered further afield. We emerged from our hotel to discover a small ‘pop-up market’ outside our hotel as we figured out how to get to the metro sta...

I am writing this on our second day in Shanghai… jet-lag     fatigue still haunts us, but not as fiercely as day 1, when we both collapsed into deep sleep by mid-afternoon- something I rarely am able to do easily at home.     For those who are curious, it was a long-- long – long – long flight. We had a brief stop in Seattle, where we were able to greet Mt. Rainier from the plane window and the Olympic mountains from the airport. The flight was not fully packed and passengers were friendly and seemed to be either Chinese nationals or Chinese Americans traveling with small children to visit surviving parents living in Shanghai. We arrived at night, got to the hotel and after briefly unpacking, we fell into bed, and then woke up about 3 am. Ah the familiar joys of time zone adjustments.   Snapdragons, bikes, cars and hi pedestrian bridge The next day was spent recuperating, exploring our ‘neighborhood’ and sorting out basic details that included replenis...

....... and so we return to Shanghai and Beijing. It is unbelievably soon after our winter explorations (which were in Hong Kong and Beijing), still exciting to think that tomorrow (well actually Thursday-given the International Date Line) we will be in China again.) (It is also a little embarrassing that despite both of our sincere intentions to learn a least a few more words of Mandarin.. it hasn't happened.)  SO FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT IF THIS IS A NEW OR OLD BLOG ABOUT A NEW OR OLD TRIP... IT IS ALL OF THOSE THINGS- A NEW TRIP TO FAMILIAR LOCATIONS AND THE BLOG IS A CONTINUATION OF OTHER PAST TRIPS.. HOPE THAT MAKES SENSE....... and so we continue to begin: Why return so soon? You might wonder. Well, I (Barbara) will be teaching again...some familiar classes in Shanghai: an Experiential Kinesiology course and also a Supervision course. I am particulary looking forward to the Supervision course, because I learn so much about how my students see the worl...