Today I went to the very top of China’s tallest building. I believe it’s the 4th tallest building in the world and pretty tall for a man of my height. It’s the Jin Mao Building in the Pudong district of Shanghai and measures to be 1379 feet tall, being comprised of 88 floors. I guess it would have been smart to go during daylight to really make the most of that view, however, long-term planning has never been a strength of mine.

Here are a few images to give you an idea just how tall that building really is. The first picture is taken outside of the building, looking up. Again, daylight would have been nice. The second picture is taken while riding the elevator to the 88th floor. Picture number three looks down into the hotel atrium which extends over the top 30 floors of the building. Picture number four drives home my point that a daylight excursion really could have added a whole other dimension to this.

I have always wondered why Chinese men are so much more phyisically gifted than their Caucasian counterparts. Well, 10,000 miles away from home lies the answer. The government here has built a system of body-building public resources, available to all Chinese men. Everywhere you look, people are sculpting their figures, shaving off the last barely-recognizable grams of fat and doing whatever they can to one-up their Western counterparts.

Here is a short video that I was able to capture at a local bodybuilding park. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ll see the filmed fellow at the next summer Olympics.

Download boybuilding.MPG

The next set of China pictures is up and ready to go.

On a side note, I managed to catch one heck of a cold over here. Not really a surprise, considering that this place closely resembles what I’d call a human ant farm. And it probably also doesn’t help that I’ve been living off the product selection of various food vendors, most of who are cooking out of portable trash cans. But you’ll see that in the newest pictures.

All the jokes aside, I do really like it here.

Terry and I went to this giant mall today. With giant malls come giant underground parking lots. Terry, of course, forgot on which floor and section he had parked his car. Since my chinese sign reading skills are non-existent, we managed to not find our car. But fortunately they have a solution for that here in China. The parking lot troopers. Old guys on bikes and in uniforms, speeding through underground structures, helping you locate your car. What a great idea. China’s answer to WalMart door greeters. Here is a picture of our helpers.

People tell me that the Chinese love soccer, however, with a rather painful lack of world cup titles to show for, I’d like to contend that notion. Here’s what the Chinese are really good at and despite a lack of competitive outlets, I’d argue that nobody could beat them at it.

1. Littering.
There are piles of trash all over the place in the streets around here. The same holds true with empty trash cans and workers cleaning the streets. I have never seen so many empty trash cans, so much trash laying around and so many people working to clean it up. Everything you buy gets wrapped up in some sort of plastic bag, which then gets thrown into the streets at the first opportunity that arises. There is no organized competition around the sport of “littering” quite yet, however, I’m pretty sure that there is something on the horizon. They have a billion people ramping up for whatever is coming.

2. Spitting.
Chinese men are really good at this. And Chinese women are making huge strides in both improving their distance and volume. Not only is it amazing to see how a nation has taken such a natural body movement, and turned it into a fun and fulfilling wet phenomena. But as a visitor it’s also challenging to not get hit with whatever might be coming out of their mouths. Again, there is no competition yet. But my guess is that it’s coming.

No doubt, I will be doing some traveling while I am in China and I will also make sure to stop by some of those ancient monuments that everybody is talking about. But I am also going to relax while I’m here and that’s what this first few days are all about.

I wake up at about 7am (my jetlag hasn’t been bad at all), look at the caged up dog next to me and then read for a little while. At about 8:30, Terry and I wander over to a street where all kinds of vendors are trying to sell anything from winter hats, turtles, ripped-off DVDs to food. Breakfast usually runs about 30 cents a head and includes anything from fresh baked bread, to doughy rolls with meat to rice cakes. There’s also a bunch of fried stuff but I try to stay away from that.

We then hit home and I usually spend a couple of hours working on my University stuff, while Terry is busy working his day job and being pack leader of two exceptionally ill-behaved dogs. At noon we drive over to the local gym, where we meet our Austrian buddy Daniel to work out for a couple of hours.

Sauna, shower and we hit home again. Btw, the water smells awful in this country. No matter where you go, the water stinks.

Back at home, Terry’s maid has prepared a meal which we gulf down over beers. I spend my afternoons working on the blog or just wandering around the neighborhood. At night, we go out for food, Karoake or cheap Chinese massages.

Day 1 pictures

More to come tomorrow.

This is no joke, Terry picked me up at the airport, dropped my stuff off at his place and then we immediately went to a private massage club with some Austrian personal trainer named Daniel. Boy we really are not fuckin around here, are we Terry?

So, here’s the scoop on these massage places here in Shanghai. There are two kinds. One where you get massages and one where you get barely dressed women who don’t just specialize in massages.

Well, we went for the massages. Two hours of full body massage (one hour feet, one hour full body) for roughly $6. All in a nice family room setting, next to old Chinese men smoking cigarettes, while watching “America’s Funniest Home Videos” in Chinese. The three masseuses apparently all came from some rural province north of Shanghai. They didn’t speak a lick of English and looked at me like I just landed from a different planet.

After the hour-long living room foot rubs, we all went into private rooms to receive the full body part of our massages. Terry and I stayed close, as otherwise who knows what would have happened. I was slightly uncomfortable when Terry translated that my masseuse was asking whether I had a girlfriend in the states and that I had very pretty eyes. I told him to tell her to stop kneading my butt like she was wringing a wet wash cloth and start focusing on my shoulders. And so she did. It was great. I am definitely going back there again.

We came home at about 1am and I went to sleep almost immediately next to Terry’s caged dog Splinter.

I’m going to love China.