Shanghai: Wild Animal Park

What is full of wild beasts and is wonderful in a terribly un-PC way? The Shanghai Wild Animal Park! Half of the park can be viewed only through tour buses which venture into corraled areas where cheetahs and tigers and bears roam relatively free. And then the other half of the park is like a zoo, animals in fairly naturalistic settings...including the adorable pandas!

Where else can you see a baby elephant sneaking in snacks while the zoo keeper is gazing off in the distance?


Where else can you see bears and monkeys riding bikes? (I have to say, the bear on a bike was disturbing and wrong in a way that a sea lion performing stunts does not bother me.)

But the best moment of all was convincing my spouse's driver to play hooky with me and the kiddos. We cajoled Zhang Shiful into the park with us. His joy at watching the animals was a highlight only seconded at his joy at spoiling my kids with lunch at the park.

Today I am thankful for all the people in China who have taken care of us, most especially Zhang Shifu who protected me and the kids every day that we have been here. He has looked out for us, thought about us, worried about us.

Shanghai: Face off!

Check out FACE for a fun place to hang out in Shanghai. With locations in Jakarta and Beijing, Shanghai's FACE bar is located in a mansion in the French Concession. Within are a few different restaurants and the all-important bar.

Today I'm thankful for great places to hang out with some of my favorite peeps in the world.

Shanghai: Bejeweled @ David Seno

Apparently, my girlfriends in Shanghai are out to remedy my anti-shopping mentality with a series of Interventions. Bright one morning, Yucca Rieschel--another super-connector on the Shanghai scene (on the right)--hijacked me. I mean, bundled me into a car and took me to one of her favorite jewelers: David Seno. Diana, one of the co-owners, met us in front of a seriously mega-locked door and ushered us into the quiet crypt of jewels.

Aladdin couldn't have seen more gems than I did at that showroom, tucked in the industrial Free Trade part of Pudong.

Here's Diana with her husband who hails from Toronto and is the third generation of jewelers in his family. With production costs mounting in Canada, they turned to China to manufacture jewelry about four years ago.

I'm sorry: looking at the jewelry was nice and all...but seeing the 100 or so jewelers making the baubles? Now, that was cool! I got to see the entire process...from the shaping of the rings and bracelets. To the polishing...

And even their lunch break! The food smelled yummy!

Diana insisted on having our rings cleaned. Yucca and I were giggling over her expression when she saw our beat-up, dull rings. Mine hadn't been cleaned in, oh gosh, at least five years. Possibly longer.

This wasn't just any old ring cleaning. When my ring was returned to me, I couldn't even recognize it--it looked brand new. Scratches from my daily rough wear had been polished away. The stones checked to make sure the ring was still sturdy. My ring sparkled. Gleamed like buffed up hope.

Today I am thankful for the unexpected silver lining even in dreaded experiences. Here I thought shopping for jewelry would be horrendous. Instead, I got a behind-the-scenes tour, a clean ring, and....yes, I found a new bauble that will be the perfect talisman for my next novel. How fantastically fantastic is that?

Poetry Friday: The Great Wall

The Great Wall

Nalan Xingde (1655-1685)

Through how many panels of mountains and seas

Do the high parapets of the long wall

Wind and wind?

Our eyes follow, slope after slope

And we understand

How it ate up the dragon hearts of our grandfathers

And in the end they built it for whom?

Shanghai: M1nt

My new favorite hangout spot in all of Shanghai? M1nt.

After a few weeks of soft openings and parties--none of which I could attend--I finally made it here, thanks to my beautiful new friend Mae-Ling. How could you not love the long tank filled with baby black tip sharks, dangerous yet mesmerizing in their lethal beauty? Anyway, the restaurant/bar was the perfect spot to mark a new beginning.

Today I am thankful for GROOVY places that make celebrations delightful.

Shanghai: Chinese Hair Wash

My new friend and ultra connector of the Shanghai universe and co-partner of Diva Life Spa, Mae-Ling, told me: "Justina, there is NO way you can leave Shanghai without first having a Chinese hair wash."

A Chinese hair wash?

She nodded. Brought me to the her favorite hair washing salon in the French Concession where we were immediately shown to swivel chairs. I knew I was going to like this new experience when the hair wash started with a 20 minute shoulder and neck rub. Nice!

Afterward, my masseuse-slash-hairdresser approached with a bottle of liquid something-or-other that she squirted directly onto my dry hair...which somewhat alarmingly began to suds up in a way I've never experienced in the shower.

After much scalp massaging and scratching, a pompadeur of clouds appeared on top of my head. (Note to any reader who happens to be doing a book report on one of my novels: you do NOT have permission to include the pictures from this particular blog in said report. Do you hear me?)

So here we are, Mae-Ling and I post-sudsing and scrubbing. Is it not amazing that Mae-Ling still looks like a model with her hair all sudsy? I look like...a clown.

After our hair was hosed down, scalps massaged again, we ended back in our swivel chairs for a blowdry.

And finally, shiny hair and all, we were ready to hit the town at M1nt, a private club that just opened officially 3 days ago.

Today I am thankful for new Experiences, especially ones introduced by friends and that cost less than a Starbucks latte and make me feel like a billion bucks.

Girlfriend Therapy

Egads! With just 11 days left in Shanghai to go, my BFF from college, Shelli, said to me, "Girlfriend, we have to take you shopping!" The last thing I wanted to do was shop, not when I have to pack. And let's not forget the manuscript I haven't picked up in the last three weeks. But Shel was not to be deterred. She pointed out: you have Christmas presents to buy. Yeah, yeah, I thought.

But then there's my mentor, Janet Wong, who kicked me in the pants with a well-worded email: We, the few remaining readers of your blog, are tired of your self-help induced, quasi-inspirational posts. Show us Shanghai. That's all we care about. (Okay, okay, that was my translation of her email.)

So to Taikang Lu we went. This is a rehabbed neighborhood turned enclave for boutiques, coffeeshops, restaurants and galleries. Wouldn't you know it? Who do we see on our first stop at Nest--a wonderful boutique? The amazing Francine Martin--professional shopper and purveyor of the finest goods and one of my first Shanghai turnSTYLE interviews! I was so thrilled to see Francine who was yet again absolutely exquisitely divinely decked out. She was In Action with a lucky client.

After another stop at June Woo--THE place to go for cashmere scarves--Shel and I dropped in on Ginger for some sustenance. The score? Shel checked off 3 people from her Christmas list. All my peeps are still present-less.

Today I am thankful for the sheer joy of SERENDIPITY. It completely floors me that out of all the millions and million and millions of people in Shanghai, I actually bumped into ONE person I know. I love that. It makes me feel as though I have established a community of my own in this big huge city, so far from home.