Plus Three: November 2021

I have something special to talk about later. But first and foremost this is a travel blog, so let's start with an outing we had recently.

You may recall (or at least, I do) a trip we made to Zhujiajiao, a water town on the edges of Shanghai. To get there, you take the metro towards the end and transfer to another suburban line, that goes quite a ways from the city. There are two more suburban lines on the metro, and we got a chance to try another to visit Lingang, a district waaaay down by the ocean. In truth, it was because they recently built the largest Astronomy Museum in the world there, and me, being a sucker for blankiest blank, was eager to check things out. In truth that was easier said than done. You can purchase tickets a week prior, but Saturday and Sunday sell out almost immediately. I had to set an alarm for the moment they went on sale to grab a spot. Out of curiosity I checked about 30 minutes later, and they'd all been snatched up.

Anyway, after two transfers and about an hour and a half of traveling, we finally got off at the last stop, Dishui Lake. This is a large circular lake at the heart of Lingang District, and I do mean large. It's hard to tell the scale on the map, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I will say that I could barely see the opposite shore. We'll say 4 kilometers wide? Anyway, despite being the north side being "downtown", this place was very odd. I mean, there are large buildings, at least 10 stories high. And narrowish city streets with traffic lights. But the place was nearly empty. It was almost like Chinese New Year, or a scene out of The Walking Dead. Yet it was Sunday. You'd see a car pass by now and then, but the only people out were people like us, walking from the metro station to the museum. It's not unusual for China to build large satellite cities in the middle of nowhere, knowing that one day, demand will come. But it still feels a bit weird to be in one. It feels like everyone got a memo to get out of town except you, so it was kind of unnerving.

Anyway, I brushed that aside, as I knew it was just my imagination. It seems all the people in this area are here for the museum, because it was pretty busy. First going downstairs to get a snack, we were greeted with the bottom of the theater, which is a giant globe suspended over the bottom floor. Pretty cool! It does seem to just sort of float there, like an asteroid about to impact the Earth. After seeing a few smaller exhibits about Mars and Ancient Chinese Astronomy, we got to the main part. And wow is it impressive. I have to think they hired folks from Disney, because it had that polished, almost "Epcot-like" sort of feel. Lots of models of planets, with a giant Earth in the middle of it, toggling back and forth between a real time satellite view, and a time lapse from its formation to the present. You could "walk" on Titan, touch a real meteorite, and ya know, lots of other things. Later you walked through a model of the space station China just put into orbit recently, which was pretty neat as well.

Towards the end you looped back and walked on a catwalk of sort over top all the exhibits from earlier, with models of spaceships dangling nearby. It ended with a scale model of Voyager, and Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" speech, which was really touching. I'm a bit biased, but I'm glad they just added subtitles and let him speak, because I don't think anyone else could do it justice.

So yeah, overall, great experience. I don't know if it's worth traveling so far out of town if you're in Shanghai for a few days, but for me it's absolutely a win. But we didn't come so far to only see this. There's another massive museum down here, the Maritime Museum. Sadly no sea shanties, but the building looked pretty neat from the outside.

And unfortunately that concludes the good things I can say about the Maritime Museum.

I kid, but it was a bit... meh? Actually a lot "meh". They did have this old wooden ship you could get on, that was cool. But it was only a small part of the deck, and then what? Well, you can see little models of navy ships that you could buy in any hobbyist shop. Or see all the porcelain recovered from a shipwreck, which when tidied up, just looks like porcelain. Or see a lots of pictures of stuff, and a little info card telling you what you are seeing. In short, I think a Google Image Search would be a better use of your time. Aside from a few somewhat interesting actual things (like the oar of a ship that's like, 1000 years old), there's not much there. So I would say take a pass for this place, unless you're an old salty dog.

Not wanting to sit on a metro for another 1.5 hours straight, we decided to break up the journey to stop off at a new fancy schmancy mall that just opened. It's pretty nice, with even a running track on the roof - one that can track your speed/distance if you want. But it was pouring rain, so that wasn't happening. Its main claim to fame I suppose, is The Cheesecake Factory, only the 3rd to open to China. The other two are bonkers busy, so this was a chance to try it without a giant queue. We got a piece of cheesecake to go, and wow. Does all cake taste this good in America? Has it been that long since I had one? Each bite feels like a billion calories, but wow, it's a nice change from the very light, airy cakes of China.

Anyway, my last update wasn't too long ago, so that's about it for travel. Of course it is Thanksgiving, so I did want to have some turkey. You can buy whole birds, or plop down at least $30 for the spread at a restaurant, but I wasn't up for that much time/money. But then Ella did some searching, and turns out, you can just order turkey on Meituan (think Uber Eats/Doordash, but reasonably priced). And that reminded me that turkey was a thing in Taiwan, and something I ate pretty frequently after I discovered that fact. So we found a Taiwanese place sells turkey with rice, as well as soy sauce and ginger turkey. Not... exactly traditional, but it was turkey, and I really dug it. Taiwanese turkey and rice usually has caramelized onions and a side of pickled radish thrown in for good measure, and it really tasted like life back in Taipei. Which btw, the caramelized onion bits are a big win, and I think we should steal that tradition. Also in true Thanksgiving fashion, I ordered way too much so there would be leftovers. Yet again, my amazing wife saves turkey day, and I get to have more for breakfast (and dinner).

But the main reason I wanted to post today, is that the time around Thanksgiving (specifically the 26th), is a very important anniversary for me. In fact, other than getting married, it's probably the most special anniversary in my life. Ten years ago today, I got on a plane and moved to Asia.

In truth, I had no idea what would come of it at the time. I knew my life was kind of in a "rut" and needed to change. Maybe I'd just do the Asia/teaching thing for a year, or maybe even a month if I couldn't handle it. Instead, it's been a decade. A decade since I completely changed my life, started down the path to a new career, marriage, and everything else. And most importantly, I'm a lot happier. I don't think it's Asia specifically, but it's more that I got to live in cities where things happen, got a chance to re-invent myself, got to meet lots of people, got to travel to several countries, got to have a rewarding career, got to have job security, got to have almost zero worries in comparison to life in the US, and most importantly, got to meet my wife. Anyway, I could talk all day about how important this decision was for me, but I think you get the idea. It's probably more fun if I post a few of my favorite photos. It's an impossible task, sorting through thousands and only picking a few. But, here's my best shot, which is still way too many.