Hello Shanghai!

Shanghai is a city with its own vibe. The traffic moves rythmically yet sporadically through the street. Various shades of Volkswagen taxis vroom in and out and over. There are bus lanes, moped lanes, bike lanes and car lanes all of them coming and going and turning and, yes, even reversing. If you are not careful, any one of these could be the last thing you ever see. Yet for all its chaos, it works. Traffic here is like a living thing, ebbing and flowing as if it were alive. And once you become part of it, whether by taxi or your own two feet, you can start to feel the rythm of Shanghai.
Everyone here has there own sense of style. There is no particular brand of cool. But they will try to sell you American cool. "You like baggie???? Watchie??? Tag Huer??? I show you....You follow me..." Nothing runs in a straight line here. Everything is zig zagging in and out of your vision. It can all be very disorienting. (Is that the place we had good dumplings? No, I don't remember that building....maybe its over there by the guy selling faucets....") I feel like half the time in I'm in the way (please don't run me over!) and the other half just lost! It is a city I could stay in maybe forever, happily. But one that, truly, I am not all that sad to leave. There are wonderful, wonderful things here: Silk markets, fun subway shopping, nice monuments and parks.... Yet, maybe like the great knockoffs everywhere, it somehow falls just a little short of the real thing for me.