Shanghai, a place not completely unfamiliar to my senses. New York City and Shanghai share a lot in common yet I still felt uplifted and enthralled in it's mystery. I checked into a hostel and well let's just say something nice... it was in a good location. I wandered aimlessly as I always do when I travel- walking for hours on end. I scoured every herbal pharmacy I could find, deflected the con-artists, and lounged in the gardens and parks wherever I could find them. The architecture was blowing my mind, the city is truly a work of art and walking through Shanghai feels like the MOMA without a roof. I was a bit disappointed with the "old city", having a McDonalds crammed into ancient building takes away the "old city" feeling- that is for me at least. But I did get a little taste of "old city" old-school when buying "little dragon dumplings", this old lady- she had to be at least 80, hip checked me and elbowed her way to the front of the line. And it wasn't just her, it was the whole elderly mob- so it's like that, huh... time to get Brooklyn on the old-folk! The battle made my little dragon dumplings that much better with the taste of sweet-victory sauce. I was experimenting with the city every day, periodically asking myself, "do I want to live here for 4 years?" at first hand, the answer that came to me was no. It was a slice of the "West" and perhaps for the Chinese a great escape from the common experiences in the East. As for me, I felt like what I was looking for was not here and if it was it was of smaller importance to a city like Shanghai. That put into question if I even wanted to check out Shanghai TCM University at all. I thought for the time being there was no rush and I had a lot of time on my hands. Later on I got an email from a dear friend who was in Shanghai on a business trip. He offered I tag along with him on some TCM business in a city called Jiang Yin. I was super excited to meet up with him and after spending a couple of days in Shanghai together collecting culinary data and geeking out over ginseng roots we made our way to Jiang Yin to attend the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies!
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