xintiandi
january 02, 2006
i received a package last week from brother in law 2 last week. he and sister in law 2 went to shanghai recently and bought me these keychains from this place called xintiandi. the keychains are pretty righteous i say. nice quality and solid. my mom upon setting her eyes upon these babies practically seized all 4 of them. luckily my kung fu kicks kept her at bay and i gave her a choice of 1 of them. i told her she could choose anyone except the cheongsam (long dress) as that is the one i want. since i'll never be able to fit into a real cheongsam, i might as well get it in a silver keychain form. :p she choose the little jacket on the far left and then hastily took her present and went about dissecting the keyfob off the chain and placed it onto her own silver necklace. that crafty little yoda-like creature that i call "mom" made it into a necklace pendant instead. creative one, she is.
so i went to loook at this xintiandi place that they visited. looks like a old meets new place in shanghai that is developed for visitors to regale in the old concessions of shanghai. now, i've never been to china before. ever. stories of food poisoning, pick pocketers, people stabbing you with hypodermic needles and phlegm strewned sidewalks doesn't exactly entice me to visit china. plus i have a fear of squatting toilets. as i recall, i wet my jeans the last time i used one due to incorrect aiming.
but in recent years, everyone under the sun has been telling me about how great shanghai is, how modern it's become and what fun it is to visit that now i feel an inkling of motivation to go. plus, i just heard that my close friend's brother just opened a restaurant there too. at least i know i will get free and clean food at one place. i've always been interested in looking at the architecture of shanghai and the british, american and french influence on this metropolis. it must be that opium hazed allure that draws me to it.
there's still so many places i would love to visit in asia. maybe this year it's time to break out of the norm and hit some new places and maybe revisit an old one. i would love to go to korea, shanghai, kyoto and back to osaka. sounds like a plan....xintiandi for me.
xin = new, tian = sky/heaven, di = ground/earth
currently listening to: led zepplin, all of my love
