An Ocean of Humanity

Jeez! I am exhausted! It is January second and I'm sleeping off the Shanghai New Years Eve next day oh my god is this for real adventure! Everything leading up to the moment however was conducted in slow motion. I felt distracted. My mind was somewhere else. I could use a number of trite and overused phrases to describe my day but it was long forgotten when we hopped the 77 bus to the train station on our way to Shanghai. From that moment on the mantra was Shanghai! It seemed that the bus driver knew where we were going. He was pedal to the metal all the way to the traffic jam about a mile from our stop. We had calculated a forty minute ride but didn't add in any thing for traffic jams. I am a get there on time kind of guy and traffic jams cause me stress. Suddenly my life, the bus, the world felt mired in traffic jello. An inch a foot, a blast on the horn, the driver looked irritated. Cars swerved with buses, ebikes and people filled the gaps between everything cementing traffic to a stand still. I kept looking at the time then at the traffic then the time. Yikes! Are we ever going to get out of this mess? Our driver maneuvered our bus right almost to the curb and guns it to our stop. We stepped off the bus and holy mackerel! We entered a sea of humanity all heading for the train station. People are pushing and shoving their way in front of us and we are jabbing and jutting to holding our position en route to our train. It felt like cattle to the slaughter. This was not the worst of it though.Thousands of people shuffle through one of many check points along our route to the train platform. From wide open chaotic spaces, to extremely small controlled gangways, people push and wait, then shove then jabbed then shove you out of the way. Stupid foreigners. Everywhere I looked I saw people. Space was a premium. People in front, in back, to my side as far as I could see. Stand in line. Check the bag, up the escalator, Stand in line. Check the ticket, down the escalator. Dancing the train station dance with thousands of others. Stand in line and wait for the train. When the doors opened, people thrust their way out while people thrust their way in, converging in the middle like a confluence. I ended up being twisted and pushed from the back and the front as I entered the train. Then, no sooner had I entered the train started to move. I sat next to Neville and his wife Naita and relaxed.
The train entered Shanghai station and people were already up and jostling about fixing their coats and checking their bags ready for the doors to open. The train stoped, we got up, we stood in line and... nothing happened. No one is moving. What? This is unheard of. There must be a problem. If things stop in China there must be a problem. Everything here is in continual motion. Not to move is not an option.
The line finally starts to move. Stepping out on to the train platform in Shanghai made the previous experience seem like a walk in an empty park. The crowd intensified five fold. Now a sea of people became an ocean, deep, wide and dense. This is the moment that the phrase go with the flow takes on a very real meaning because going against it will only get you trampled. We fight our way through the mass and enter the street to find the subway station that will take us to Nanjing Road and close to our hotel. Down the escalator into the subway station. Shanghai's subway system is very modern, very clean, very efficient, and packed with people. To get on a subway train in Shanghai you mark your territory and dare anyone to violate it. When the doors open you rush on to the train in the hopes of finding a seat. Three stops and change trains. Two stops and we're there. Nanjing Road is Shanghai. Smack in the center of downtown, it offers the best in dining and shopping, with incredible views of mile high skyscrapers. The place it lit up and the street is filled with people. There is an energy about Shanghai that is exciting. Twenty-one million people live and work here. This has been the place to be for centuries. Now, Shanghai is leading the way in China's resurgence as the worlds power broker. It is a port of call for people from all over the world coming here to work and play. It is the most international city I have ever been to. You can feel the history of this place just walking through the streets. New on top of the old. Construction is everywhere. It is just amazing.
So let's dispense with the yak and get into the meat of it.
We found our hotel without a problem. We dropped our stuff off and grabbed a taxi to the Glamor Bar. I took the camera but I did not feel like I wanted to shoot. To me this was a party to enjoy, I was not there to work. So I really didn't care whether I shot well or not. It didn't matter to me, I was enamored with the whole idea of being in a most exotic place with many strange people. The place was lit for ambiance, dark, with colored strobes and pin lights dancing off the walls. People of all nationalities and persuasions filled the room. Smoke covered the air like a blanket and the women and men all felt like Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant. It was a scene out of a movie. Music filled every corner of the joint. I danced with everyone and anyone. Yes, the old man can still put a groove on. I took many strange pictures. I drank some more, became friends with my strange people who i cannot remember a single name now. I danced to Motown and Michael Jackson, hard rock, swing, the DJ was grooving. I felt the new year come... love and good will wafted in the air and then we danced and drank some more! At three, my group decided to look for a place to eat. We left the Glamor Bar and hit the streets in search of the 24 hour McDonald's. Back on Nanjing Road we made a bee line to Micky D's only to discover that the 24 was closed! horrors! It must have been only a 22 or 23 hour place. People stared through the windows in disbelief! We had to move on. Hunger was becoming an issue. Nothing it seemed was open though and of all nights! We came upon an 85 which is a bakery coffee bar started by some french company. Unfortunately the shelves were bare except for a few pieces of bacon cheese bread. They ate, I watched and drank a tea. I felt sticky and stinky. We sat there looking like drowned rats. I mused about my sore thighs and tired feet. We rolled into the hotel at four. I went to my room and turned on the heater and started the shower. The water never got above warm but it felt good to wash the night off. Since the bathrooms have no heat in them I turned the hair dryer on and left it in the sink to warm the room up. I was tired. Crawling into bed I mummied up and the next thing I remember is waking up feeling oh so exhausted, dehydrated and hungry. What an experience! What a blast. Oh so strange! The trip back to Wuxi was the same as coming to Shanghai. Waves and waves and waves of humanity every where we went all wanting the same thing, to go somewhere. It's taken me a day to recover from it all and I have to say that Shanghai may be the bomb but there is no place like home.