January 20

It is snowing again this morning… there is a blanket of white on everything.  I can see the flakes in the street lights thick and velvety.  Yesterday was rain, and today snow… the weather, if nothing else, is unpredictable just like Texas.  We have nothing scheduled for today and had hoped to make it a day of exploring on foot.  When the snow lets up this afternoon, perhaps we can still recover part of the day.  We are told Shanghai is experiencing record snow fall.

We decided to strike out in the snow to the ‘Super Brands Mall’.  It is a big fancy mall and it has a supermarket in the lower level called Lotus.  We figured we could kill the afternoon and check out the fare.  So we hopped a cab and off we went.  We strolled through 5 of the 9 floors that make up this super-size mall.  Then we hit the Lotus to really check out what you can get.  What I found was that there was a lot of candy and cookies and sweet stuff.  In and around the Lotus were pastry and bread shoppes…bakeries. The produce section was fantastic… becoming a vegan looks promising.  All the fruits and vegetables were individually wrapped and beautiful…but pricey.  I looked at some wonderful red grapes… prepackaged… not sure the weight… but a nice stem…. $10 USD!!! No matter the cost…we have to eat! Just maybe not those grapes!  I saw that there were Land O Lakes butter, Philly cream cheese, Del Monte can goods and Post Cereals…among other things.  So one can get brands that are recognizable, however there is no guarantee they came from the US or even taste the same… but it does give some comfort with the familiar.  So… Wade… MawMaw is not going to starve!!!

It was getting late and we stopped at the Subway to grab a sandwich for lunch/supper.  It was pretty tasty and hit the spot.  Now it is time to head back to the hotel.  The snow fall had slowed so the timing was good… we hurried through the crowds to get outside to hail a cab.  We encountered our first situation where we, the American tourists, were a target of dishonest taxi drivers!!!  It is freezing cold and lightly snowing and this guy thinks he has a sucker… we got to the mall for RMB19 and this guy wants RMG50 to take us back!!! I told him too much and walked away.   A second man did the same thing.  I am sure they must have thought we were desperate.  Angry at the situation, Michael and I, armed with a map, bundled up a little tighter and decided to walk back to the hotel.  Yes …we were totally nuts!!!  But we were determined at this point to make our way back on our own.  So we set out… we get a block and have the map out… we think we have our bearings and set out again.  A couple of more blocks and we are still a bit confused which way to head so we ask a security guard… do you speak English?  He grins and waves us off… not doing so good… we walk a little more and stop a young girl… she speaks English but doesn’t know where the street we are looking is, so she speaks Chinese to a guy and sends us off in a direction with instructions to stop after a few blocks to ask someone else because it is a long way to where we want to go.  More determined than ever, we set off again. We have been in this country only 4 days.  We get to another intersection and realize we are clearly lost… so we have the map out and are plotting our next move. 

Suddenly a mini-van rolls to a stop and a well-dressed Asian fellow hops out and asks if we are lost… the Lord was watching out for us today.  His driver hops out too and they are discussing how to best help us.  He offers a ride but said he understood as we did not know him and might be afraid to accept a ride from him.  At the very least, he would help us get an honest cab.  We were cold and lost… and an angel stopped.  We thought about our options and decided this man was kind and we would accept the ride.  Well come to find out, he is originally from Japan, educated in California at USC, his sister lives in Dallas and he is an expat in Shanghai too.  He dropped us safely at our hotel and a couple of grateful Texans thanked him.  He would not entertain taking anything from us for his trouble although we offered to pay him or at the very least for his gas, but he would not hear of it.  He said he knew what it was like to be new to Shanghai and feeling lost… and just wanted to help.  I am sure we looked pitiful, standing in front of a construction barricade on a street corner staring at a map in the cold and snow.   What on earth were we thinking???   As we went safely inside our hotel and he was pulling out of the drive, we realized that we did not even get the man’s name.  Dear Lord, Thank you for watching over us today and bringing this angel into our lives to help us… please bless this kind man in immeasurable ways… Amen.