A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to get a visit from my Uncle Hal, the person I just so happen to be named after. I was pretty bummed that my dad wasn’t going to be able to come to Shanghai, but Uncle H is a more-than-worthy substitute. If you know me at all, you know that I’m (unusually?) close with my extended family and Uncle Hal is no exception. This is the man, after all, who created The H Club (the elite members being Hal, my cousin Holden and yours truly), and wrote me letters at camp encoded in our very own secret language. He also taught me to say, “I’m a genius” when I was three and, unbeknownst to me, made several birthday appearances as Halmo the Clown. Nowadays he sends me e-mails with links to articles he thinks I’ll find interesting and is my go-to expert for all my grammar quandaries (I seem to have inherited this nerdy interest along with his name). So, in a nutshell, I already knew he was pretty awesome before he decided he should fly halfway across the world to make sure I knew how much my family loved and missed me.
The night that Uncle H flew in, Buffin and I met him for dinner at Lost Heaven (the first in a string of delicious meals). It was surreal seeing him walk up to the restaurant, like he didn’t belong in the odd little life I’ve created for myself over here. But he came bearing gifts from back home (birthday, Christmas and miscellaneous goodies), which quickly snapped me out of my “this-doesn’t-seem-real” frame of mind. Starbucks coffee grounds, some excellent selections from the Hal Finnegan Personal Library and enough yummy-scented hand sanitizer to eradicate H1N1 from all of Shanghai.
Throughout the week, Uncle Hal boldly navigated the city while Buffin and I were in class (except one morning when he observed my classes at Xiang Yang...I caught him making faces with Robert, one of my adorable troublemakers), and at night we’d meet up for dinner. We got to tick many of the must-try restaurants off our list – Lost Heaven (my favorite Chinese meal I’ve had since we got here), Haiku (the best Sushi I’ve ever had...period), Fountain (snazzy international menu in expat heaven, Xintiandi), Coconut Paradise (amazing Thai) and Vue (fancy food and unparalleled views of The Bund and Pudong).
On Thursday night we went to see ERA Intersection of Time at Shanghai Circus World, the most famous of all the acrobatic shows in town. We had amazing third-row seats and were right in the midst of all the action – and there was plenty of it. One act consisted of some super agile men jumping, diving and flipping through a series of rotating hoops. My favorite part was a metal contraption that looked like a bunch of spinning hamster wheels connected to each other. The performers would hop and flip from one “wheel” to another (sometimes blindfolded) as it went around in circles. My heart was basically in my throat the whole time. But the scariest part, by far, was the motorcycle cage. Imagine this: an enormous, metal, spherical cage with eight – count ‘em, eight – motorcycles flying around inside. Petrifying doesn’t begin to describe it. Our circus-like night continued after the show ended, when Buffin and my cab got a flat tire in the pouring rain. Our poor cabbie changed that sucker in 10 minutes flat, even jacking it up, all the while Buff and I were safe and dry inside. Quite a memorable evening.
On Friday (one of our days off), we met Uncle Hal at the Urban Planning Museum in People’s Square. On the second floor there was a massive diorama of Shanghai that covered the floor of the entire room. It was shocking to see just how big this place is – we haven’t even seen the half of it. One floor was solely dedicated to the 2010 Expo, which Shanghai is furiously preparing for. They’re constructing a slew of buildings along the northernmost part of the Huangpu River. It was nice to finally see what all the hubbub is about. The trippiest part, however, was on the tip-top floor where there was a special exhibition of Mao-era propaganda posters. The name of the exhibit was something along the lines of “Sweet Memories.” I think the one that freaked us out the most was a poster of a massive explosion with the words “All hail the glorious Hydrogen bomb!” on it. What the heck, China?
The next day, Uncle H set off on a weeklong excursion to Hangzhou and Beijing before making a quick stop back in Shanghai. By the time he returned, poor Buff was bedridden with a cold, so that meant I got to spend some one-on-one time with him. We checked out the peaceful Jade Buddha Temple (one of the only historical landmarks left in rapidly modernizing Shanghai), where we got a chance to watch the Buddhist monks chanting, and the Yu Bazaar in Old Town for a little souvenir shopping. We also went to see the nearby Chenxiangge Nunnery, but were sadly disappointed when there were no bald-headed nuns to be found, like the guidebook had said. That night, we went to a chi-chi dinner at Vue, the restaurant at the top of The Hyatt on the Bund. It was, in a word, fabulous. Afterward, we popped up to the Vue bar to check out the nighttime views of Pudong and the Bund – a quintessential part of the Shanghai experience.
It was hard to say goodbye to Uncle Hal that night, but it was comforting to know that I would see him (and the rest of my family) in just a few short months. And even after he left the next day, Uncle H left something behind to keep me going – a surprise goody bag at the front desk of his hotel. He knew I needed something to get me through the next day at work (I loathe Sundays) and this was the solution he came up with all by himself. Now, how could I not feel loved? Precisely.
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