This post is, mercifully no doubt, going to be very light on words, and heavy on videos. I just wanted to touch base and close out the Shanghai chapter before it got too far away.
Suffice it to say that I am now writing these words from Paris! The exclamation mark is that, yes, I managed to make it home through the air chaos. It was a roundabout and bizarre trip that taught me that when you’re involved in a world which is rule by chaos, it makes most sense to not stick to a pre-planned, ordered path to an objective. I changed my plans several times in my quest to make it back to Paris as quickly as possible, and it paid off.
Originally, I was supposed to take a flight Monday to Beijing, then from there to Paris. Flight cancelled, I decided to go to North America, to my sister’s place in Toronto, and from there to Europe. After an initial frustrating experience on the Monday – that I wrote about here, I think – I then returned to the airport in Shanghai on Tuesday with my ticket in hand for the same flight. But on the way to the check-in desk several hours in advance, I saw posted that a Lufthansa flight was heading to Frankfurt. I could not believe it, I went and stood in line for nearly an hour and a half, praying and gambling that I’d get a seat. They were trying to fit passengers from six previous flights on this one, but it seemed that most of those passengers had been taken off guard and were in their hotels in Shanghai waiting for action.
So I got a seat on the flight, flew to Frankfurt, spent the night in a nice hotel facing the train station, and the next morning, yesterday, I took a 4-hour train ride to Paris, catching up on my sleep and reading. Bliss. Made it!!!
And then my mind returned to the fantastic nights I had in Shanghai and I began looking at some of the videos I took and decided that I had not put up enough of the Joe Chou videos from that final night at the Melting Pot. Joe Chou is a very talented guitar player, and I wanted to show it off here. There are other videos of him from my first night and also from the Melting Pot night, where I show his guitar string trick. But these ones also show his ability with his Stratocaster. There are some really high moments. So I’ll put the videos below. Also, do not miss the video of the speed at which the Maglev shuttle train runs between Shanghai and the airport. I was very happy to see that the trip took a fraction of the time it took me in a cab, and I made the video to give an idea of that speed. It is a magnetic levitation train, and I wished while making the video that the track ran from Shanghai to Paris….