alive in the city

the city lights of Shanghai glow and hordes of people want to sell me things. they see my blond hair and my camera out to take this picture and they come like bees to honey, but tonight i am sour honey... more like a light bulb... moth to the flame. the lights illuminate the sky and fuel me. they light my heart before i crawl into the subway and zip around town, make my way back to my cousins house and show up an hour late cause i wanted to take " a new route" home. what i learned yesterday is, because Shanghai is not built on a grid, that means get lost. i was so pleased that i had navigated for two days by myself that i wanted to try a new way. and i ended up so far away. no one i spoke to even knew the streets i was looking for and i wondered how far lost do you have to be where it is too far to turn back and kept walking, only getting further and further from a recognizable location. Lost in China at night is truly an experience. but i always knew if i really gave up i could hope in a taxi and someone else could sort out how to get me home. but i prevailed. I did it. of course I was so far from where i had been trying to go... that is the difference between a well timed right versus a left.... i guess. but no harm was done. our dinner date was even later than i was so it really all worked out and now i know more about my cousin's neighborhood than he does.