Travels to Shanghai Center

This week, I started taking the subway! I went to town three times, twice stayed overnight. It was time of dense experience. Here are the details of these trials.

Pottery Workshop Shanghai

On Saturday March 24: Sitting in traffic in a DiDi Chuxing (they bought out uberchina) heading to check out 乐天陶社 the Pottery Workshop on Shaanxi nan lu. 陕西南路180弄1号甲. It is a full hour away but I'm hoping to fit it into my life here. I got some clay from them when I arrived. One bag of porcelain that seems good for nothing without a wheel and some big pot stoneware that seems as forgiving as my wonderful BreadPot clay. Traffic in Shanghai is always terrible, the driver tells me. In the end it took over 2 hours and was only one of the travel frustrations of the day.
I checked out the Pottery Workshop and met the warm and friendly teacher Guo. I am looking forward to making it my clay home in Shanghai. From there I took the subway Line 10 to Longxi. I have been here five weeks now. Up until last week, slowed down by the broken ankle, my only outings were to see physical therapist Frank Fan and explore the neighborhood near Body and Soul, including a French provisioner right next door (ah baguette and brie) and LaoWai Jie, the Foreigner Street, with international restaurants. (Thai tonight!!). I came out from the subway with enough time to get to my appointment by bike. I tried to unlock a bike, but alas, my mobile network let me down. I could not receive the code. I walked fast, limping on my painful ankle, looking for a taxi, none around. I messaged that I would be late...that worked, so why not the bike. I found another bike to try and finally got one to work. Aargh. The travel frustrations stress me out, especially as I am not walking well or fast. Frank was sweet and understanding when I arrived sweaty and out of breath. After dinner of Pad Thai (alone), exhausted, too tired to figure out the subway home, I took a taxi back to my place. Third travel frustration--where I live is new and the address is a mystery, so the drivers have a hard time finding it. My phone battery is nearly dead, so my tools for communicating the location are fading fast. At last I guide him and I am back. 

On Tuesday I will go to Pottery Workshop again, this time to work. I can pay to work there by the day or the week, plus 25Y/kilo for any work fired. 

Back again from China

I returned last week from my second trip to China this year. I returned to Jingdezhen for the International Ceramics Festival and an Exhibition in which I was showing a piece which is now in the collection of the Jingdezhen Ceramics Museum.

My visit was enriched by my now old friends in Jingdezhen who put me up, provided a studio for me to work in and traveled with me to LuShan, one of the five sacred Taoist mountains. I will continue to write and show pictures as I adjust to the time zones of home and sort through photos. .

The ease with which I can travel in China, with my Chinese improving every day, is stark contrast to the tightly controlled tour I was on in 1975. That year was the last time I was in Shanghai, a city whose changes are vast over these 34 years and changing still as they rapidly build new, exotic structures in advance of the Shanghai Expo in 2010.

More to come. Nice to be home.