Bei cha cha jing

In honor of my arrival into Beijing I prepared a short poem to give you a little insight into my current domicile,

Not quite as swanky

but still pretty danky.

The smog and pollution,

you feel right in your trache-a

This has been an original work created by Yuehan (John)

Shang-bye :(

After one week here I have finally figured out the formula for how to create your very own Shanghai.

Shanghai= New York City + Las Vegas + China Town (2) + Kentucky Fried Chicken + Pizza Hut + A near lethal dose of steroids to magnify all of these as much as possible.

Shanghai will be missed. Off to Beijing today! More good stuff to come.

Above is an image of the Mike man. Its the only picture I can access right now for some reason but it is pretty darn good.

Shang-Hiyo

As I said above, my name is John McCarthy.  Am I a food critic? I am not.  Am I a travel writer?  The short answer is no.  Am I a weather man?  You bet I am not.  But there are a couple of things I know.  The food in Shanghai is good, the city is amazing, and the weather is effing hot.  Shanghai is host to 20 million residents not counting tourists.  The state of California holds 35 million and the country of Croatia a mere 4.  There are more 40 story plus buildings in Shanghai then there are in all of Europe.  A simple google image search of Shanghai can illuminate these facts for you very quickly.  Upon first visit to the city, as car horns battle street vendors for noise supremacy and bugs swarm and annoy me almost as much as the homeless youth pulling on my t-shirt near the bund, I am taught some valuable lessons. The world is much larger than I am.  Life is funny, so laugh.  Don't wear a nice watch.  

As we drive out of the city I notice cable stay bridges, ferris wheels, brake lights, and extravagant architecture for the world expo highlighting the horizon while hotels, towers, offices, and apartment buildings don't need to strive too hard to be noticed.  The fluorescent lighting and moving advertisements, which take up entire sides of these buildings, make sure of that. A reading of it may make the city seem ostentatious but it is actually put together with great tact.  Oh yeah, lots of people.  People.  Everywhere.  We are currently in a small college town just outside of the city.  With the exterior look of an ancient palace and the interior feel of the Plaza, our current digs could not be much better.  Moving into downtown today which will be epic.  More to come!

Heres where I be later today  http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hotel/SHAHITW-Hilton-Shanghai-hotel/index.do?WT.srch=1

And as I said, it is hot.  About 35 degrees celsius.  And being that I am with a rowdy band of world renowned engineering professors I was taught a simple calculation as to how to convert celsius to fahrenheit.   F=Cx9/5+32.  Figure it out. 

Johnzilla

Hi, my name is John McCarthy and I am going to do China. I repeat. I. Am. Going. To. Do. China. Now let me start by saying that this blog, due to a lack of facebook in China, is a way for me to keep my family updated on my Chinese adventures. That being said, if any of the minimal amount of people in this world that like me would like to leave comments or contribute in any way than I would insist that you jump on in. The waters fine. I feel confident that this blog will morph into something entirely different through the course of its life anyhow. As you can see by the URL "McCarthy Brothers" there are in fact two of us. That means that the ever-talented/ever-sexy Chris McCarthy will be co-author on this blog, lending his rapiers wit and veteran penmanship to the betterment of blog-kind. Like a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, so will the online world become something beautiful... Something McCarthy. Well, theres the introduction. Stay tuned! And if you don't like this blog, me, my brother, or anything we stand for feel free to leave a comment. Or just fade away.