excerpted from an email to my boyfriend:

"I had a busy day today. Mom and i went to see my grandfather (on my dad's side).he's 83 this year, and is living by himself in the apartment the government hadgiven him years and years ago when they still provided housing for workers.He's slightly thinner than the last i saw him, but still strong and healthy. he moves and talks like a much younger man and is enjoying retirement. he's from shaoxin which is known for their wine - and like anyone from shaoxin, the wine is in his blood. in the corner of his sparse apartment, i counted at least 6 crates/boxes of alcohol. i'd like to stress again that he lives alone andhardly ever entertains.

afterwards, we wandered to qipu road which is now the new market for fake things and local wares. this woman kept following us asking if we wanted to buy fakebags and stuff, finally my mom was like, ok, we got nothing else to do. so we went to these back rooms and looked at all the fake stuff. they have fake everything. not just bags and wallets, but also perfume (which i still can' tget over) and ipods. it was the funniest thing. they have these fake nanos that's not even the right colors (for example, they had an orange one etc) and the screen was bigger than a regular one, and there are just little things about it that was off. i wanted to take a picture, but they would've confiscated my camera.

qipu road is really close to my grandparents (mom's side) old house where my aunt still lives. so we dropped by - you should see this place. it's so old shanghai, full of character and stories. obviously its very poor housing nowand will soon be demolished and replaced with high rises like the rest of thecity, but i still think its a bit of a pity to lose that sort of culture here. the houses back a market street where my grandpa used to own a small front as a butcher. but even there now people sell seafood and other live fishes, eels, crabs etc. they even sell frogs. it was kind of weird to see them (frogs are kind of gross... haha......).

after that, mom and i had dimsum at this really awesome restaurant whose interior is decorated with bamboo pagodas and bridges that connect tables. when we were leaving, we passed a table where this older woman was trying to write a text message on her cell. all normal right? and then she whips out a magnifying glass, like a legit magifying glass, because shec ouldn't see what she was writing..."

i have great pictures to go along with this that i will add later!