last minute packing

It's 5:20 AM and I'm sitting in Dew's living room, listening to the gentle sound of rain and Dew rummaging around packing up. Last night, I packed up my bags, left a note about Suki, and Dew picked me up. We swung through the grocery store and picked up some more food for dinner and Dew made us some Okonomiyaki.

We talked and ate a variety of friends came by to eat more okonomiyaki with some beer, and then around nine, another one of Dew's friends came by with four very young Japanese girls. They baked a bag of toasted ravioli and played cards with Dew until about four AM.

I took a short nap for about two hours and very sleepily attempted to learn this new version of dihinmi which has a lot of rules.

Speaking of learning things, in the excitement for the Shanghai trip, I forgot to add a day to my flying itenerary, so when I booked my hotel, I booked it for an extra night on the coming in side. Fortunately, this is a relatively cheap mistake since we're splitting a room three ways. Still, it was a stupid oversight.

Shanghai.

The cab is called, I have my passport, visa, tickets, hotel voucher, and cash. And really, with cash, all else besides the visa and passport is negotiable. I've been brushing up my Chinese.

This afternoon, I actually made my own sketchbook. I used scrap paper from the studio and gave it a stiff blue paper cover with the perfect bind. It looks really like a professionally created sketchbook. It took perhaps an hour of work and about a dollar worth of materials.

I don't think I will be able to blog from Shanghai, but I will be taking a lot of photos. It's been so long since I was there, I can't wait to go back. I think it was in 1998 or 1999 was the last time I was there. A Chinese eternity.