Sunday (T-2)

September 29, 2019

Erev Rosh Hashanah

A foreign scooter rider having a confrontation with the Men in Blue. Since it's clearly a legal place to ride, I'm guessing a lack of license plate.

Yesterday I ended up going out for beers with a Pakistani guy that I know somewhat tenuously. He asked me how long I was staying in Shanghai and I said "just through til the end of Rosh Hashanah, then back again for Yom Kippur".

Being Pakistani (albeit a Christian one) he had no points of reference for what I was talking about until I said "Jewish New Year".

"Oh", he responded, "Are you going to be celebrating with Kehilat Shanghai?"

"Who? Huh. What?"

He knew about them because the platform they use for ticket sales and event tracking is his company's and so, shortly enough, I knew about them and instead of Chabad House—where I'd been planning to go— cause I know them, I had the option of a reform/conservative shul whose visiting rabbi for the Holydays is a woman? That's much more my style.

Services were held in a banquet room at a fancy hotel followed by a buffet dinner where (of course) I ate too much. Not quite as traditional as the kiddush which would be served at Chabad but also not quite as hair covered, skirt wearing, mumbling prayers really fast in a language I don't speak either.

I could see myself visiting here again.

Communal clothes drying racks along an old street in Shanghai

Today's ride: 20 km (12 miles)
Total: 64 km (40 miles)

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