Power out on Nanjing Xi Lu

How does that Arcade Fire song go? "I woke up with the power out, not really something to shout about." Well, that is our theme song for the day. The power is out on a large chunk of Nanjing Xi Lu -- no street lights during the middle of the day on one of the city's busiest streets ... beautiful -- and we live on Nanjing Xi Lu. So our power is out. A sign in the window of Zara says power should be back on by 2 pm. Yes, businesses on one of the main shopping streets had to close for this. Doesn't seem like an accident, either. Looks more like a planned work day. Couldn't they have chosen a better time of day (or night) to do this work? Anyway, with no internet at home, we headed to Element Fresh for what we thought was free WiFi. But there they told us to get the "free" WiFi we had to buy some kind of Shanghai Center card. So now we are at Blue Frog on Tongren, where the internet is indeed free ... but a little bit dicey. Things may be quiet here for a little while. Sorry.

UPDATE: It is 3:33 pm and the power is still out. Still no street lights and the police have gone home and stopped directing traffic. Oddly, it all seems about as safe as it does when the lights are working. Not that you care, but we are back at Element Fresh now. They sell the China Telecom wireless cards -- 50 kuai for four hours. Kind of a racket, but it was the most reliable option.