New photos of Hong Kong and Shanghai!

The write up for Hong Kong is here, and the Shanghai writeup appears below:

The train from Hong Kong to the mainland didn’t make us get out at Guangzhou this time, we passed through customs at Shanghai. That’s nice, because you can take fruits and veggies to eat on the train. I got a lot of reading done.

Shanghai was just exiting a heat wave when I arrived, so the heat was receding but still a little oppressive. Of course, being my second time in Shanghai and n-th time on the mainland, I don’t have many pics of the “local scenery”, maybe a few of traffic at night and a series of pics from the bathroom window of our hotel, the 150-year-old Pujiang Hotel. Mostly, I have small wry observations to make, sub-titles for certain pictures, like:

• How much is modern lit influencing place names?
• Which first, GO TRENCH or INNOVATION IS THE SPIRIT OF AVANCEMENT FOR A PEOPLE?
• Aaron, what’s the font on this sign? Why would they write it in pinyin?
• Why, as James pointed out, were there no red phone booths in Hong Kong, but yes in Shanghai?
• The green sign at a kiosk in the expat bar district is advertising beetel nuts.
• The most subtle credit card ad ever.
• Another political gameshow, this one for People’s Liberation Army members.
• See the yellow blur in this guy’s pocket? That’s the plastic top of his jar of tea.

One day I did go to Fudan University to look around, and it was the second day that students were moving into the dorms. Mostly, though, I’ve been hanging out with folks like Victoria, Brittany, Oliver, and Jonas, visiting the Shanghai Stock Exchange (they wouldn’t let us in, so we cruised the listings at the neighboring Starbucks), taking the tourist tunnel under the Huangpu River, crashing the Hyatt on the 54th floor of the Jinmao Tower (nice view!), and talking as we walk along the Bund at night after a sumptuous dinner.

Oh, and working on my latest book. Finally, I found a book in Chinese I can really get excited about, Murakami's latest Kafka on the Shore, and I'm learning new characters at an incredible rate. Hooray for good books and electronic dictionaries!