Bread Talk

There's a bakery in the supermarket next to my office called "Bread Talk." I eat lunch there sometimes.

Today's special? A corn roll called "Miss Corngeniality." (The photo is crappy, but trust me.) My previous favorite was "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Bacon."

I made it back to Shanghai late last night. It's really sticky and humid today -- but I'm glad to be home.

Flightmare II: The Return

I'm back in Guangzhou now after a few fun-filled days of non-stop transit.

I had another transcendantly flight-marish experience on my return. This time: $800 overweight baggage charge (11 kilos!), middle seat (11 hours!) and the friendly customer service for which Eastern Europe is famous (smoke-breath harpies with purple hair!)

I arrived in Hong Kong on Monday morning and had to go immediately to a company conference in Zhuhai, a seaside city just across the border from Asia's version of Las Vegas, Macau. Getting there required taking the air-train into Hong Kong, switching to a 70-minute ferry and then a bus. Then it was a full day of conference meetings and a company dinner with 300 of my drunken Chinese co-workers singing dance re-mixes of Carpenter's hits.

I did all of this, of course, with no sleep the night before in my middle-seat veal pen.

Yesterday, I took the bus back to Guangzhou. This evening I'm back to Shanghai. Finally. 

Last night in Prague

Just a couple more snaps from Prague.

The light was perfect over the river at the reception. 

David & Linda

The wedding was today in a beautiful cathedral in the Old Town Square in Prague.

Everything was perfect.

Best wishes to the new couple! 

View from my window

Here's the view from my window this morning at 10:30AM. Hotel Maximilian, Prague. 

Prague

I made it to Prague. It's almost laughably quaint and beautiful here. Also, no one spits on the street, pushes or yells for no reason. The population density seems a bit less than the 42 people per square foot I'm now used to.

My friend Dave is getting married on Saturday. Until then I'm hanging out with Todd and Emil. Yesterday we didn't do much -- walked around and went to some cafes. The historical sites are stereotypically European burg. Churches. Bridges. Cobblestone-streets-so-cute-you'll-puke.

Today it's raining. 

Flightmare

I've made up a new word - "flightmare." Clever, right?

Use it in a sentence like "The plane was delayed on the tarmac for 3 hours and a baby threw up on me. It was a flightmare."

My most recent flightmare happened Saturday on my trip between Shanghai and Amsterdam. It was a KLM flight on a 747 recently arrived from the Stone Age. No personal entertainment center. My light didn't work. The plane was so old the armrests still had ashtrays.

It was oversold and completely packed in that dismal 3-4-3 configuration. Luckily I had an aisle seat. Unluckily my aisle seat was right next to the bathroom. 11 hours.

No delays however. I made it to Amsterdam without a hitch. Here's a photo of the airplane that brought me to Prague. 

Mosaic

My friend Juan is an extremely talented creative director at an agency here in Shanghai. He got a new piece of software that lets him create mosaic images out of photographs.

This is me! 

View from my window

Here's the view from my hotel window yesterday around 8:45AM in Guangzhou.

The building at left is a new apartment building with double-height floor-to-ceiling spaces that were mainly still empty. The views must be pretty incredible, but then you'd be in ...eh, Guangzhou. 

Hangzhou

Here are some photos from my weekend in Hangzhou. Nice, right?

We didn't do much. Walked around the lake. Went to some of the temples. Ate at the Hyatt buffet (see contest below.) It was all very pleasant except for the trillion degree weather.

It's late and I'm off to Guangzhou tomorrow. I'll post more later. 

Guess what?

I'm starting a new feature here called "Guess what?" You, the reading public, will have a chance to guess the exact nature of the local delicacy pictured here.

This spicy dish was featured in the breakfast buffet at the Hyatt in Hangzhou.

Please leave your guesses in the comments section.

The prize? Eh... I don't know. A dream date with Charlotte Rae. How's that? 

Choc-Aid

Just took this photo with my camera phone in the laowai supermarket across from my office. An edible chocolate Band-Aid. I don't know how to feel about it -- brilliant or disgusting? I looked for Gummi Scabs but nothing.

I do like the tagline though: "For Life's Little Boo Boos." Screw Lexapro!

I'm going to Hangzhou tomorrow morning on the train. There's a lake there and apparently it's supposed to be quiet nice. I hope that means it's nice nice and not fetid-swampy-canal-tourist-trap nice. I'll post when I get back.

Hopefully this won't ruin my weekend. I think we're too far north.

Then to Guangzhou on Monday for work. Yay. 

Boat show

I had a work lunch today at a restaurant on the Bund. The terrace had a terrific view of the Huangpu River. Luckily I had my camera in my bag.

It's hard to convey through this photo, but there were maybe a hundred boats (barges mainly) on the river bringing raw materials into the country to be manufactured into, well, everything. Shanghai is one of the biggest ports in the world -- the scale and pace of commerce is incredible. It's something to see.

Lunch was just okay. 

Ready! Aim!

Fire!

Panda hunting? Yet another reason to visit me in China.

(The article declines to mention that all of the endangered species available for shooting are also members of Falun Gong. It's a two-fer!)

Beijing

I'm in Beijing for a research project. We're visiting people in their homes and asking them about their media behavior and receptivity to commercial messages. It's important, important work. I hope to win the Nobel Prize for Most Inane Job Imaginable.

On the airplane I read the English-language newspaper I call the Everything's Terrific Daily (it's actually called China Daily, but my title is certainly more accurate.) The front page article was about the pollution in Beijing and quoted an official as saying "Beijing is taking great steps in improving the air quality and the situation is getting better and better!" The article then went on to state that the number of "blue sky days" has increased significantly this year.

I took this photo from my hotel room. It was around 6PM.

Demolished

Almost everything you read here is about the INCREDIBLE PACE OF CONSTRUCTION ...blah, blah, blah. It's true. Buildings go up overnight. Cranes fill the skyline. You hear that circular saw sound (kinda: "zzzzzZZZZZeeee") twenty-four hours a day.

Equally, there's an incredible pace of demolition that gives the city a less sexy, but still futuristic, post-apocalyptic feel. The first photo is the former site of Xiangyang Market a few blocks from my house. If you look closely you can see the poor clod who has to use a torch to break apart the metal remnants and then remove them piece by piece.

The next photo is a site near Suzhou Creek. I took this photo as I was walking toward the site of the new Xiangyang Market which is in a dumpy basement in Hongkou.

The last photo is my favorite ...it's an earth mover demolishing a building from the inside out. I took the photo through the front window of the building. If you want worker safety guidelines like this, please remember to vote Republican. 

Yongkong Road

The street near my house is "under construction." ("Destruction" would certainly be more apt.)

One day it's a quaint, tree-lined thoroughfare, the next it's a pile of rubble. The air smells of sewage and dust. Listless guys in hardhats stand about smoking cigarettes and stare blankly into the hole in the street.

Why are they digging up the street? This question seems the modern urban equivalent of "What's the sound of one hand clapping?" -- a riddle meant to purge your mind of all conscious thought.

I feel like I'm back in New York City.