Well, my travel companion Randy just left today, and I got some bad news from Lime. It looks like January is a much better time for her to fly to Canada then February — in fact, flying in February looks impossible, because the number of male interns who did not get a position for March is high and many of them are obliged to go directly to military service, meaning a lot of male interns will be gone in February. Which means if we’re going to go to Canada, it’s going to have to be in January. And there’s not …
Category: TRAVELS
Shanghai’s Frustrating Side
I’ve had a frustrating day. Some of that I should blame on Lonely Planet hyping things that weren’t so interesting after all… some of it is just Shanghai. Cabbies refusing to take you places even when you show them the Chinese text… a subway system that’s 90% doable but 10% completely incomprehensible… and touts and hawkers who just do not let up. Now some woman in the Internet room at the hotel I’m staying at is vociferously arguing with a guest that all the PCs are the same. She claims the PC that takes 15 minutes to load Gmail and …
Access Again!
So some of the PCs in the hotel actually aren’t so bug-infested and crappy that I can’t connect to my own site! Yesterday, Randy and I met my old student from Jeonju, Lisa. I’ll be seeing her again with a fellow student of hers, Faith, who’ll be back in Shanghai next week. (As will I, probably just for a day before I catch my flight back home to Korea.) It’s odd walking down the Bund… I keep getting flashbacks to The Diamond Age and to the stories I had set in Shanghai. This afternoon I’ll be checking out older bits …
The Wall and Beijing Opera
Okay, all my pictures are in RAW format, so they’re only likely to get uploaded, well, maybe from Shanghai but more likely from Korea. (Depending on the state of net connections in Shangai.)\ Notes on China: When they build stuff, they build it BIG. The wall, but also everything else we’ve seen so far has been HUGE. Beijing opera is trippy, live, but also quite impressive. That’s all for now. Tomorrow morning, off to Shanghai.
Forbidden Ducks Something
Today, I: Woke late, had a so-so breakfast. Went to the Forbidden City and met my recent student Xue Chen. Had Peking Duck. Still feel tired. Tomorrow, more Beijing. Next day, Great Wall. Wednesday, fly to Shanghai to meet more students I know from their time in Korea. These student, actually: Damn… Flickr won’t load. Well, I’ll add the picture later. Or put a new one in its place. Anyway, things are going well. Off to buy some water, and get some sleep.