Arriving in Beijing

The train from Dalian hadn't yet reached Beijing East Station on its way to the main station on the corner of Second Ring Road when a recorded message over the intercom listed our destination city's distinctive features, such as the Forbidden City, along with superlatives, such as the "biggest public square in the world, Tiananmen." A neighborhood of shanties swung into and out of sight like the motion of a pendulum, time itself; soon those low-rise shacks will be swept aside by the brooms of construction, their dust absorbed by the free-floating elements above, the haze, through which, at that very moment, a piercing gleam in the distance announced the presence of a golden skyscraper burgeoning out of the earth. A small child nearby kept repeating in a manner of singsong, "Arriving in Beijing! Arriving in Beijing!" until his mother told him to quit it. Arriving in Beijing, indeed. Back home.

A trip to Pyongyang, August 27-30

I know I've made a habit of saying, after returning from a trip, that I'll write "more about this later," but this time I mean it: I really will write more about North Korea in the coming weeks.

For now, though, feast your eyes on this video I made:

Full videos (two parts) here:

Greetings from Wuhan

The day following an Ultimate Frisbee tournament win:

Two pictures that encapsulate the Yangtze's relationship with man

From my August trip:

Greetings from Changi Airport in Singapore

Where the Internet is free and relatively fast. There are also Internet stations all over this place where people can log on for free. What an amazing airport -- and concept.

Heading to Hong Kong to get a Z work visa, finally. And what was I doing in Singapore?

Singapore

Backdated from Oct. 5, 2010.

In Singapore now, where over the weekend there was an Ultimate Frisbee tournament in which my team had a very good time.

One can't help noticing the cleanliness and scrubbed-over modernity of Singapore, especially as it contrasts against so many cities in Asia. There are other, less positive ways to describe the city, of course -- over-commercialized, etherized, boring, expensive -- but one cannot deny that it is a worthy heavyweight among Asian destinations and one worth further exploration.

A few more pictures:







The incredible Sands Hotel:


Best swimming pool in the world?

Yesterday in Ningbo

Was in Ningbo in Zhejiang Province. There's not a whole lot to see in this city of 2 million, but if you're there with friends, make your way through Tianyi Square in downtown Ningbo and find the grassy area just north of the square. Many an afternoons can be easily wiled away at that spot. I now know from experience.

Kevin Reitz has more about Ningbo on his blog.

Images and observations follow. (Not pictured: Jeff Orcutt and Shan Wu.)

Some fruit and flora:




Oh you pretty faces:


Clockwise from top left: Michael Chaitkin, Therese, Matt, Alicia.

Around the city:

Such a hard life...

Therese with rabid puppy, and guy roasting meat.



Nappers: c.f. this site.


Ah, to be a kid again...


Like this big kid here. (Kevin Reitz shenanigans.)

Church next to Tianyi Square.


Portuguese church that we finally made it to after an afternoon of beer frizz on a lawn (the playing of which attracted lots of attention, as you can imagine).


Food porn -- Alicia's final meal in Ningbo.

Bow down to all that is Shanghai

Everything you've heard about Shanghai is true: it is gawdy, overwhelming, intimidating, commercial, postcolonial, modern, postmodern, big, huge and ginormous. It is, through and through, a tribute to money, the big fat dollar extra-fat on its own fat-feeding mechanisms, yet it is also, if you're willing to walk around a bit, organic in its own special way, and welcoming. Mostly, it is alive. It is filled with commotion. It is noisy and bustling and hard as hell to get a cab. It is jammed with people with someplace to be, or no place at all.

To give you an idea: the People's Square subway stop on line two has TWENTY exits. Twenty. During rush hour, there is a veritable stampede. It is a million people converging on one stop and fighting to keep their wits. It's a constant challenge, and don't even get me started on subway card dispensing machines that take coins-only.

They closed the Bund for a few months or so for construction this past year, and since re-opening, it's never looked this good. On a blue-sky day, anyway. And I was lucky enough to encounter one over the weekend, just before it got nasty, cold and rainy. Here, what the government is hoping Shanghai looks like come Expo time (more or less):
















More pictures here.