First days in Shanghai

2 August 2005

We've been in Shanghai for a couple of days now--and we're almost over jet lag although Bei is the weak link the sleep chain. She woke us up this morning at 4:30 a.m. with a lot of enthusiasm for the day at hand.

It's early and I'm going to post some photos from our forays into the heat (it's hot and humid and it hits you like a wall). I go out of the air conditioning for an hour or so at a time and come back soaking wet and thrashed. Laramie just doesn't prepare you for the humidity.



Men (and a few women) get together in the park and heave big blocks of concrete around for exercise. Some of the blocks weight 70 pounds and they flip the things over their heads and in big arcs over their backs before catching them by the handles and doing it again.































Bei went to check out this bird and was very curious until it nipped her on the finger with its beak. The fishermen thought that was very funny. Notice the guy in his jammies. This is common summer fashion in Shanghai--you see guys wandering around in jammies or boxer shorts. I wish I'd brought my jammies.











We went to a market near the campus here. Everyone loves to talk about Bei and to show her stuff. Here she's getting a tour of the live fish.



















We went downtown and up into a huge spire of a building to have a look at the Shanghai skyline. The haze is both humidity and pollution but I think more of the former.