We left Shanghai on Sunday afternoon after a minor delay at Hongqiao airport - apparently our flight was undersold so when we got to the counter we were told it was cancelled. Luckily another airline had a flight two hours later, so we just sat around for a while with our piles of bags. We got into Kunming around nine pm and met Teri and Nina at the Seagull.
We've been getting around pretty well so far in all these various modes of travel, which I think is a tribute to John's language skills and the general seriousness and efficiency of public transportation. On our way back from Nanjing to Shanghai we rode the high-speed train, which was amazingly not dirty even in the bathrooms, and rocketed through the suburbs and farmland at up to 230km/h, or about 135 mph. My dinky camera couldnt even get pictures of the farmers bringing in the rice harvest or hoeing the fields by hand. What a trip. We saw a just couple ancient combines, both sitting there with a bunch of guys standing around, and lots of fields with sheaves neatly lined up in the rows. A water buffalo and trikes to ferry stuff around. This was all tantalizingly blurred from the train and I'm looking forward to actually getting on the ground to see what I can for myself. Hopefully I'll be able to get through the language...
I have also been reintroduced to Kunming dialect, which I really resented when I was here in 2001. You know, you hit the books, study hard in school, and then land in a place where everybody swallows the consonants and makes up completely different words if they are speaking "Chinese" at all. Now that I know what to expect I'm hoping to pick up a little while I'm in town. Me', tai baja' le!
Here's some photos of Shanghai:
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