From the Beginning

City Lights.JPG
Originally uploaded by statusqphotos

Here is a post i wrote up a wk ago. But couldn't post because of the internet and gmail probs i was having. More on that later.

Shanghai is nice. It's more modern than BJ. That is to say, there's less old stuff there. But frankly i really like BJ better, 'cause there's more stuff to do. More history. More variety.
For example.
Shanghai is not a good city for art. Because it's a city for money, first.
Shanghai is not a good city for music. Because it's a city for money, first.
Shanghai is a good city for shopping, if you like shopping, and you're not tall.
Momentarily after checking into a hostel, i met a young just-graduated Chinese dude, who thought it was very odd that i planned to go to some art galleries. "Art galleries and paintings are so boring!" he quipped.
Anyhow, being moneyless and with no plans, he accompanied me to see some not super impressive art, but we did discuss a projection installation of butterflies on a glass table covered with broken white tiles at length. He thought i was thinking about it too much, but it really was a pretty interesting piece, imo. Anyhow, he was admittedly surprised to look at and think about art like that, which was cool, i thought.
Later on we met a german dude who we hung out with quite a lot too. We spent a significant chunk of yesterday riding up and down elevators trying to see how high we could get without paying. The 85th floor was what we pulled off, and it took just a little bit of sneaky work, and there was luckily a small window there.
Beforehand we had a $10 beer on the 55th floor, which was also quite chill. Sitting in the Hilton cafe, wearing sandals, with 2 copies of Lonely Planet on the table. Score.
Now i'm in Ningbo for a couple days, mostly 'cause my cuz has a cuz here who she said i should meet. He works in the museum, and my cuz's family had started up a university and museum in this small city of 4.5 million.
No bed yet, but it was nice walking around a bit early this morning and seeing lots of folk doing tai chi in the parks.
PS. the pix will have nothing to do with the entries for a while since i think posting thru flickr is the only way to blog right now...