Shanghai

The smog was dense in Shaghai. Our little town of Jingdezhen (1.4M) did not have much to speak of, but now I see why Beijing is so busy cleaning up for the Olympics. The heat and smog make the air dense. We were there for 2 nights, debriefing. Which did not, by the way, include adjusting to using forks again.

Sunday morning was a trip to a local church. There are no denominations in China except "christian" and "Catholic" so we were pretty sure of 45 minutes of singing, 30 minutes of Bible reading and 40 minutes of sermon all in Chinese. I decided I would take the morning for a walk in the park and poking around Shanghai before it got unbearably hot. When I went down for breakfast, the only ones who did not go to church were all the other liturgal worshippers: the Church of England crowd from the UK and Canada. So we all said, "The Lord be with you!" And everyone knew the right answer!

Observed today:

A woman with a sewing machine, fan and sofa in the front yard. Apparently Adjustments while You Wait in comfort.

A woman driving a motor scooter with a lawn chair tied on the back bumper where a man sat reading the newspaper.

A huge produce and meat market where you could get your dinner still swimming. Or Clucking. Or Quacking.

A group of senior citizens ballroom dancing to a CD player in the park at 9am.

We did travel to the Bunn area of Shanghai where all the former embassies are still standing, now transformed with neon into shops, hotels and, of course, a KFC on every block.