1. those who know me well know that i refuse to either take or be a part of pictures in which people have to lean in to fit in the frame. this types of pictures are most common among college girls, usually taken in the dorm room before going out. that being said, the people in the video below clearly do not know me very well. see if you can figure out when i indicated i was actually filming them. but the video actually works on so many levels. make sure you also listen to the background, where you can hear the inimitable jefferson egging on the crowd.
UPDATE: here is a link for all the haters who can't see the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkUo4hUi1yI
2. this is a long highlight, so i will continue it here. jefferson is the nigerian owner of co-co club in hangzhou, where we spent from about 1:00AM to 5:15AM on saturday (because we were too cheap to get a hotel room). we attempted to leave around 3:00, but were easily swayed by a free bottle of absolut. jefferson decided to call me spiderman, because i was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up, and referred to himself as superman. i didn't argue.
3. compared to beijing, the shanghai subway is much less civilized, to use the parlance of our times. people shoving to get on before anyone even gets off and the escalators are simply a mess. as all my former teachers in hangzhou mentioned, i'm much thinner than i was three years ago. that's actually because i've been adhering to a strict weight loss diet in order to sharpen my elbows, but i've yet to put them to use in beijing.
4. so the question: is a two hour flight from shanghai to beijing 4.5 times better than a 13-hour overnight hard seat train ride? yes, absolutely. especially during the holiday. upon getting on the train in beijing the car was so crowded with standing-only passengers it literally took me twenty minutes to get from one end of the car to the other where my seat was. easily one of the roughest trips of my life, second only to that yunnan sleeper bus ride i wrote about years ago (after reviewing past posts, all i said was that it was quite horrible. and it was). also, even though i had to sit next to a fat american tourist on the plane (what are the chances?), it's worth it to keep greasy college kids from sleeping on you.
5. i spent most of my time in shanghai sleeping, but i've been there before and so didn't have much i wanted to see. shanghai is a much nicer city for strolling around in. it's way more similar to a european city than beijing, it has a more "human" scale, as architects like to say. beijing is like some freakish bizarro world for giants.
so i'm back in beijing. i finally found a place to live, though can't actually move in until next week for ridiculous visa-related issues. i didn't find that out until i moved most of my stuff over there. but luckily it's really close to durrell's place so i'm sort of living in two apartments for now. but anyway, here's a picture of my building taken from durrell's. it's the hot pink one. hell yeah.
another beautiful day in beijing
3. compared to beijing, the shanghai subway is much less civilized, to use the parlance of our times. people shoving to get on before anyone even gets off and the escalators are simply a mess. as all my former teachers in hangzhou mentioned, i'm much thinner than i was three years ago. that's actually because i've been adhering to a strict weight loss diet in order to sharpen my elbows, but i've yet to put them to use in beijing.
4. so the question: is a two hour flight from shanghai to beijing 4.5 times better than a 13-hour overnight hard seat train ride? yes, absolutely. especially during the holiday. upon getting on the train in beijing the car was so crowded with standing-only passengers it literally took me twenty minutes to get from one end of the car to the other where my seat was. easily one of the roughest trips of my life, second only to that yunnan sleeper bus ride i wrote about years ago (after reviewing past posts, all i said was that it was quite horrible. and it was). also, even though i had to sit next to a fat american tourist on the plane (what are the chances?), it's worth it to keep greasy college kids from sleeping on you.
trying on the local fashions. too much arm? i think i look a bit cheap
5. i spent most of my time in shanghai sleeping, but i've been there before and so didn't have much i wanted to see. shanghai is a much nicer city for strolling around in. it's way more similar to a european city than beijing, it has a more "human" scale, as architects like to say. beijing is like some freakish bizarro world for giants.
so i'm back in beijing. i finally found a place to live, though can't actually move in until next week for ridiculous visa-related issues. i didn't find that out until i moved most of my stuff over there. but luckily it's really close to durrell's place so i'm sort of living in two apartments for now. but anyway, here's a picture of my building taken from durrell's. it's the hot pink one. hell yeah.
another beautiful day in beijing 
5 comments:
The video doesn't seem to work.
hmmm, anybody else having problems with the video?
I can't see it either.
yeah, this video thing did not work this time!
Hey Benihana,
I am truly impressed with the guns. Good to see you're working out.
I too have experienced the "hard-seat" journey from Shanghai to Beijing, but the story lives on for me. Experience it one more time for me. Thanks in advance.
Russ J
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