Shanghai to Shenzhen was no trouble, and nor was speeding back to Lingnan by minibus. I picked up my stuff and met a small party in Trevor’s apartment, where I picked up my luggage and got a taxi bargained for me… 200 for a red taxi from the hostel to a hotel in Causeway Bay, where I stayed for two nights. Not bad. The ride, that is, not the hotel: that was overpriced.

The next morning, I said goodbye to the Hong Kong Central Library in CWB by returning the Lonely Planets I’d borrowed for the trip, and then barely made it to see the firing of the Noon-day Gun (kind of fun, kind of lame). It was very, very humid, though I mostly avoided rain. I planned to then go hide in the air conditioning all day, but instead I met up with Mindy in ifc (she was coming back from a dragon boat competition the day before on Lamma). We had lunch at Mix and then proceeded to sweat more than was healthy, crossing a last couple items off our checklists: the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery in Shatin (finally!) and the Chinese University campus. The 10,000 steps monastery was tiring, but over sooner than I expected (and incredibly fast to climb down from). CUHK was huge, with some great views that would have been even better on a freak clear day. It’s interesting how completely isolated it is from everything, without even college town trappings.

The next morning was an exercise in Hong Kong simplicity: I took the shuttle bus from the hotel to ifc, checked in my luggage and got my boarding pass, and hopped on the Airport Express. About half an hour later, I walked through immigration at HKIA and was looking for breakfast. Amazing.

I showed up at the gate a bit after boarding had started, approvingly noting the fantastic line-tending by CX ground staff, and after a while made it on the plane. With no seatmate! How excellent. My flight was very, very good, for a 16 hour flight at least. Cathay Pacific is great. Cup noodles, snack baskets (tim tams included, thanks), plenty of in-flight entertainment (though it’s still annoying that it’s on a loop), perfect service… not bad for economy.

A good while later, I wound up in the wretched confines of JFK. They were wretched, and I don’t even want to talk about it. Weather and Delta (Doesn’t Ever Leave The Airport, remember) incompetence combined to get me stuck in New York overnight, and for the several hours that Delta was jerking us around the ground staff were completely hostile and useless. I would have been stuck in the airport—that miserable airport—after being awake for 28 hours—if I hadn’t been able to thankfully crash with Curtis in Queens.

The next morning, my flight out was delayed for 3 or 4 hours, 2 on tarmac, by a series of DL incompetence unrelated to weather, causing me to miss my connection to Pittsburgh (I’d been rerouted via Cincinnati instead of directly). Cincinnati was a breath of fresh air after JFK, and the next flight was just long enough away to eat lunch on Comair (since they couldn’t blame the delay on weather). Dianna caught me in Pittsburgh, and I’m in Morgantown now since the evening of the 13th.

And that’s the end.

More yawns followed during the night bus ride to Tokyo (nobody had a seatmate this time… excellent) and as I staggered through the early morning of Tokyo. In Tokyo, I wandered around Ueno before anything opened and decided I wasn’t up to staggering through a temple district in Asakusa; I went to the airport early. There, the only thing noteworthy was a Japanese crepe. I ate it.

Back in Shanghai, though, back from the abysmally-located airport and checked into my hostel, I am reminded of what makes China a great travel destination for me. Walking down the alley where the hostel is located, I see the tell-tale small wooden baskets that can mean… well, a few things, but I hope they can mean just one thing: jiaozi. And they do. And one basket of eight is 3 kwai—about 40 cents—well under half the cost of, say, a can of Coke in Japan, and about the same cost as that can in China.

And life is good.

I came down with a nasty little head cold on the morning of my departure, but have so far avoided provoking an international quarantine incident. This has limited my picture-taking and, for that matter, what I can remember to blog about (see above summary for an example).

Review of the Shanghai airport maglev, in three key words:

1. Cool.
2. Whoa. (this is the part where it goes 268 mph)
3. Over? It just started…

The flight to NRT was good, considering the cold, because I got an aisle exit seat without even asking. I think it might have been pure random luck, because it looked like they had printed all the boarding passes beforehand. Maybe the consolidator bookers at elong are just extra-devious.

Arriving was pretty painless, despite an answer to the question about cash holdings that made me look like an international drug runner (I brought all my big bills of left-over foreign currency to change). The hostel seems decent.

Why can we not steal these nifty Japanese household tools? Shower doors that do not let a drop of water past, drains that do not clog, automatic lights where they make sense… sigh.

I have spent the day wandering around Ginza and Shinjuku (so far) with my mouth hanging open. Maybe it is the cold, or maybe the rumors of Japan-caused befuddlement were all true. It is hard for me to explain why, without the use of a healthy mind or the apostrophe I cannot find on this keyboard, but things are very (subjectively) weird for me right now.

It looks like finding accomodations in Kyoto is going to be major trouble. I may have to base myself in Osaka.

Smoking policy is weird here. It is banned on a lot of streets and allowed in a lot of private businesses. Maybe this is what Hong Kong was aiming for.

Cough, ok, back to wandering around. Cough cough.

My flight wasn’t bad—no, wait, it was, actually. The last airport bus leaves downtown Xi’an at 1800, and my flight was at 2255, so I got to spend several hours in the Xi’an airport (about 2 each land- and air- side). XIY is one of the unenlightened airports lacking any food options (even a token KFC “Select” as seen at PEK) not owned by the airport operator. The flight was in transit from some place farther west, which meant transit passengers had to board first (because… they have to?), which meant I spent about 10 more minutes in a classic Chinese queuing situation than I like to. Then, during the flight, the lady on my left couldn’t contain her arm and gesticulated wildly throughout the various parts of my left arm and shoulder.

Also, I arrived at 0045. After wandering around the airport for a while and driving a hard bargain, I got a generic business hotel room kind of near the airport for 150. I could have just stayed in departures, which looked like it wasn’t too bad, but I felt like I could use the shower. The room was great, except for the Lingnan-style bed and the mosquito bite just under my eye as I was falling asleep. And the cold shower. But it could have been worse, and it had a free airport shuttle.

This morning brought an adventure—a pilgrimage, really, as I tracked down the Shanghai offices of Elong to claim my ticket to Japan. I eventually got them to figure out what I was talking about and got my paper ticket (in fancy red-strikethrough quadruplicate). Beehome hostel is nice and relatively easy to get to from the subway. I finally got into town without my pack at about 3 p.m. and did one of my Stubborn Urban Hikes (I’ll go 90s on you and come up with a catchy InterCapped name: StubUrban Hiking!) from Nanjing Xilu east to the Bund, up and down it a few times until the sun went down, up and down it a few more times taking pictures, through the cheesy “sightseeing tunnel” to Pudong, and then the wrong way into several construction projects for about an hour before I finally gave up and took the subway one stop to get back.

Most things are better when they’re illuminated: carved pumpkins, ancient manuscripts, “LA Lights” sneakers when you’re in grade school… the Bund is no exception. Well, Pudong is, too, for the same reason that the night improves Hong Kong: it helps buildings cut through the fog.

This hostel does have an annoying 30 minute time limit for its free Internet, even when (as now) nobody’s waiting. This entry’s over now, I guess.