Heading Home

Some final thoughts on the flight home...

...Hong Kong as "World City." Like I wrote a few weeks ago, the cultural borderland that is Hong Kong remains one of our favorite places in the world. I was afraid we were going to run out of things to do or see on this, our fourth trip. But familiarity in this case has bred an interest in digging a bit below the surface, focusing a bit more on day-to-day street life and historical context. It enriches the luxe aspect of this city by comparison. Lois keeps talking about returning when we next visit Asia again, and although I'm trying to explain it's a bit out of the way for a likely (third) trip to Japan, I'm really not all that opposed to the idea. (And I just notice on the airplane map that it's closer to Hanoi than it is to Shanghai. So one never knows.

No, I guess I do know. We'll be back.

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...Shanghai Second Thoughts. Looking back I was probably a bit tough on Shanghai (although I still do like my "teenager" metaphor). It wasn't as bad as I might have made it sound. Once there a few days, getting the pulse of the city and the lay of the land did end up making it interesting as well as chaotic. I think I might have just bought too much into the hype about the place of the last couple years, and had to dial down on the expectations a bit. And to be fair, having to deal with almost 20,000,000 people is a bit more of a challenge than the "mere" 7,000,000 in Hong Kong.

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...Power Loss Over Siberia. CRAP!!! Why is my battery telling me to save or shut down??? I'm plugged into the provided seat power!!! Back in a sec, while I figure out what's going on...OK, I'm back...Swapped to my second battery. It seems that the power on the plane, or my connection to it, is a bit unreliable. I plug in, the "connected, calculating" icon comes up, making me think I've got juice, then when I'm not looking, the icon switches to battery. Oh well. At least I've titled the pictures in iPhoto (watch for the uploads). But so much for my plan of watching my Lord of the Rings DVDs on the flight home. I'll have to see what Continental's offering on their small screens for the remaining 10 hours or maybe test the limits of the iPod battery. (I've never really been able to reliably sleep on planes, even on these marathon flights, while Lois easily conks right out.)

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...Following up with Randall. We wandered over to Victoria Park on Saturday to check out Randall's Tai Chi and Sword practice. He and his teacher ran through a couple sword forms while we were there. The slowness and fluidity of the movements involved are deceptive. The concentration involved (and, I suppose, the weather) result in a real workout, if the sweat on Randall's brow was any indication. It was good to see him again before we left.

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...Something We Shouldn't Have Missed. Not being big evening people, especially after busy days, we missed hitting the Bund/Pudong at night. Given the day/night difference of Hong Kong, maybe the Bund would have impressed me a bit more lit up. Lois says we'll just have to come back. hmmm...Shanghai is hosting a World Expo in 2010...hmmm

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...And finally, if anyone cared whether I ever found any more of those wasabi potato chips...

...it turned out the store we cleaned out was replenished.