November 6, 2006
Shanghai Diary (Day 2)
"Hey, Mister, what country are you from"
I must have heard that forty times today, mostly from young schoolgirls practicing their English. The second most popular phrase "Hey, you want to buy a watch (shoes, t-shirt, pen, etc.)" Everything seems to be for sale here. I even got my Rockports rebuilt on the street by a cobbler on the go.
The day started very hazy. The view from my hotel room:
 |
To see how bad the haze really was, you have to see it from the 88th floor of the Jinmao Building (China's tallest and the third highest in the world):
 |
This is looking DOWN at the TV tower. And if you think being a graduate student is a tough job, look at what these three guys are doing. I took this picture out the 88th floor window.
 |
But by afternoon the wind had come up and it turned out to be a really nice day.
 |
I walked from those buildings to my hotel and it is 6.8 miles (that's probably close to the visibility).
On the science side, WMO has agreed to start up a global dust warning network. More tomorrow.
Posted by Ray Hoff at November 6, 2006 8:48 AM