Jennifer in Shangai

Jennifer had a nice visit to Shanghai in late April this year.  It was a work trip, but since it's such a long way, she went a day early to try to recover a bit from jet lag before giving classes for many hours.

She got to visit some beautiful water gardens.  This one little maintenance man was busily maintaining the pond in his little boat the whole time.  Check out how Jennifer captured his reflection perfectly, and his arm in motion, with all the red lanterns everywhere.

Scary Chinese lion statue.  

Scarier Chinese dragon watching over the proceedings.

Look at the water near the people.  The water was solid orange because so many koi came up to the side of the pond to get fed. 

Harmonious, clean, and serene.  Jennifer said this was a relief from pushing through crowds on every street, shop, sidewalk, and mall in Shanghai, one of the bigger cities on the planet. 

When she stopped in to have some tea, there was something in her glass.  The tea leaves are at the bottom.  When they pour in the hot water, this little blossom re-hydrates, and pops up to show its colorful self.  There are probably not too many toxic chemical byproducts in it.  Anyway, I think she only had one, so I think she'll be OK. 

Jennifer caught the natives practicing their curious customs while visiting a Buddhist temple.  They have an incense vendor just outside the temple.

Light up your incense. 

Share the good karma in the wind.  

The interior of the temple dome is a masterpiece of sculptural Buddhist architecture.  Love the design and the flawless execution.

 Interior of a Buddhist temple.  I'm not sure if this is the same one or not!  We need to ask Jennifer.

The big show everyone must see in Shanghai is the skyline at night.  The best skyline viewing is from the area known as The Bund.  The city has created a sort of giant, glowing, man-made waterfall all along the river opposite the view of downtown.  These buildings are just the small ones.  Next picture has the famous skyline.  

The view at night is a really impressive sight.  We'll never know if this was achieved because of, or in spite of, the repression of freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, of Chinese citizens.  Jennifer found all Google sites simply could not be reached from her Shanghai hotel, even though it had  mostly foreign guests.    

Note the brightly lit touring boat in the foreground.  Jennifer took one of those cruises that night too.

Wow!  Jennifer's a damned good photographer!

For historical perspective on how quickly China's economy has grown, take a look at this comparison between 1990 and 2010 Shanghai skyline.  The Atlantic Monthly magazine featured this photo some time ago.  Of course, Jennifer's photos are far better than these, but the point here is the change.

  

Flamingos at The Camargue, Wetlands of Southern France

We visited the Camargue wetlands, on the French Cote d'Azur along the Mediterranean, in mid-April.  We were very lucky with the weather.  Sunny and cool.  It was an odd feeling to watch flocks of flamingos in France.  If you ever go to France, make sure to check out the flamingos.

They spend most of their time walking around in the water, scooping up brine shrimp in their big bills.  We'd seen wild flamingos before in Tanzania's Manyara National Park.  But these looked very different.

Here's a map showing where the Camargue is in France.  See inset.

Their wings are three colors - whitish pink, deep pink, and black.  I read that flamingo colors come from the colors in the shrimp they constantly eat.  Of course, that doesn't explain where the colors in the shrimp come from.

They flew back and forth over us in groups of various sizes.

Lots of times, it was just two of them.  

Nice clear view with wings spread, showing their markings.  They aren't the most graceful of flying creatures.  It looks like their legs and neck sag a little bit each time they flap their wings. 

 I like this closeup of a larger group flying by.

Eurostar to London for the Weekend, Again

It's still hard to believe how fast it is to go from Paris to London on the Eurostar.  We were rolling at about 300 kilometers per hours, according to the overhead screen on-board the train car.  This translates to 186 miles per hour.  Not bad!  So, the ride takes about 2 hours 15 minutes, and you get dropped off at Kings Cross-Saint Pancras station in central London, with Underground stops right underneath to get you to your hotel.  It's hard not to say Saint Pancreas.  Even harder than not saying Downtown Abbey.

We stayed in a really nice hotel - Serjeant's something or another.  Weird spelling of sergeant.  It was right on Fleet street and had a big, quiet room with big TV, large bathroom, and even a sort of love seat at the foot of the bed.

The first thing we did was go to Shake Shack at Covent Garden for a "concrete", their signature custard ice cream dessert.  Shake Shack concretes are a must on any London visit. This early dessert was to tide us over until dinner.  After we had our dessert, we took off walking from Covent Garden, through Soho, and over to Piccadilly.  Along the way, we saw a bookstore and stopped in to browse.  We don't get to browse in English language bookstores much in Paris.  Jennifer was concentrating on looking into our trip to the Pyrenees in August.

It was a sunny, cool day, and lots of people were out and about walking around.  We were on a long pedestrian-only strip for much of the walk.  When we reached the end of the walk, we found a really huge book store with about seven stories.  So, we went in and browsed some more.  I bought The Sellout, the book that won the Man Booker prize this year.  Jennifer found two books on the Pyrenees we thought would come in handy.

Later that night, we showed up to a packed Ceviche, with reservations I'd made online about a month earlier.  The atmosphere is loud latin music, dim lighting, a tiny bar at the front, and just past the bar, a small room with small wooden tables crowded together.  We love the pork fritters, tuna ceviche, and lots of other small dishes there.  But, the big attraction is the Pisco Sour, which is the best we've had since our trip to Peru.  The egg white foam on top is smooth and creamy and perfectly balances out the sour of the drink.  We had to have two each.  Jennifer having only mixed drinks and no wine!?!?  That never happens!

After that, we wandered home.  We went out onto the pedestrian bridge that looks over the Thames and the London Eye (giant ferris wheel).

Next morning, we found a nice breakfast place near the hotel and sat at a high table looking out the window.  Directly across the street from us were the Royal Courts, in an impressive-looking complex of gray stone, castle-like buildings, with arches and crenelation. It would make a good shooting location for Game of Thrones.