A lot of walking. Not as much as I would have wished because as the days went on the weather got worse and worse. My first day was the best we had, sunny and brisk. Though "sunny" in Shanghai is a loose term, because the air pollution is so bad. They burn a lot of coal and their cars don't have much in the way of emission standards, so "sunny" means a day on which it doesn't rain, you can see weak shadows, and in another city the sky would be blue.



I walked early in the morning, hampered by jetlag, stress from the canceled flight and re-routing on the way over, plus the fact that I didn't have my walking shoes, because my suitcase had vanished. (Long story; it came late the next day.) What I did have were my cowboy boots and my river shoes: rubber-soled closed slippers, essentially. Because I didn't have the suitcase I also only had the pants I'd flown in, loose cotton knits. Someone was bringing me loaner-clothes later on so I could look relatively decent at my first event at lunch, but I hesitated for a moment on going out early because I looked like I was in slippers and pajamas. But then I remembered, this was Shanghai! People in Shanghai DO go out in their slippers and pajamas! It's one of those mystifying local habits. They buy cotton pajamas -- not the matched silk or cotton shirt-and-pants that are worn all over Asia and referred to in the West as "pajamas," but aren't; actual cotton pajamas, with notched collars and piping, like you had when you were a kid. They don't sleep in them, or at least, not in their street set. They iron them and wear them with their flip-flops or slippers to do errands, the way we wear sweatpants and tee shirts. In the summer it's practical, because it's so hot and muggy. In winter they just throw their jackets over them. So on my morning walk, when I discovered what calls itself The World's Largest Trompe L'oeil Mural, I fit right in.