We were up early this morning, had to have our main luggage outside our doors by 6:15 to be picked up for direct shipment to Shanghai, while we left at 7:00 to go by bus to Suzhou, and then on tonight to Shanghai. We are now here, it is 7:45 pm, but the luggage has not appeared. The man from the tourist office has been waiting at the train station sicne 4:00 to pick it up, poor guy, but so far no news.

I hear the Eskimo have 50 or more words to describe snow, and I am developing my own vocabulary to describe rain. Today was a gentle, but insistent rain, which our guide in Suzhou says makes gardens more beautiful. I felt that way, too, in Nanjing, but it is getting a little tiresome. Tomorrow more rain is predicted so we have rearranged our schedule and will spend tomorrow in the Shanghai art museum, hoping for better weather on Sunday.

I have a few revisions in my thoughts to pass on. Our guide in Nanjing responded to our many questions about child planning by giving us a short lecture. Within the last month they have removed the requirement that you register before getting pregnant. Also, if either parent is him or herself an only child, that couple may have two children. That would make only children desireable marriage partners... So I guess someone thought about the cousins issue, too.

Although the sycamore dominates Nanjing, the cypress is the city's tree and the main avenue leading to the university has six rows of cypress trees -- one between the houses and the pedestrian sidewalk, one between it and the bikeway, and one between the bikeway and the cars -- repeated on the outher side of the street and very impressive.

Suzhou is supposed to be a beautiful garden city, but from my perspective it didn't hold a candle to Nanjing as a city. It does have some beautiful public gardens -- it used to have more than two hundred private ones -- but now just a few. The larger one we saw was awesome, but full of tourists, predominatly Chinese. By contrast, the smaller one was empty except for us and one Chinese couple, so we could really appreciate the serentiy it was meant to inspire. One portion of that garden was reproduced at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (called the Metropolis Museum on the sign) although I think the Met version is a little smaller. We also went for a ride on the Grand Canal for about an hour. I took some great video of the range of vehicles from simple, dirty sampans to industrial barges to white pleasure boats.

Lunch today was a great success, in a beautiful old teahouse. We were served the afternoon version of dim sum -- a variety of stuffed pastries, but in all there is just too much food, and we are upset about the waste. Our guide and leader keep telling us that they can do nothing about it. Tonight we went right to dinner when we arrived in Shanghai (5:00) after having had this wonderful lunch at 12:30. We ended up leaving many dishes virtually untouched. I couldn't help but think there had to be another way...

On the train today we were joking about having some great adventure so that when we got home we could talk about "while I was on the train to Shanghai.." Well, the trip was only 45 minutes, so uneventful. First class here is referred to not by class -- (isn't this a classless society?) but by the type of seat -- hard seats and soft seats, hard berths and soft berths. We had soft seats, very much like American trains, which, according to the tickets cost about US$ 3.00. The countryside today was an intersting mix of rice paddies and truck farming. I wonder if the increased prosperity of the cities in this area makes the growing of vegetables more profitable than rice. There is an incredible amount of water in this delta -- today's rain notwithstanding -- and when we were driving by villages with vegetable gardens instead of rice, I kept thinking it looked like Holland.

Shanghai itself looks like New York, or perhaps Singapore, with lots of high buildings, a beautiful new modern theater, and a whole economic district across the river from our hotel which we have yet to explore. We are staying at the Peace Hotel on the Bund -- the famous river bank of what was originally the foreign concession area. The buildings were largely built in the 20s and 30s, including our hotel (no swimming pool). There is an effort to keep some of the old charm - the reception area is dimly lit with 20s tiffany style lamps and heavy mahogany paneling. My room has the original furniture (I think) or something much like it. To make up for amenities like the pool they don't have they have put televisions in the bathroom. They are not full televisions, but security screens hooked up to the tv, so if you set a channel in the bedroom you can watch the same show from the bath. I guess that's 1999 decadence... Tonight we ate dinner at the Pacific Hotel. I finally decided that one reason they take tourists to hotels is because they can count on the bathrooms. Many of us are used to the hole-in-the-floor type, but most American tourists are not, and certainly a western toilet is a good find any day. There was a sign at the entrance of the Pacific Hotel saying that no one would be admitted wearing sloppy clothing. Well, of course, we all had to photograph the sign, and then trooped in looking quite bedraggled after our long day in the rain. It's a good thing we aren't going there tomorrow -- if the luggage doesn't arrive, we will be recycling the same clothes...