Read my latest flash, Venison, at 52|250.

She has not yet left the country to which her passport belongs. She was supposed to transfer flights at SFO, but by the time her plane from Seattle touched down, check-in had closed for the former. Because the delay had been caused by weather (allegedly), the airline declined to obtain a hotel room for her (providing instead a voucher of half off for what would still be a fairly expensive room). Spending half an hour on the toll-free customer service line explaining that it was in fact the airline’s fault, as the gate agent had insisted she would be able to make her second flight and so had refused to reroute her or reschedule her for the next day (despite her statement that she would rather be stuck in Seattle than in San Francisco), only yielded a $100 voucher for a future flight, though that’s more than other people got.

At the moment, she is in a cheap hostel near the Powell Street Station. She took advantage of being stranded to walk past places she used to live and found that the neighborhood (the Tenderloin) had been cleaned up just a bit.

And yes, stress does make her talk about herself in third person. Why do you ask?

Of course, it could have been much worse, but it’s somewhat troubling to return from a bumpy flight and discover that the turbulence was related to a typhoon, even if it was far enough away that there was no real danger. At any rate, I’ve made it back to dull, dusty Zhengzhou after a week in glittering Shanghai.

Shanghai, however, is like a cheerleader: beautiful but, ultimately, soulless. And it really is gorgeous, especially at night. The view of the Bund from Pudong ranks as my top cityscape, with the reverse not far behind. On the Bund, they light up the buildings colonial powers left behind, while Pudong’s towers clearly show that it was built up within the last decade, though the Oriental Pearl carries a hint of ’50s-style futurism with its pink-by-day orbs. (Pictures will be on Flickr once I’ve had the chance to fuss with the colors.)

I did see some intriguing art in the galleries on Mongashan Lu, but most of the better work was by artists from Beijing or abroad.  Moreover, the objectification of the female form was rampant and, in some cases so extreme that it made me queasy.  Headless, twisted figures seemed almost tame in this regard.