Beijing and Shanghai in a Dream

While we notice that a new art gallery has opened in old town Mazatlán where the familiar (sun reddened) faces - bloggers, artists, columnists, retirees and frightening pink magazine editors turned up to look at real art and the catering looked from a distance like fusion Asian we were brought to mind our ongoing Asian odyssey. So we are putting together a travelblog and imagery that will allow you to get a glimpse of the outside world before we land back in Mazatlán in time for the rounds of Christmas socializing and boozing and piñata wackings unless we have been laid low by social diseases or jail or penury.

MazReal staff and itinerant hangers-on, slaves, masseurs and groupies landed in the New World. The new world that is S.E.Asia on a relaxed tour that will take in Hong Kong, Singapore and closer to the orient - Chennai (Madras to those of colonial persuasion) in Tamil Nadu India home of the old world idea of the blindingly hot curry or 'The Ring of Fire'. China is the future of everything, China will be the future. You only have to see those Asian magalopolises with their cloud tall skyscrapers where the 88th. floor is not even half way up, where you can hardly see the ground from that level covered it is in smog. That brown, dirty contamination of progress.

Wangfujing Street Beijing. A pedestrianized shopping experience that makes 5th. Ave. NYC look like Calle Benito Juarez.

Wandering through Beijing and Shanghai is a dream-like experience. The smog, the size of the cities, the slow moving crowds and the architecture are just so different to anything we experience in Western cities. The contamination dissolves the distance objects and makes streets look like tunnels of light.

Across the Huangpu River that divides Shanghai. The river reflecting the smoggy sun looks like burnished gold.

Beijing outdoor restaurants in streets lined with blue bucket spittoons

The famous olympic 'Bird's Nest' stadium with attendant tourists diving into the papyrus grass for a snap as they affect strange positions. We started the trend by taking the image a few below. The idea caught on.

You cannot say the Chinese women arn't stylish but their poses are strange.

Crssoing the Huangpu River in Shanghai.

Papyrus and the Bird's Nest Beijing.

Colonial Shanghai along The Bund. The equivalent to the Mazatlán Malecon. A promenade along the Huangpu River made famous by the British back when they were a power in the region.

From our hotel window into the Pudong financial area of Shanghai. Actually this is a breakfast room view of a smoggy sunrise.

The Central Business distirct of Beijing.

We have left China for the time being as our hedonistic lifestyle in the search for the long gone opium dens of Shanghai came to the attention of the authorities who still haven't yet shaken off their Maoist almost Calvinistic Tea Party hatred of having a good time so we have retreated to Hong Kong where the lifestyle is certainly more open and free. From there the entourage will report.

Images © 2010 MazReal