I'd been here for a couple of weeks already when I realised that in all the rush to get a job and get settled in, I'd really not seen much of the city at all. So last Sunday we trotted off to the Bund, where this photo was taken.
The brown river appears nice enough, so long as you don't actually look into it... though I did amuse myself for a good five minutes analysing the flotsam and jetsam floating past.
Phil took this photo on an angle both for artistic merit and more importantly to try to isolate me among the throngs of Chinese tourists visiting from other provinces. You can see by the look on my face that I was already sick of the crowds, and we'd only just arrived there.
Not long after, as we walked away from the river edge I managed to tread in a fresh, warm puddle of urine which splashed right up my leg. With nothing to do about it, I stoically pretended it was just a spilled drink of lemonade. Yeah, right.
From there we walked to the monument in honor of the people who died defending the country in World War II... though Phil quite rightly pointed out that a monument for the millions of lives lost during the Cultural Revolution is noticeably absent.
As George Orwell said: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
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