Compare and Contrast

I’ve been stupidly busy this week, between finishing up my year’s marking (done!), trying to find brand new, unmarked, unfolded American dollars for our trip to Myanmar on Friday (the junta is fussy about money and they don’t have ATM machines or take credit cards anywhere), and trying to assemble a first aid kit in pharmacies which not only don’t carry the brands or generic names I’m familiar with but also have a whole other system of medicine based on entirely different principles (got an upset stomach from street food? Hm, how’s your qi? Maybe your spleen is too warm?) and written in a script I still can’t read.  I’m still not wholly done the latter two.

Since not only internet access but also basic electricity are not exactly reliable in Myanmar, I don’t know how often I’ll be able to update this. I have a feeling photos may be out of the question. We’ll see.

For now I’ll leave you with this:

Shanghai in the pouring rain (from our flat) last week:

It all cleared up yesterday’ish and tonight, we saw our first almost-sunset in ages.  As you can see from the photo above,  visibility has increased from nil to greater than nil. I do appreciate having a 16th floor flat with big picture windows on nights like tonight.