We're back

It was an great trip! Six days in Hong Kong and four in Shanghai. We walked countless miles, and still managed to put on 15 pounds between the two of us. We've got tons of pictures that I've only just started to sort through, but we were overdue for a blog post about the trip. Rather than go through the entire day-by-day rehashing, I'm just going to give you a few snippets:

1. For some reason, both Hong Kong and Shanghai like to put corn in everything. Countless opportunities to pull out the old Brad impression: "It's got corn." There's corn on the pizza, corn in the noodles, corn cups at McDonalds, coconut sticky rice dessert accented with a single kernel of corn on top.... I ordered eggs and toast for breakfast, and out it came, with a little cup of corn on the side.

2. Hong Kong's residents really know how to "queue up", but Shanghai's residents do not. In Hong Kong, you would see orderly, single file lines even at bus stops. In Shanghai, it's every man for himself.

3. I think that the national sport of Hong Kong must be shopping. Everywhere you turn, there's a shopping mall. Every subway station, ferry terminal, and large building seems to be a shopping mall. Every street is lined with small shops. Even the alleys are full of stalls selling things. It's like a never-ending shopper's paradise, with everything you could ever want.

4. In Shanghai, the "Bund Sightseeing Tunnel" is absolutely one of the most bizarre, trippy rides you'll ever take. I wish I had a picture of our faces as we were riding through. To quote Lonely Planet, "Stepping from the trains at the terminus, visitors are visibly nonplussed, their disbelief surpassed only by those with return tickets." We only rode it one way.