I’m here in Shanghai, and haven’t had much time to write. I’m sitting in the back row of a talk, typing this on my iPad. I can’t access WordPress directly in China, as most social media websites are blocked. (On my laptop, I can use VPN to get through, but don’t have it set up on my iPad, and didn’t bring my laptop today.) But I’m going to try posting by email.
The trip has been full of adventures and activity so far. Lots of running around, lots of things done. I feel like I’ve packed in a week’s worth of activities in 4 days. (I arrived in Shanghai On Friday, as did my cousin who was able to join me on the trip. We took the bullet train to Beijing on Saturday, then saw the Great Wall on Sunday, sprinted through the Forbidden City on Monday morning, and walked around Beijing a lot in the gaps between. We took the train back to Shanghai Monday afternoon. My talk was yesterday, Tuesday, the first day of the conference. It went well. I expect the tiredness to kick in today, now that I have that done.)
So, yeah, this has been a packed trip. I haven’t had time to sort through the hundreds of photos I’ve taken so far, but here’s one from Beijing I had to share.
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“Knowledge likes pants
Invisible but very important.”
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collecting tokens 
That is so funny. Was the translation in place or did you get it translated?
Thanks for helping me start out the day laughing.
Of course! EVERYONE likes pants!
awesome! I can’t believe you did all that! You are a super tourist! :-)
The sign actually says underwear in Chinese. And it makes perfect sense!
But dies that mean knowledge has also to be clean ;-)
That’s … unspeakably fabulous.
Inscrutable…
That is fabulous! (I also guessed that “pants” was in the British sense, referring to “underpants”, but that doesn’t make it any less hilarious!)
The trip sounds great. I hope you’ll find time to post more about it when you get a chance!
Just found this shirt at a Saver’s in Warick, Rhode Island. Yours?