I woke up early to head to the airport.

The older terminal of the Beijing airport squelched some of the awe I harbored after seeing the modern behemoth that initially welcomed me to Beijing.

In the terminal I competed for my spot in line, as it appeared the locals felt comfortable entering the queue at any point other than the back. Waits are avoided by approaching the front of the line from the side. The experienced gracefully arrive at the window during the transition between customers and immediately engage the teller to increase the awkwardness of stopping them. The less skillful stand to one side of the person currently being served, avoiding eye contact with the next person in line. It seems that the best way to combat their efforts is to call attention to them; a loud exclamation accompanied with pointing seems to restore the natural order.

The Chinese have simplified airline safety, rather than having the equivalent of America's complicated rules about which liquids are permitted on the plane and the hoops that must be jumped through to have them approved, no liquids are allowed resulting in my having to check a second bag.

We departed with ease. As we descended towards the Shanghai airport we passed through the rolling floor of smooth clouds below us to emerge into a single giant cloud that had no shape, no structure and produced no rain. Shanghai, like Beijing, was enshrouded in the white toxin.

Combining the automotive infrastructure of Los Angeles with hundreds of New York scale skyscrapers that pepper the landscape, Shanghai accommodates twenty million residents in a manner that is incomparable to any American city. Despite its spacious nature, congested above ground highways and packed sidewalks reign the day. Negotiating by foot is complicated not only by the crowds of on-comers, but also by the occasional weaving vespa that has taken to the higher ground.

Towards the end of an hour-long walk past the shops on the popular Nanjing Road I arrived at People's Square, a city center of sorts, complete with a park, subway entrances and a museum. There I noticed one family's toddler was modeling something that doesn't exist out West: children's potty pants. Toddlers appear to wear otherwise normal pants with a slit from their waist to the ankles on both sides enabling them to go potty at any time. More often than not these were worn without diapers raising questions about the destination of their excrement. That said, both the kids and the sidewalk appeared clean, leaving their usage a mystery.

The square was adorned with advertisements, much as we would see in Times Square or in and around a typical American mall. What was surprising about these often multi-story banners was that they depicted Caucasians and US celebrities promoting shoes, a watch or a pen. The Chinese were no where to be found, except in the occasional ads that featured Jackie Chen or Yao Ming.

After the trek I headed to a run-down building clearly built before Shanghai's current renaissance to watch a local acrobatic troop. The theatre inside matched the exterior. A simple wood stage was complemented by dusty felt curtains and flip-up metal chairs that were bolted to the bare cement below. The acrid smell confirmed that the room's age matched its amenities.

Fortunately, the quality of the venue was not indicative of the quality of the entertainment. I would like to say the contortionists that tangled themselves into inhuman shapes while balancing lit candles on all extremities and the girl who was able to kick three bowls at a time and catch them on her head while riding a ten foot tall unicycle were the main attractions, but they weren't. Ultimately, the second prize went to the boy who completed a one-armed handstand atop a wobbling stack of wood chairs that left him twenty five feet above the unpadded stage.

First prize went to the finale, where the demonstration of skill, desperation and seeming foolishness began by an unveiling of sphere cage with a fifteen foot diameter. Immediately thereafter a motorcyclist drove into the cage and with his wheels against the metal he began driving around the sides and doing loops that left him up-side-down at the top of the cage. It was an impressive act and would have been enough. However, our entertainers were determined to make an impression. A minute or so later, another motorcyclist entered the dome and the two rotated between chasing each other and dodging each other while one drove vertical and the other horizontal. That would have enough. However, four more motorcyclists eventually entered the gauntlet, leaving little room between their tires and their graves. It was truly incredible that all six emerged at the end of the act; I'm sure there have been practice sessions where that was not the case.

The evening ended with this adrenaline rush.