From Stifling to Cramped:
Or Pressing the Eject Button
Shanghai to Hong Kong (and a few stops in between)

Due to the Shanghai government's super special security precautions, half of the city is shut down this week to provide safe zones for Asian presidents. Even late last week, from a 27th floor perch on banks of quickly gentrifying Suzhou Creek, a friend and I could see police staking out offices. (Snipers out of site). People are being asked to leave their apartments and government employees have a five day weekend. My colleagues and I are close enough to the action that we too were told to take a holiday.

It's not that the newly hung flower baskets and cleaner streets aren't pleasant, but the likely closure of many of the roads I use on a daily basis was enough to make me want to go somewhere. And because of the confusion and stupidity of people at buy.com, one of the most pressing issues on my mind was that I still don't have a reliable laptop.

So how does that lead to Hong Kong?

As one friend put it, "everything with a battery is cheaper in Hong Kong." And given that Mainland Chinese laptop prices are prohibitively expensive and the price of shipping a laptop from the US is the price of a ticket to Canton, here I am. But I've got to get out of this closet of a hostel and into the steaming streets. Which, in their own Blade Runner like way, are just as stifling as anything I left behind.