China - smart idea

Just heard a friend gush and gush about China - specifically, Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong ...
a lot of it was very interesting to hear ...

"shanghai made me feel like new york was a village!" was the first statement ... had heard something very similar from another person too ... that was more like "why do people even compare india and china!" well im not sure if the cities in China are actually "that" amazing or if it is because people's expectations are set very differently before they visit that the amazement is more pronounced ... either ways, i really want to visit China soon, for now will suffice with some pics of the same ...

Had kind of missed the discussion in the papers on traffic rules for beijing centred around the olympics, so found it interesting to hear a personal account of the same. Probably a very simple idea but interesting someone thought of experimenting with only odd numbered cars to ply on odd days and even numbered cars to ply on even days. Sounds more like some of the rules we had when playing as kids, so simple but could have been effective ... guess though this test eliminated more than one million vehicles each day, the aim was to bring down air pollution and not just traffic congestion, which it did not have too much of an impact on ... well they better think up something soon! not too impressive to have the reputation of having 16 of the world's most polluted cities in your country ...

heard a lot about the Tian an Men Square, and many stories which went like ... many students at universities aspire to join the communist party and so serve as spies to contacts in the party, hence keeping a tab on any movements against the party ... felt like i was listening to a narration of an ayn rand novel ...

never knew turkey belonged to both asia and europe ...

wonder if there is any place where you cross borders and you have to switch from the left hand side to the right ...

this continues to live up to the name of random rambling ...