The view is from the first hotel we stayed at in Shanghai in late April 1994, whose name and exact location I forget. Even so, I’ll bet there are a lot more buildings in this view these days, if the view still exists. It was a cloudy day, but I think there’s some smog in the mix. The air’s probably not any cleaner now.

Soon we relocated to a hotel near the Bund — the Astor House Hotel, which in those days was part inexpensive hotel, part cheap-looking office space. It clearly had a magnificent and storied past, with a slow decline post-1949 and especially during the Cultural Revolution. Word was the hotel was going to be razed, which would have been a damned shame. Fortunately, it’s been renovated since then, and while probably not cheap any more, it’s still a jewel of the Bund.

The Bund was a fine place for walking, as it was designed to be.