i haven't been able to catch it yet

but there are moments when the sun shines through the canyons that are so stunning.

yesterday, I was driving down the highway, and the sun was right behind the grand, at least that's where it was where i was sitting. sitting in my car, and moving. so this moment didn't last too long, but the light was streaming down on either side of the mountain. golden, transparent beams reaching down and illuminating a patches of ground. brilliantly lit patches of green below the big, dark looking mountains.

and then i was going down the drive, watching my dust cloud in the mirror, also illuminated in a beautiful way, because at that time of day, the light, so me is the entire space around us.

i need to get it on camera, i know, but it is not as easy as it sounds, to see the beams of light, and their bright anchoring patches of ground. it is strange to think about the light hitting the ground and being absorbed, and/or reflected back up, to make those parts glow.

this happens around 8:40 pm, mountain time.

i still haven't written much about china. It started with a boat ride, past many tiny islands in the
Sea of Japan. When we woke up the next morning, the sea was gray, and so was the sky, and there was so much mist that there was no horizon. it was wavy, we were just bobbing up and down in this nothing space. the tatami room was small, and each woman was about 5 inches from the their neighbor. my neighbor didn't rise from her tatami mat the entire 2 day journey. I was next to the window on one side, and the laying-down woman on the other.

We got to Shanghai, and we ate noodles that were pulled into form right in front of us and then dropped into a steaming vat of broth and sprinkled with coriander.

We walked the Bund, which oddly shuts down at night. All the lights do away, and you can hear the low chug chug of barges, their low, large dark heaviness moving where lights were floating an hour ago. We wandered the markets, they were selling eyeballs and beautiful blue eggs and cucumbers that must have weighed 10 pounds.

We drove (were driven, rather) the a water town, that was a 1000 year old network of alleyways along a canal. it was crumbling, and we were hustled by people that were at least dressed as monks for money after they told us we were all going to have great luck.

we went to the contemporary art district, Moganshan 50? A bunch of old warehouses turned studio/gallery space. walking up to it, you pass a long wall covered in graffiti, above it identical high rises one after the other, the same smoggy beige color as the sky.

after three days wandering Shanghai, we got on a bus to go to Huang Shan (the Yellow Mountain), tall and cloudy. The bus honked at anything that wasn't going fast enough. Three wheeled mini trucks, horse drawn carts, a man carrying a stick with a bundle tied to the end. A woman, sitting on a heap of garbage on the back of a blue truck.

more tomorrow.