Entering Longhua Temple, I felt peace around me. My camera sat calm in the bag at my side. The place is something to be experienced, not photographed. I took a bundle of incense at the entrance and joined the worshippers moving through the first courtyard in prayer. I bowed first to the East, then to the North, West and South. The sandalwood smoke rose up from my hands as I prayed, thankful for the people I had met, thankful for the world I live in, hopeful that I am giving something back. We saw the statues occupying the many buildings of the temple complex — the four kings of the cardinal directions, the thousand golden buddhas, the three standing buddhas, the king of longhua temple. The calligraphy that stuck with me read, “I will not go to heaven until hell is empty.” The sun shone bright. It brought out the yellow dye in the plaster.

Once finished at the temple, we went for massage. This may have been a mistake. Instead of relaxing for two hours under the experienced hands of a master, I felt like I was constantly biting back a scream. Fingers dug in hard, then pushed and held with impossible force. I could hear Shelly whimpering next to me the whole time. Shelly promised the foot massage was better as we talked it over while soaking our feet in traditional herbs. This turned out not to be the case. While getting my left foot massaged, I became fairly certain I didn’t want my right foot to be massaged. The pain was either astronomically worse on my right foot, or nonexistant, as I passed out when the masseuse moved on from the left.

Godly serves only vegetarian dishes. However, their menu is written as if they served meat. Various odd vegetables and tofu-preparations stand in where meat is named. Particularly tasty were the ‘prawns’ in chili oil and pan-fried ‘beef’. After dinner, Shelly and I went underground at Rafflescity and enjoyed fruit smoothies at Fresh Daily (Mango and Kiwi — don’t get Durian).

We are in the belly of the volcano. Having climbed through all its percolating substructure, with everything breaking up more around us as we approach the surface, we can see the red sky above us. It is almost unrecognizable, hemmed in as it is by the concrete walls continuing up through space. The cranes on the crest of the walls are silent now, but the volcano roars beneath us, and the occasional spark glints in the sky above.

Climb through the forest, walk through the village, and hoist yourself onto the rivulet meandering away from the mountain to enter the volcano. Always be careful not to fall into her depths, or to arouse the suspicions of the inhabitants.

The Shanghai World Financial Center, slated for completion in 2008, will be the second tallest building in the world, rising 492 meters above ground. It will have the world’s highest outdoor observation terrace. At 3:18 am, the circle of sky visible through the center of the construction appears red. The workers are mute, standing still as we walk past them.

We enter the city from the east, moving swiftly over hundreds of repetitive elements: cylindrical storage tanks, rows of crops, industrial cranes, and dilapidated houses. Once landed in Pudong, we all board a bus and begin the drive into the city. We pass trucks carrying myriad items, from fat pigs, watermelons, or seaweed to immense slabs of iron and what look like empty plastic oil containers. As we enter the city itself, we are engulfed by towering residential buildings, their facades aged, air-conditioning units placed in the patterns of living across their skin. The ground, when visible from the highway, consists of streets crowded with people playing cards and conducting their day-to-day business in crumbling courtyards with scattered piles of debris.

Our guide, Allie, felt obliged to keep us entertained for the entire ride. She enumerated aspects of travel in China. Basic warnings: don’t drink the water, don’t go out alone at night. Advice: eat the fruit, go all over the city, ride in taxis (they’re inexpensive).

It is approximately midnight in Shanghai as I write this, having just returned from a delicious Japanese meal with the design clique. The apartment we come home to is rather oddly appointed; in some ways it is grand, in others, oddly sparse. We have three separate bedrooms, a large living room, decent kitchen, and a balcony. However, we have two place settings, a single pot, and a single pan with which to prepare any meals in our kitchen. We also have two towels with which to dry our three residents.

I will make a phone call tomorrow to Dai Chen to see if I can meet up with her and the art academy sometime this week. My plan is to show some of my work to other students and propose spending a weekend together simply creating art from what is at hand. I just want to take the time to really dig in and make something together without having enough time to be self-conscious about it. I imagine this art could take the form of sculpture, drawings, found object composition, performance, and interactive media. While making the work, I hope to be photographing the process and also collecting original samples of work. Destinations for personal travel: Suzhou, Huang Shan.