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Stuck on the Plane in Shanghai, or, Mei You Deicer Truck

Almost 150,000 passengers were stranded at Guangzhou Railway Station on Saturday night after a power failure caused by snow, ice and sleet stopped more than 136 trains in Hunan Province on the trunk line between Beijing and Guangzhou.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6345929.html

I’m stuck on the plane (shockingly, stealing internet access from some place at the airport), with conflicting information about when the deicer truck will be available, and when we might freakin’ leave this place.

This is the impact of two or three days of sleet and snow on a city that if it's lucky, gets a few drifts each year.

OK, yesterday there was lots and lots of miserable, remind-me-of-Wilmington-DE 雨夹雪 (sleet). Today, I wake up, and what do I see from my hotel window? 雪 on the rooftops! In Shanghai!

Back to China...

I flew into Hangzhou Airport this afternoon from Tokyo Narita. What a quick and easy process... except for the many hour schlep to Narita. Immigration and Customs at Hangzhou is amazingly quick - 10 minutes. They seem to have copied the unfortunate plan of putting the airport way way out in the boonies, though - an hour to the hotel and our office.

And it was snowing! Not sticking, but snowing...

oobject » best Rube Goldberg Machine videos

You've got to check this out: oobject » best Rube Goldberg Machine videos: http://oobject.com/category/best-Rube-Goldberg-Machine-videos. I have a special fondness for these kinds of systems, having been a software architect :-)