Oolong Sky

Shanghai was a great place, but the smog was thick, thicker than that of L.A., reminiscent of the muddy contents of the erlenmeyer flask that my high school chemistry teacher used to demonstrate how particles stay suspended in colloids (like jello or anything that you add to an agar/water mixture). Anyhow, this pic was snapped from the D251 from the window of our aging Boeing 737, despite the soul-less warnings of the multilingual flight attendants. You can actually see the inversion layer (the clear blue part) smashing down all of that CO, CO2, NOX, ozone, hydrocarbons, and all of that other shit onto the city. There is one cool thing about thick dense brown smog in the cityscape- it filters the light, creating bad-ass blood-red sunsets, like the stylized umeboshi depicted on the Japanese flag.
Speaking of which, why do Japanese people think of the Sun as being either red or orange in color, and the moon as yellow? When you look at the sun, it is a burning brightness that is best described most of the time as white or yellow. The moon, is clearly white! I think this is a good example of a cultural nam-shub of Japan.