Raining cats and dogs

Tuesday and Wednesday were apparently the biggest typhoon to hit Shanghai in ten years - nobody tells me about these things. Anyway, it mostly rained a lot...it was kind of a pain to get around, because nobody designs things with water drainage in mind. The local stream/garbage dump came very close to spilling its banks.

Normally this bridge is several feet above the water.

This one got totally submerged...

The Women's World Cup was apparently being held around here, and some of the games had to be postponed. One of the games in Hangzhou was pushed back to Thursday, only 24 hours before I found myself in Hangzhou. With much better planning, I could have watched it myself (I found out today that some people had some extra tickets.)

On another note, I learned something else new today. I had heard stories about these Muslim noodle shops that make their noodles out of dough. They start with a loaf, and then elongate it and fold it over itself several times, until their loaf is a long noodle. Then they give you this one noodle in the form of a noodle soup. Today I finally got a chance to try one. It's called lamian, or literally, "pull noodle," though (I learned) better known in its Japanese form, ramen. FTR, it's much better in person.