Clouds and Sky

Met an old friend from middle school for coffee yesterday afternoon and was asked to go on a trip together with him and his family to Shanghai during the coming Chinese New Year. Told him I had to give it a miss because I'm already booked for another trip for the same period. In fact, I had been there briefly for a wedding in early October. It was a good wedding with banquets in Shanghai, home town of the bridegroom and in Wu Chiang, the home town of the bride. It was a good trip but because I had lessons, I had to cut it short. I had always wanted to go back later. But my school friend got me at the wrong time. By sheer coincidence, I saw another blog about Shanghai. Oh my God! I had forgotten all about the photos I took then. I had intended to share those photos with fellow bloggers but what with one thing and another, I never got around to doing so. Now is as good a time as any to do so. Sure. Why not?

I'll start where everything began: the airport.

We got an excellent airport. One of the best in the world. I like it. I like especially the play of light and shadows there.

The skylights would cast its carpet of boat-like light upon its polished floor.

A union of curves.

I like its "wavy leaves on chopsticks" design. 

Others may say the roof looks like so many "shoe mats" or the soles of reed slippers.

I like the play of light on the leaf-like or fish-like carpet.

I like even better the clouds rolling so freely across the sky like so many migrating animals.

The reflections on the top left of the photo gives an air of irreality to the sky

I like the clouds gathering over the tail of the aeroplane.

I like the high clouds at the side of the aeroplane, like so many fluffy mountains or sheets of snow.

I like the shape of the cloud at the top right, as if it were a shark chasing a trail of another one long gone.

And also this one at the top, looking like a tiny jet swishing across the mouth of a shark or a whale.



I like these clouds which look like they were being drawn towards an invisible point in the sky, sucking them in with an enormously powerful but hidden force. In particular, I like the blueness of the sky in the photos: so clean, so pure, as if it were an ocean opening out to infinity. But it was a different sky I saw in Shanghai.

I was walking in a park. Some dark clouds appeared from nowhere.

engulfing the sun

and threatening other parts of the sky

For a brief moment, they were dispersed.

But they were coming down again

rather rapidly too.

But there were opposing forces.

The sky brightened a little.

But they were definitely closing in, helped by the gathering dusk. I tried to look for an opening.

At last, a bright spot. Though not huge, it was still an opening. What do they portend?