"And now... for the very first time on record... the [2009 Shanghai]... ECLIPSE OF THE SUN" (Monty Python's Previous Record)
Mike
At 5 am, we got up, saw some breaks in the clouds, and decided to check out and go to Jiaxing. We were slow and didn't check out until 7:15 AM, after breakfast. By the time we got to the train station, it was too late to get to
Jiaxing. So we waited at the Shanghai South Railway Station. Saw the sun a few times through the clouds, but then things got thicker and thicker. 20 min before totality it started to rain, fairly hard. The sky got totally dark during totality, but it was raining pretty hard.Slowly back to town where we went to the museum of the First Communist Party Conference
in 1921. Who do we see there but Electra Yourke and Todd Thompson from the 2008 Tropical Sails eclipse trip to Xinjiang. (http://www.silkroadstans.blogspot.com/) We discussed the weather and ascertained that it had gotten to 40 (104) on Monday PM while we were watching Harry Potter - the hottest in 75 years in Shanghai.Afterward, we walked through the rain for a while. Finally gave up, to go back to the hotel. We had some lunch - two scrambled egg pastries as street food, and then into a cheap cafeteria, where we had 4 different dishes, including the special Shanghai buns, and a beer, all for 21 Y.
Changed some money, relaxed in the lobby with some other Americans, and then about 3:30 PM, took two buses to the airport, arriving around 4:45 PM. Checked in, discovered the plane to Kunming was delayed until 6:15 (from 5:45).
Dinner on the plane was rather adventurous, with lotus root and beef with rice, and a 100 year old egg-mushroom salad.
We took a taxi to the hotel - oh, the Kunming traffic jams, even at 10:15 at night!
Curtis
In short, our eclipse experience today was rather grim. We had heavy overcast, turning to rain. Even so, the sun broke through for a few
seconds several times as the eclipse was starting, so we got a couple of glimpses through the welding glass and shared the ephemeral view with a few passers-by in the park. Then it started raining just before totality, so Mike and I hung out under the glass subway entrance with some others and experienced the darkness for about 5 minutes, watching the cars turn on their headlights to continue their way with 
the inconvenience. The buses in Shanghai had a time lapse loop of the eclipse on their video screens, shot from somewhere that had better weather. Oh well, "The best planned lays of mice and men" as someone once said...We had a nice flight out of Shanghai on China Eastern Air Lines. Food on the plane was actually good.
We have just gotten checked in to our hotel in Kunming. Kunming is dry and cooler than Shanghai, actually quite pleasant. We are planning to go to the "Stone Forest" tomorrow for a day trip. You can probably get some idea of it by googling "Stone Forest Kunming." There are images of it all over the airport, so it appears to be THE major attraction for this area.
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