But what really blew me away was the sheer number of not just Buicks, but BMW, Mercedes and Audis inching along teh completely traffic snarled streets. I probably saw more Audis (and A6s at that) than any other single car while I was there.

If there was any doubt, people, we’re living in the Chinese century.

Not bad!!

If you can find a freeway (and never ever leave it) you might be able to get somewhere. Whole swaths of apartments were razed, almost literally overnight, to make way for elevated expressways that now roar just meters from the laundry-bedecked balconies of those ‘fortunate’ enough to keep their housing. Outlying, hand-built tenements shelter those even more unlucky.

Traffic congestion and pollution is appalling, and well beyond my meager ability to describe.

Full-length motorcoaches attempt 43-point u-turns in the middle of eight lanes of two-way traffic, while traffic police wait to pounce on taxi drivers who misjudge the distance between their bumper and the old man on the bicycle in front of them.

Despite the no-so-communist Laissez Faire attitute toward traffic enforcement, the city administrators haven’t bee entirely reactionary, however. Two-stroke engines were summarily banned from the city some years ago, to the relief of millions of asthmatics.

Regardless of the propulsion involved, it’s a city that needs more parking spots and more cars almost as much as I need a shotgun blast to the temple. And I doubt that a fuel tax of about $.05 per gallon will help much.