Pajama party

What you're about to see may disturb you: Normal, healthy people, young and old, parading the streets in nothing but their pajamas. That's exactly what we saw when Johnnie and I went to Shanghai in September.

It started out by accident. We sat in the Starbucks at Yuyuan sipping mocha while looking out the window. When suddenly, a man in pajamas and slippers passed by us. It totally caught us by surprise; alas, Johnnie couldn't get his camera out fast enough to take a snapshot before the man disappeared into the crowd.
We were kicking ourselves for missing the golden opportunity. But lucky for us, opportunity came knocking twice. For moments later, a young couple, both wearing pajamas, were walking toward us. We didn't make the same mistake twice--this time Johnie sneaked in a great shot.

That's how it got started. We continue to sit in that Starbucks waiting for the next pajama-wearing victim to cross our path, and surprisingly, there was always one coming. But we didn't stop there. When we left Starbucks and started walking around Yuyuan, more pajama individuals joined the party, and Johnnie would take a picture of them from whatever angle he could.

Johnnie became infactuated with them. He told me at first he wanted to take pictures of all the amazing things that would fit onto the back of some laborers' bicycles, but now he found the pajama people to be much more interesting. Thus, he made it his mission to take pictures of them whenever he ran into them in Shanghai.

We ran into them all right. A lot of them: in the subway; squatting on the sidewalk, crossing the bridge, along the Bund, going into a bank, and at just about every major tourist attraction we visited.

If you don't believe me, here's proof, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Filed Fri - November 28, 2003, 09:44 PM in

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