Well, almost.  The high-speed train we took from Nanjing to Shanghai is as sleek and shiny as a silver bullet and, at 300 km/hr, goes almost as fast.  Everything in China seems to be new and improved, or at least improving.  Transportation is no exception.  This particular train is less than a year old and has slashed the 400 km journey between these two large cities to just under 1 ½ hours.  If we were able to ride it between Boston and New York, the journey would require only 65 minutes, imagine!  We settled in to watch the countryside of China on fast forward, but our hopes were foiled by a thick haze.  We had seen this white smog elsewhere in China.  It is not fog because it is not wet – if you ask the locals what it is they say “we don’t know”.   The industrial hinterlands between Nanjing and Shanghai had the worst yet.  Passing the many power plants and smokestacks, it was easy to see why. While the vistas were jarring, the ride was surprisingly smooth and over too soon. We managed to navigate through the behemoth train stations on both ends with no problems other than lugging our suitcases up the ramps (they call it LUG-gage for a reason).  We envied the nimble day-commuters who sped past and wished we had such rapid transit systems at home.