(For the View From Your Window contest, the results below exceed the content limit for Substack’s email service, so to ensure that you see the full results, click the headline above.)
Nucky and I are traveling, so forgive me for the late response. I am thrilled to have won!! I would love to have the book.
I never could have won if the subject had not been Key West. I read the VFYW every week in awe of the geodetectives and specialist historians. Thanks for your wonderful work, which adds so much to my week.
When I asked her if she would share a photo of her trusty pup, she replied:
Nucky, despite initial reluctance due to shyness, has agreed to have his image diffused. The first photo is very recent, and the second one is Nucky on guard during Covid:
From our frequent sleuth in Grants Pass:
I know this isn’t an official entry, but I really have to thank you, Chris, for the wonderful memories of Key West and the great stories you included last week. It made me homesick for a place I have only visited three times. At first I thought my little ditty about Kelly’s wasn’t worth adding, but then I realized that you posted the link to my entire blog about our first trip there back in 2010. Who knows if anyone will click, but that was an especially satisfying thing for me. I have kept the blog for 18 years now, mostly for my own benefit, and not worried about followers. In fact, I actually unlisted it a while ago, so that random people can’t find me and give me grief.
So you posting it was fun to see, and I got a kick out of the fact that you thought it worthwhile enough to link to my blog. Thanks again for all you do to keep thee VFYW so incredibly fascinating.
Old-school blogs are always fascinating to me. I entered journalism in the heyday of the blogosphere — as an intern at The Atlantic back in 2007, the year they launched a “Voices” model of varied bloggers, Andrew being the most seasoned — so seeing a blog always gets me nostalgic.
One more followup for last week’s contest:
I was traveling this week and didn’t have a chance to tackle Key West (even though I’ve been there and might have been able to get it). But I’m probably one of the few sleuths who has also been to the other end of Route 1 — in Fort Kent, Maine. This is the sign you see coming off the bridge from Canada into Fort Kent:
On to this week’s view, here’s a Honolulu sleuth on the Correct Guesser list — and his opening comment couldn’t be more correct:
You’re probably exhausted from last week’s effort, but I had a wonderful time reading all the stories under a large Monkeypod tree at the local dog park. It’s been unusually rainy this year, and we got dumped on, but in true Hawaiian fashion, the sun was still out and the rain passed after 10 minutes. Your writeup kept my attention throughout, so thank you.
After that huge response from sleuths, I hope this week’s needle-in-haystack view gives you a bit of breathing space.
So much so — and especially needed because my girlfriend and I just got a house in the woods of western Maryland and the move has been exhausting. We’re keeping our little condos in DC, but this magical new place is a much-needed escape from the big city. I’ll write about it soon enough, when I get some more breathing space.
Speaking of new abodes, here’s a sleuth with an “update on ‘A Bonanza Of Brothels And Bloodshed’” — contest #349, in Pioche, NV:
Since you ran my VFYW a couple of years ago, my husband and I decided to raze our 100-year-old miner’s shack and build a new home on the same lot. It was sad to watch our home get demolished, but at under 600 square feet and no insulation, it became a money pit.
We moved into our new house last month. In case you’re interested, here are photos of our new home and our new (but nearly identical) view, and the old house:
Thanks, and I love the Weekly Dish.
I love the look of that new house! I may have to steal that color to paint something for mine. Back to this week’s view, here’s the opening of the entry from the Yakima super-sleuth:
Looks like last week’s congenial Key West challenge was only a temporary respite, and now you’ve returned to five-star challenge territory.
For one, I’m mystified by the rows of buildings that look like they each have their own rooftop dirigible docks:
The DC super-sleuth adds:
I thought the design of these buildings was sufficiently unusual to make them relatively easy to find through a Google search. Wrong. It turns out that there are perhaps thousands of buildings with a similar design in [country redacted].
Our musical sleuth in Indy goes with India:
So sorry this entry is late, but I decided to send it just in case you want to post. This view was a hard one. I think I got it right!! Noida, India?
While not from Noida, Cliff Richard was born in Uttar Pradesh — the state where Noida resides — and lived there for eight years before moving to England in 1948. His birth name is Harry Rodger Webb, and his Wiki page is probably the longest page I’ve ever seen for the VFYW. He’s the third top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart history, behind the Beatles and Elvis. (I tried to confirm that this is still accurate, and I think it is.)
Cliff Richard singing “Congratulations” — the UK's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest” — on April 6, 1968. (Reg Burkett/Daily Express/Getty Images)
In 1948, Harry’s family moved to London. When he was 16, his father bought him a guitar, and in 1957, he formed the school vocal harmony group The Quintones. Then began singing in the Dick Teague Skiffle Group, before becoming the lead singer of a rock-and-roll group, The Drifters (not the famous US band).
An entrepreneur named Harry Greatorex was the owner of the Regal Ballroom in the town of Ripley and came to London to find a group that he could promote being from London. Harry Greatorex wanted Harry Webb to change his name, since he didn’t like “Harry Webb and the Drifters.” They started by playing around with the name of a current British singer called Russ Hamilton and came up with Russ Clifford, then Cliff Russard, and then Cliff Richards. Ian Samwell, one of the Drifters, suggested they drop the “s” to make it Cliff Richard — as a tribute to Little Richard.
Cliff Richard and the Drifters made their debut on May 3, 1958 at the Regal Ballroom, and they were quickly signed up for an appearance on Jack Good’s “Oh Boy!” television series. EMI signed Cliff but didn’t want the rest of the band, so they asked Cliff’s manager, Johnny Foster, to recruit better musicians. Foster went to Soho’s “2i’s” coffee bar and found Hank Marvin, who was playing in a skiffle band with his friend Bruce Welch. Those two came aboard, and Jet Harris was brought in to play bass and Tony Meehan on drums. The group became “Cliff Richard and the Shadows.”
For their first recording session, Cliff was give the song “Schoolboy Crush,” and one of his own songs, “Move It,” was selected for the B-side. Jack Good supposedly liked “Move It” better and wanted that song to be what the band played on his show, so it was moved to the A-side. “Move It” became a hit in 1958, climbing to #2 on the UK singles chart. John Lennon said it was Britain’s first rock-and-roll song (though the consensus is that the first rock-and-roll song ever is “Rocket 88,” first recorded in 1951 by Ike Turner/Jackie Brenston):
The following year, “Living Doll,” Cliff’s fifth single, became his first #1 hit. It was followed immediately by another #1 hit, “Travellin' Light.” The early ‘60s brought many many hit singles, consistently in the top 5. Cliff also released some singles without The Shadows — for example, “When the Girl in Your Arms Is the Girl in Your Heart” in 1961 (and he continued to release one or two a year).
Cliff Richard and The Shadows never caught on in the US. He appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in April 1962 and October 1963, but that didn’t help with his career.
In 1964, Cliff became an evangelical Christian. He thought he should quit his music career, but his Christian friends advised him not to. He started performing with Christian groups and recording some Christian material. He still recorded songs with The Shadows but devoted a lot of his time to Christian-based work, which included appearances on the Billy Graham crusades.
Between 1960 and 1965, Cliff had a run of 23 consecutive top-ten UK hits — until he released “On My Word,” which reached #12. His next #1 hit in the UK was “Congratulations” in 1968. He performed the song (written and composed by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter) as the UK’s entry in the Eurovision Song Contest:
The song finished second by one point — to Spain’s “La La La” by Massiel. It’s still the closest voting in the contest’s history.
The Shadows broke up in 1968, but Cliff continued to record. He had his own show “It’s Cliff Richard” from 1970 to 1976, and Olivia Newton-John was one of the stars on the show. His next top 5 song came in 1973 when, again, he sang the UK’s Eurovision entry, “Power to All Our Friends” (the song finished third):
In 1975, he released the single “Honky Tonk Angel” — but as soon as he found out that “honky-tonk angel” was slang for a prostitute, he was horrified and ordered EMI to withdraw it and refused to promote it, despite making a video for it. EMI agreed. About 1,000 copies are known to exist on vinyl.
In 1976, Bruce Welch relaunched Cliff’s career and produced the album I’m Nearly Famous — which included the song “Devil Woman” (interestingly titled). That became Cliff’s first big hit in the United States. In reviewing the new album in Melody Maker, Geoff Brown said it was “the renaissance of Richard.” I remember this song so well and had no idea he had an almost 20 year career with a ton of #1 hits in the UK:
In 1979, Cliff teamed up once again with producer Bruce Welch for the hit single “We Don't Talk Anymore,” which hit No. 1 in the UK and No. 7 in the US. The record made Cliff the first act to reach the Hot 100’s top 40 in the 1980s, ‘70s, ‘60s, and ‘50s. The song was quickly added on to the end of his latest album, Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile (re-titled We Don't Talk Anymore for its release in the US).
At the time, I’m not sure I knew this was the same guy who sang “Devil Woman,” but I thought this guy was from south of the border :) Doesn’t he sound like he has a Spanish accent???
Three of his singles simultaneously charted on the last Hot 100 of 1980: “Dreamin'”, “Suddenly”, and “A Little in Love.” He never charted in the US again.
In 1995, Cliff was appointed a Knight Bachelor, becoming the first rock star to be so honored. In 1998, he demonstrated that radio stations were refusing to play his music when he released a dance remix of his forthcoming single, “Can’t Keep This Feeling In” — on a white label record using the alias Blacknight. The single was featured on playlists until it was discovered it was Cliff Richard — and so stations stopped playing it. Cliff then released the single under his own name for his album Real as I Wanna Be, with each reaching No. 10 in the UK.
In 1999, EMI refused to release his song, “The Millennium Prayer,” having judged that the song did not have "commercial potential". Richard took it to an independent label, Papillon, which released it as a charity recording (in aid of Cliff's charity Children’s Promise). The single went on to top the UK chart for three weeks, becoming his 14th and last No.1 single in the UK:
There’s a lot more to learn about Cliff Richard. Pretty interesting dude. But I’m just focusing on the music. But definitely read up on him.
She might be referring to, in part, his sexuality. From a Spectator piece I just came across:
Leave Cliff alone! Peter Tatchell has weighed in on Cliff Richard’s refusal to declare his sexual orientation. Tatchell was spurred on by the reemergence of a video clip of Cliff declaring on Loose Women: ‘I don’t mind talking about things but there are things that are mine, that will go with me to my grave…I don’t talk about my family, I certainly don’t talk about my sexuality.’
This interview, from 2016, rattled Tatchell’s cage. As ever he can’t keep his nose out of anybody else’s business. ‘Sure, it is up to him,’ said Tatchell, ‘But –’. (As usual, everything after the ‘but’ is nonsense.) ‘Hiding his sexuality colludes with the idea that it is shameful. It’s not! It plays into homophobia & a lack of candour sets a bad example to young people’.
What a journey for Cliff — from being the unacceptably sexual face of teen rebellion to the unacceptably asexual face of pensioners. Yes, really, Cliff was a sex god. He had the same winning combination of coltish and very slightly chubby as Elvis, and was the first British rock and roll star. Just like Elvis, he moved into the world of all-round entertainment in short order. Unlike Elvis, Cliff’s response to being good looking and talented […] was to become a Christian.
Back to the window search after that long but fascinating tangent (I’m sheepish to admit I had never heard of Cliff Richard, but I learn fascinating things every week in the VFYW), here’s our super-sleuth on Park Avenue, who couldn’t settle on a guess:
Sorry, didn’t get to the contest this week until this morning, so I didn’t have much time. Tough one. The covered pool says somewhere hot. Lots of high-density housing. But not a person in sight. Maybe college housing?
I am going to go with somewhere in southern China, SE Asia, or maybe Taiwan? So, a highly specific guess! Very curious for my morning coffee read tomorrow.
Our super-sleuth in Brookline settled on Taiwan:
Aargh ... is it just me, or is the view downright diabolical this week?
Feels like Asia, which doesn’t narrow it down much. Zooming and squinting at the area in the distance on the right, I’m pretty sure that these are signs in Chinese, but hard to tell whether they are traditional or simplified characters:
The outdoor pool with canopy could indicate a pretty warm climate, so maybe southern China or Taiwan? (Seems less cramped than Hong Kong.) But as I search these areas, I’m finding that there must be TENS OF THOUSANDS of compact athletic complexes that feature some combination of running track, soccer field, basketball courts, and volleyball courts. The apartment buildings with the distinctive rooftop structures are apparently not unusual enough to come up as notable architectural examples.
I’m short on time again this week, so I surrender, give up, throw in the towel, wave the white flag, etc. I see there are quite a few schools in Taipei that have these kinds of athletic facilities with modern-looking apartment buildings nearby, so I’ll go with that.
Another goes with simply: “Fujian Province, China (looks like a ghost city to me!)” Right country! From the Sagaponack super-sleuth (say that five times fast):
I gave this a pretty good shot, but no dice. I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in China, but there are only a few billion tennis/basketball/soccer fields there, and even though those apartment towers have distinctive rooflines I couldn’t get any traction on Google, Yandex, or even Sogou.
Congrats to the sleuths who nail it!
From the Riverwoods super-sleuth:
I know I’m late, but I have to submit anyway. I’m sure I’m wrong, but this just feels like China, and I know how seldom China views are submitted. I searched all sort of ideas associated with prep high schools or colleges, but I couldn’t find that elusive tent-protected pool. WTF is this?
P.S. I loved the sleuth’s story last week about the creepy Count and laughed like crazy. What a wild story!
Berkeley was stumped at first:
I’ll kowtow to anyone who finds this window (or even the building it’s in), because as far as I’m concerned, it’s “Somewhere In China” (I’d hoped when I stumbled on this song that it wouldn’t be as lame as it is, but the title says enough):
China has so many enormous cities, each one filled with rank upon rank of hideous apartment super-blocks, all of them pretty damn similar. Yet it seems that no one has ever posted an image online of the particular hideous super-blocks we see in our view photo. Add to that the absence in China of official Street View coverage and the near absence of user-produced Street View, the likelihood of success this week nigh on zero. I haven’t disliked a view photo this much since contest #412 in Ouagadougou that zeroed out everybody’s streaks.
But he eventually pulled it off. Here’s our biologist sleuth:
Well, I could not get this one. I tried searching for everything in the image, but no dice. The distinctive sunshades, the background building with the strange pattern in the middle, the big hospital-looking thing to the left, the particular setup of the playground … no dice.
It didn’t help that the Google Maps labels for Chinese locations seem pretty inaccurate. It may be that a lot of current things were forest, wasteland, or in the middle of major highways when the satellite images were taken. And there were no Google Street View images to help me, even though there must be millions of citizens taking pictures. That made me reflect on countries where internet information is controlled by the government. Somebody out there in China’s security system might be wondering why I asked for multiple lists of Chinese hotels overlooking schoolyard playgrounds and kindergartens ... and they may be gratified to find that those lists are not readily available.
I can’t wait to read just how the winners figured it out! But every one of the Chinese cities I searched have an interesting animal in common, so I can still do the animal report. Here’s the raccoon dog:
(Photo by Miroslav Hlavko)
Is it a raccoon, or a canine? When it steps out of the tall grass, it’s easier to tell:
(Photo by misuksoon, eNaturalist)
It’s related to foxes, and I think the bandit mask would fit any fox. Those of us who live with urban foxes (shout-out to my neighbor’s backyard fox, who’s chased the rabbits out of my garden) know pretty well how these animals behave.
Shanghai has the largest urban population of raccoon dogs, with a citizen science project finding them in almost half of the residential neighborhoods surveyed. Wuhan has them as well, and there’s some evidence implicating raccoon dogs sold at the Wuhan market in the spread of COVID.
Like foxes, raccoon dogs have a history in the fur industry, which was responsible for much of their spread across southern China. I found some horrifying exposés of the current fur farms. The fur is apparently often sold as “Asiatic raccoon,” to avoid upsetting dog lovers.
One trait distinguishing raccoon dogs from other foxes is their ability to truly hibernate, with a decreased metabolic rate. They aren’t reliable sleepers, though; if their stored fat starts to run low, or the temperature increases, they may get up and go foraging. I’d be surprised if they hibernate at all in Chinese cities, where they have access to garbage year-round.
You can’t have a pet raccoon dog in the US, but here’s a charming video of a Korean man rescuing and rearing a family of pups:
Now, tell me in which city our photographer will be encountering raccoon dogs!
Will do — but first, many more wrong guesses. Here’s Ryel, our historical fiction writer in Boulder:
I’m out on a long-distance hike with my kids in France, so unfortunately I didn’t have any time to research or write a story. Best I can do is it’s likely in China — in Shanghai, if I had to guess. Hope to be back in the game soon!
As do we! Speaking of historical fiction, here’s a member of the Vancouver WA Sleuths:
I’m hoping you might find a way to provide a friend of mine some visibility for his crowdfunding project. I worked under Al Birtch 25 years ago at a FinTech startup and we have kept in touch. In retirement, he has authored several books (Thriller – Fiction), which are all captivating — but he has yet to “hit it big.”
During the first Trump term, he wrote one titled Altered States. He met a couple of acclaimed movie directors who read the book and offered to help write a screenplay. The advice he received includes, “The best way to attract a studio and distributor attention is to have a whole development and marketing plan package ready, including a teaser trailer of the opening scene.” So he created a Crowdfundr campaign: “Altered States — funding the creation of a movie marketing trailer.”
Maybe our cinema sleuth will be covering that movie some day. But back to this week, getting closer to right Chinese city is our married team in Falcon Heights:
Forgot to have time for this, so given the similarity of one building to pics, we’re saying Xiamen, China. (Well, Deb guessed Chengdu, but I’m the one writing the email.)
Xiamen is closer to the window than Chengdu, so he’s spared the tongue-lashing from Deb. Here’s the Intrepid Couch Traveler:
The trees look Asian. The sports field has badminton, basketball, and five-a-side futsal. The buildings are tall and have uniform-looking slanted crown canopies.
This all screams China to me, and because of the density nearby, Hong Kong. Or maybe across in Shenzhen. But there are too many futsal courts and not enough time.
I’ll go with Hong Kong. I was there for a day back in January 1983 on a college Winter Study trip to China. It was British then — so, you know, different. And futsal was not really a thing.
I will do better next week, because hope springs eternal.
Here’s the VFYW Reimagined:
What did I like about the image in this week’s contest? Well, it’s easier to describe what I didn’t like about this week’s image:
The damn window frames were annoyingly obtrusive.
The soccer field was poorly maintained.
There were too many different window types in the beige buildings around the sports field.
So this week’s Reimagined addresses those issues:
The architectural super-sleuth in NYC gets off track:
For as long as I’ve been a licensed architect, my wife and I have also been season ticket-holders for the New York Knicks. The first thing in the view that jumped out to me were the free-throw lanes on the basketball courts. The only courts I’ve ever seen with the wide keys are NBA courts (or FIBA internationally.) Courts in the NCAA and high schools don’t have them. Also, the semi-circular restricted areas around the basket are only on NBA and NCAA courts, not in high schools:
So whoever is playing on these courts must be pro-caliber hoopsters; either that, or the designer of the courts just copied an NBA diagram without really understanding the game. (It turns out I’m a basketball super-sleuth, too.)
I found the company that designed and supplied the basketball courts: the Guangzhou JRace Athletic Facilities Company. Their courts are dead-on matches for the ones in the view. It seems they have a masterplan to use advanced technology to dominate the sports flooring market. From their website:
It have China’s largest fully automated production base! JRace have the capacity to supply products meet any buyer demands all over the world. As of 2015, JRace's business scope has been included in Asia, Europe, Africa and America four continents, laying a total area of 28 million square meters. We believe that JRace will be the most powerful sports flooring materials manufacturer in world!
So: Guangzhou, maybe?
Our mixologist in Austin was also on the ball with China:
Well, after the layup last week, you certainly upped the difficulty on this one. I narrowed it down to India, Singapore, or China, based on the repetitive apartment complexes and new construction. It was the basketball courts that narrowed it down to China. They have a distinctive color pattern that matches the courts in the window photo.
After that, it was a ton of searches trying to find the distinctive office building on the right side of the photo, which I finally was able to identify as a new headquarters for IFLYTEK, an Asian AI company focused on speech recognition. I located the building in [city redacted].
Our ski-nerd sleuth also identified the headquarters:
For a few hours, I thought this contest would be unsolvable, like #412: ProXimity Marks The Spot (Burkina Faso). But then I finally found a photo matching this building in the view:
It’s Iflytek’s just-finished headquarters, and it’s the only photo of the building I could find on Google, Bing, or Baidu. From there, it was only a couple minutes of flying around Google Satellite to find the pool, basketball courts, and soccer field across the street.
I was surprised to learn that China has over 646 ski areas, most very small. (The US has about 480.) The second closest to our window is Guiyang Yunding Ski Resort, 569 miles north (#399: Save The Langurs!). The closest is Tianhu Ice & Snow World Ski Resort, 550 miles north. It’s got a single carpet serving one run that’s about 500' long with a 50' vertical drop and snowmaking:
It may be the lowest-latitude, outdoor, on-snow ski area in the world (26.14°). Bosques de Monterreal, Mexico (#421: Mountain Of Vomiting Water) is lower (25.23°), but it relies primarily on an artificial surface, with only a bit of snow and no snowmaking.
Here’s the Sydney super-sleuth:
The picture gives very southern China vibes: prosperous, plenty of high-rise but cookie-cutter housing, what looks like a school or university next to a sport ground and pool. But a combination of limited tools like no Street View, and even more limited time, means it is time for a Wild Ass Guess — in Shenzhen, China:
Some of it lines up: the soccer pitch and the two adjacent basketball courts, and the road in the front is running at a similar angle to the photo. But there’s no covered pool, the buildings behind are all wrong, and there’s no covered walkway in the foreground. It could be Google Maps is using old photos (given geopolitics and China’s rapid rate of change), but I’m pretty sure this is wrong. Hats off to those that get it this week.
No podcast from our AI hosts this week, as I am not confident in my guess, but time permitting I’ll double up again next week. Seriously good work to those that get it this week.
Many sleuths also went with Shenzhen, including the “a-maize-ing sleuth” in Ann Arbor:
In terms of difficulty, I feel this puzzle is harder than the one from Rehovot, Israel, but easier than the Dollar General Store. I got busy this week, so I’m running out of time (I’m currently in Oklahoma, so it’s 20 minutes before the VFYW midnight deadline). The campus is Guangming District High School in Shenzhen, as shown by this photo:
If I’m not too sleepy, I’ll find the window and send you an update. Otherwise this is my submission.
He sent a followup 35 minutes later, past the deadline, and it was the right location:
I know this is late, so it won’t count as a legit submission. I realized that in my rush to beat the midnight deadline, I sent the wrong name (with the right picture).
Another Shenzhen guesser is the UWS super-sleuth:
Wow, so many things in this photo — and yet no signage, branding, or any distinguishing marks. No people, no cars. No need for even a single Dusty! I admit to being totally stumped.
This immediately felt like Asia, and at first I was thinking Hong Kong — one of my favorite places to visit. But HK seems to have taller buildings (see below), so I’m going to guess China — maybe Shenzhen. Totally random, but it’s the best I can do at the moment. I can’t wait to find out how Chini and others figure this out.
Speaking of Hong Kong, have you seen Michael Wolf’s photographs of HK buildings? Two examples:
I don’t know what it’s like living in these places, but the photos are mesmerizing!
Yet another Shenzhen guesser is the CO/NJ super-sleuth, who usually picks a notable person from the place:
Ugh. My correct guess streak ends at 70. This one was really tough. Not much to go on. The numerous identical apartment towers in the background, with angled roof motif, and the new construction strongly suggest China, where seemingly infinite numbers of these developments are going up in every urban center.
What’s more, looking at basketball court colors and patterns, every one of them I found that was an exact match for the one in the photo was located in China or produced by a Chinese firm. The court itself, and the soccer pitch, look to be part of a school in a residential area, also very Chinese-looking. So I am going with that country.
But with little else to search on, it’s hard to get much more specific. From the mountains in the background and the foliage, I am going with South China. I could have spent hours on end surveying Chinese cities for the tiny bit of mountain profile that is shown, and the distinctive apartment buildings but, alas, I have neither the time nor the willpower. So, I will throw in the towel this week. Although Guangzhou is a strong possibility, I will make a WAG of Shenzhen. I look forward to seeing what the elite sleuths come up with.
Here’s an elite sleuth — our globetrotter in Alaska — but he was stumped as well:
I’m about to fly into a river for ten days, so we didn’t get a chance to seek this View. But to keep the streak of at least guessing every week alive …
This looks like southern China to me, somewhere just outside the Hong Kong New Territories (which are probably not called that anymore). It’s rapidly urbanizing. Not very imaginative architecture — but some attention to schools and sports, which suggests we are near some bougy neighborhoods. Not Singapore, because the courts would be tennis, not hoops and soccer.
I would have guessed Shanghai, but those hills in the back are disqualifying for that flat city. But they are not big enough for HK. So how about the next big city west? Shenzhen is apparently the third or fourth biggest economic center in China and becoming its Silicon Valley counterpart with some 17 million people. Yikes.
Anyway, that’s my proximity guess. If I’m within 300 km, I’ll consider this a success.
P.S. If I’m close and you are starved for content, a fun touristy thing in the area is the monastery of 10,000 buddhas, which we combined with some reservoir hiking west and north of Kowloon. Not quite in Shenzhen, but on the way. It has surprisingly quiet hiking and more rural than you’d think, given the proximity to giant cities like HK, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou.
He’s about 950 km away this week. Our super-sleuth in DC names the right city:
Oh, my god, this was a tough one — nearly as difficult as the notorious contest #412 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. I almost gave up several times, until I hit the jackpot during a last-ditch desperation search at around 2 a.m. today (Wednesday). Yes, I’m a VFYW addict. I just can’t quit...
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