And... CRASH!!!!

Yesterday was deadline day. I got there through two weeks of averaging about five hours of sleep per day, killing my social life, disappointing everyone and everything I hold dear, and just generally pushing myself and everyone around to the limit.

So, how did I do it? Some hints at how to turn yourself into an insane workaholic:

1. Learn from the "sail-around-the-world-alone-in-a-small-ship" people. They teach us that to maximize the impact of little sleep, you should sleep in episodes of 3-4 hours at a time. After a few days your body goes into panic mode. You fall into super deep sleep immediately, and wake up easily and quickly get back into work mode. Basically, work 10 hours, sleep 3 hours, repeat. Average 5.5 hours sleep. I need 8 hours, so over two weeks that's a massive saving for me. If you only need 6 hours, you could probably use the same technique to reduce your sleep to average of 4 hours per day.
   
2. The Propaganda meister taught me: either sleep well or eat well. So, when you are pushing it, it's critical to eat well. Don't overdoes on carbs (make you sleepy anyway), it's the proteins and minerals that need to be fully stocked.
3. You loose both your creativity and capacity for logical reasoning. The solution: use powerpoint to write out your thinking. Whenever your mind blanks, just reverse a couple of slides and you're back in your chain of thought...
4. Don't play dicewars. And ESPECIALLY don't check out kdice- a multiplayer version of the same game.
5. Wake up easily, however tired you are: connect your iPod to a strong speaker. Set up a playlist that starts with your favourite sleepy tune, something extremely soothing. After that song, add increasingly energetic and wake-y up-py songs, all of them should be your favourite songs that make you happy being alive. set the iPod alarm to about ten-twenty minutes before you want to wake up. Set the volume high, but not so high it's annoying. The idea is that when the iPod alarm goes off, it doesn't really wake you up immediately but rather slowly brings you awake over twenty minutes as you listen to your favourite music. When your REAL alarm clock rings, you should be alert and already looking up into the ceiling, ready to get started right away.
6. Just generally don't play flash games. For instance, avoid this genius of a game. Whatever you do, DON'T press that link.
7. Dedicate yourself to something that takes time out of your day, like exercise or taking chinese lessons. By jogging another part of the brain, it keeps the mind overall more alert than if you are simplemindedly pursuing only one thing.
8. Set aside a budget to invest in a couple of CDs per week. Nothing keeps the mood up when you're working on a Friday night like listening to some really great new music.
9. Don't waste time on updating your blog for a while.

And if you do this, then what is the result?
You hit your deadlines, and then you crash. I woke up at 5am this morning with a boiling temperature. My body was shaking and every part of it sore. Once I had dropped a gram of paracetamol and put on a jacket, i managed to fall asleep again. woke up again at 6pm. Nice.
Not feeling too rough, temperatures gone. Maybe I got away this time without paying too much. Hurra!

Thanksgiving

Today was a day to give thanks. This day about 500 years ago the native Americans helped the new settlers out with some food and shelter, and if not for their generosity, then where would we be today?

As part of my newfound interest in all things American, I joined a group of them a turkey-orgy. One of the participants had starved herself for two days to make sure she'd be able to stuff herself to the max. It kind of reminded me of the Swedish approach to Julbord, where the race is on to see who of the men (and wannabe-men) can finish the most plates.





Since christmas is only a month away, the hotel where we dined was thoughtful enough to hire a santa clause to entertain the crowd. The man was obviously a total pervert and didn't even try to hide the fact that he was just using the opportunity to grope all the women in the room. I was joined by Lihua who is kind of interested in the whole western thing. I thought she might enjoy meeting santa, so I called him over. The man made it quite clear that he despised me and everybody else in the room, and that it's a bloody shame that christmas comes earlier and earlier every year.



Did you know the founding fathers were considering making the turkey the national symbol of the U.S. of A? Wouldn't that have been something, a turkey instead of an eagle. I wonder whether that would have had an impact on their foreign policy. Could you possibly go to war when you are symbolized by a turkey?

A complete f@#!ing moron

I hereby declare myself a complete fucking moron. Pardon the French, but I do feel strongly about this.

I signed up for Chinese lessons this week and I'm freaking out about how much time I've wasted over the last two years. Ever since I arrived in Asia my strategy has been to pick up languages as I go. The idea sounds nice on paper. Interact with the locals to learn the "real" language and do self study courses. However:

• The locals most likely to want to have meaningful conversations with you (beyond "hello" and "that's will be 20 kuai") are also the ones with the best English skills, and also the ones who are most interested in learning English from you rather than vice versa
• Figuring out your own style of learning gets very expensive as you buy books and sign up for online courses. Not to mention all the wasted time working on texts either too basic or too advanced. And what do you get to show for it? Some notion of independence, I suppose. An oxymoron... how can language be independent?
• Do you naturally strike up conversations with strangers in your own country? I don't. I'm naturally unfriendly; if I'm smiling at you it's because I want something from you. When it was rare that I met mandarin speakers, the language thing would motivate me to start babbling. But nowadays I'm submerged in a mandarin speaking society. I've just got to a point where I view my fellow citizens more as people to avoid bumping into on the street, rather than language partners.

The idea of learning on your own is fundamentally flawed. Now, in my defense I should mention that I did sign up for private tuition in Hong Kong earlier this year. However, I quit after a couple of weeks after I found my tutor was more interested in telling me his life's story in English.

And now I've attended only two classes here in Shanghai. The language institute is called Enjoy Mandarin, I must admit I have no idea how it compares to other schools but there is really nothing I can complain about. And during my fourth group class hour, it suddenly happened. I was sitting there actually conversing in Mandarin, thinking in Mandarin, understanding Mandarin. Don't get me wrong, we're talking about extremely basic Mandarin, but somehow I was suddenly in the language. Why? Because my fellow students are on the same level as me, and the teacher has by now learned my level and so speaks so that we can all understand.

The feeling of suddenly being in the language was amazing. Kind of like when you exercise and hit that point where your body suddenly doesn't feel tired anymore and you feel like you could run and run and run.

Ok so i'm not a complete moron. In two years I've managed to reach up to intermediate level, including learning the bloody characters. But it's not my intelligence that's in question (nor my taste in clothes, which is admirable to say the least). It's my wisdom. If I had joined group lessons two years ago, imagine where I'd be today. I'd probably be fluent. I'd probably have a girlfriend. Today I learned to say "let's calm down and talk about it" in Chinese. How useful that would have been a year ago!

Speaking of girlfriends. The love of my life has reconsidered her advice to me (that I should go screw myself). She's still not listening to any ideas about marriage, kids or Texas. But with my new-found language skills I'm sure I'll soon talk some sense into her.

Dicewars

Not much is going my way right now. I had it all planned out- marry the love of my life, move to Texas and get house and kids. And a driving license. Alas, I just pitched the idea of starting a family in Texas to my sweetheart and... she told me go screw myself. Maybe I should have expected that considering we haven't been on speaking terms for more than a year. Shouting-bad-names-at-each-other terms, yes. But speaking terms, no.

To add insult to injury, the entire spy ring in Texas was just eliminated in an internal purge (along with a significant number of our Californian operatives). You understand now why I hate plans? It's like lighting a cigarette while waiting for the bus. Bah!

So, your proposal has just been turned down by the woman you love. What's a self respecting man to do? Well, there's always hard liquour, loose women and gambling. Yes there is, but that's not my style. I decided to deal with this emotional setback by spending about 10 hours playing Dicewars, the most excellent flash game ever!

So what is Dicewars? It's a Risk like game where you battle over a colorful map using dice. As you gain a larger share of the map, you receive more army enforcements. But in contrast to Risk, you don't move your "armies" and enforcements are placed randomly. While frustrating at first, this actually makes the whole game super fast and intuitive. Take if from me, you can play this game for hours without engaging any of your higher conceptual faculties. It's just pure tactical gameplay.

I highly recommend this game. Having wasted an entire night on this game I've figured out a couple of strategy items that you might find helpful if you end up all alone and un-loved:

• You gain enforcements according to the number of joined territories. At the beginning of the game, you are therefore trying to connect the scattered territories you were given at the outset. Since the computer opponents will also be trying to achieve joined territories, you can often predict their next move.
• The computer is very aggressive as long as there is no clear leader and will often attack attack attack without leaving any defence. The way the dice rolls works, the defender is slightly at an advantage. This means playing it reasonably conservative in the beginnning will put luck on your side. Try to never attack further into enemy territory than you can defend over the next turn.
• The computer opponents will switch from aggressive to defensive once one player has a significant advantage and will stop attacking each other and only attack the leader. This means that beyond a certain point, you can't rely on the computer opponents taking each other out.
• In the later stages of the game, all players will tend to be maxed out in the number of armies they have on each territory. trying to plow through an opponent by luck only is very slow, especially since the attacker is at a slight disadvantage. The trick is to leave yourself vulnerable at the front so that the opponent charges into your territory, spreading himself thin.

Happy playing.

Cornering the market

Wow, today is a great day. I found that when I did a search on "Dundee Expat" WITH the quotation marks, I appear at #3. This is called a vanity search and maybe not something I should brag about. But I'm ahead of the meet-up group for Dundee expats in Malaysia! I'm redefining the very concept of a Dundee expat. Maybe one day I will be made into a verb, like "did you google yourself?" or an adjective like Hedonism. Not sure exactly what I would come to symbolize... maybe glamour?

I've still behind the Indian community of Dundee Expats, but what's more interesting is that the guy making it to the top is an ex-dundee expat commenting on an article in the daily mail. Simply because that article is in a widely read website, the man is getting to the top. I'd seriously doubt the mans claim to owning the concept of being a Dundee expat. He's clear a Dundee expat. But not the Dundee Expat.

So, i'm going to find the most widely read article on the internet and post a comment. Maybe next month when Google update their index I'm #1?

UPDATE: Posted on dailymail about the national lottery. I bet I'll at least get #1 for dundee expat national lottery next month

So many americans!

Had an excellent night of Indian food and good company.

Abram is a clever guy and has travelled the US quite extensively and even been to Europe. He's arrived to Shanghai through six weeks in Macau and could be described as worldly, clued up guy.
However, he is also the source of last night's silliest line.

After looking around the restaurant and finding to his suprise it is full of westerners (rather than locals) he utters:
"Wow, this place is full of Americans."
The reason this is funny is that probably the only americans in that restaurant were sitting at our table. The place was mostly indians, frenchmen, germans, englishmen etc. Maybe one other american. There's a profoundness in his mistake that reflects on the fabric of the very world we live in. Anyways.

My camera ran out of battery just after taking one picture which happened to be this picture of Abram looking as silly as his line. With no other pictorial proof (or much memory either) of the night, Abram and his comment is going to have to be the topic of todays post.

Sasha, the center of my life

Sasha is quite a find. It's a rubbish place for meeting new people but excellent if you want to sit down with a few friends and argue about politics. Set against a beautiful mansion and serving two brands of wheat beer, it's also on the longest bar street I've ever seen. This street runs for miles and is just bar after disco after restaurant after bar. Some say this is an expat hanghout, but there's not nearly enough expats to make up even a percent of the clientelle here.



Some introductions:
Jai on the left is into lubrication. The sole in the middle is the soul of the party. And Alex on the right is very concerned about how lightly non-americans criticize his country


That's Alex korean business partner, and me grinning like madman.

Time Maas at G-Spot

It's not that I'm partying all the time, it's just that it's a long while since I was living somewhere with so many big name DJ's playing here and such a sincere party scene. I'm really excited about all this.

Last night I returned to G-Spot where I saw Diggiwee last week. This time they had no other than Timo Maas playing there, the Maas himself. Playing possibly some of the weirdest electro music I've heard in a long time in such a mainstream venue. Miles from the usual 5-year-old RnB Beijing, Taipei and Hong Kong seem to prefer.

Oh, and there was a guy on the dancefloor with glowsticks. This place is starting to feel just like home.

The Maas himself:



Oh, I should probably mention that G-Spot apparantly features the best speakers in Shanghai. They are huge, they look like something out of a charicature of a nightclub, they are so massive, humongous and other big words. If go there again I'll have to take picture of them.
The sound is excellent of course, but at the Time Maas event they had the bass a little to loud. The music he was playing was pretty much all base, and I actually felt nauseous most of the time I was shaking away on the dancefloor. Too much of a good thing...

Go West, young man, and grow up with the country

At the dinner on Tuesday I found myself surrounded by a gang of americans and people who had lived a long time in America. I witnessed an interesting bond establish among them, and I could only sit back an observe them with fascination. I don't think I've thought about Americans particularly as a culture. New Yorkers are pretty different from the kids in San Francisco, and the people I know in Texas seem to come from a different planet from the people I've seen in LA.

Anyways, the americans around started talking about American stuff and discussing various things that are different about Shanghai compared to the US. And it suddenly struck me: these people are bleeding exotic! I mean, I have no idea what's going on in these peoples' heads. Kind of like when I first arrived in China and Chinese people freaked me out.
The americans freaked me out, in a really nice way.

I've never really had an interest in living in the US. Not sure why since the country represented the height of everything I knew when I was a kid. But once I started thinking about the world in terms of continents rather than European countries, I only considered Asia and Japan as potential destinations.

But after yesterdays exciting dinner, I realize that today, living in the US would probably challange me more than living in the Philipines or Vietnam, at least on a spiritual level.

So should I go west, to explore the American dream? Start a family, get myself a house and car. Forget about chinese and the silly tones and characters and instear learn declaration of independence by heart. I really like their freedom.

Food for thought.

ShanghaiExpat.com - what a genious website!

I've discovered a website that may be one of the cooler, unique things about Shanghai

ShanghaiExpat.com appears at first look to be just another classifieds and bulletin board website, like TaiwanHo.com in Taiwan and Asiaxpat in hong kong. But whats unique about these guys is that they go a mile further. they don't just classify stuff, they also organize and promote their own events. On sundays they hold a coffee lunch to welcome newcomers to Shanghai (genious!). Every other Tuesday they have a dinner meet-up for people in this nice little community to catch up. I have no idea how they make any money on this, seems like charity to me, but it's a great service to lost souls new to the city.
So I went to the coffee meeting on Sunday. It was about 50/50 newcomers plus locals who were curious to get to know newcomers if only to practice their English a little bit. With us newcomers being all curous about them, the whole even could only be described as an extraordinary orgy of curiosity.

It was so good, I decided to join them again for dinner a yesterday. That was probably the last time this year that you could sit outside and eat. Shanghai is starting to get mighty chilly.



After the dinner, ShanghaiExpat.com had organized a halloween party at BonBon. In a matter of days my life has suddenly come to revolve around this website. And I say I'm a better man for it.

Food. Disappointing.cabarets.

I've spend the whole day working on my Chinese. I've been so busy dodging hit-men and jumping between buildings lately that despite living in Shanghai I've not made ANY progress on my speaking or listening skills. After eight hours of straight studying, I realized something really interesting and potentially life-saving: if you don't eat, you feel like shit. In fact, some Internet research suggests that lack of food might actually kill you in the long run. So I've decided I'm going to set up a regular schedule for eating. Something along the lines of three big meals per day, and one or two snacks in between.

So this Shanghai nightlife thingy is interesting, but also a bit frustrating. Now that I've seen how good it can be, I can't settle with the average glamour bar. Yesterday I decided on checking out two new places that sounded interesting. One was Glamour Bar (it's what it says on the tin) which was trying to pull in punters with a cabaret dude from New York. the other was Jade 36 (on the 36th floor of course), which had a Thai model-cum-DJ who made her name playing to 1.6 million football fans at the Germany world cup closing ceremony.
But turned out to be less than mind-blowing. Maybe i should stop relying on classifieds and try to get some cool friends "in the know" so to speak.

The problem with Jade 36 was just that there were no people. The DJ was both gorgeous and played some funky cool music. But the cabaret at the Glamour Bar was really disappointing. It essentially consisted of a hat. the rest of the show was made up of a pretty average performer singing his own takes on various famous songs. Bizzarely, the man took a song by Fisherspooner about a woman's relationship to her own colon and turned it into a love song about Hollywood. First time I've heard someone do a change-the-lyrics-cover that turns a dirty crazy song into a mild-vanilla song.
And the man was wearing a funny hat. That's what goes as a cabaret in New York apparantly.

PIC UPDATE: Li being all glamorous with her Champagne against a glamorous backdrop of glamorous Shanghai- on a balcony off Glamour Bar.



PIC UPDATE: This man believes his hat is a cabaret. Where are the drag-queens, midget acrobats and burlesque dancing?


Anyways, normally this would have been a reasonably good friday night, despite the lack of breathlessness. But I couldn't shake this feeling off that somewhere in Shanghai there were all this glam people dying to meet me, but I just didn't have their phone number.

Networking events and Diggiwee

I found Oriented.com when surfing the internet a few months ago. I really like the idea of a networking event held monthly in most cities I live in. Generally, I appreciate anything that can be used across cities and countries. I'd love to join clubs and loyalty programmes, it's just that most of them are geared to people who are a little less geographically transient than I am. So I signed up as a member of oriented.com, but not had a chance to attend any of their events yet. Well, yesterday I got myself over to City Diner on (infamous) Tongren Lu and got hot into some networking.
And discovered the strange world of networking. This seems like it is really big here in Shanghai, with so many hustlers, wheelers and dealers. In fact one of the people i met during the two hour networking frenzy was a guy operating a site dedicated to networking in shanghai. He puts up news about events there, so he decided to call it.. erm.. shanghainetworkingnews.com.

Funkily, we've got photos to prove we were there, check it out!
http://oriented.com/photoAlbum/viewAlbum.aspx?albumID=451

I capped of the evening with going to the sneak opening of a new club, hosting no other celebrity DJ than Mr Diggiwee himself!
I've figured this out now... Shanghai nightlife can be pretty dead, but as long as you go to opening parties for new clubs it's really exciting. From the looks of it there's a new club opening every weekend, why go somewhere old when you can check out something new.

I went to see Diggiwee with Mark and Lihua. Mark had got some invitation to some other event sent to him by express mail, which carried around him all night as well as his name tag from the Oriented orgy.



There lounge bar/club concept spearheaded by Babyface has been copied to death. And you've got to have fire juggling bartenders, right?




Me and Lihua soon decided that while Diggiwee was good, gatecrashing private parties and pretending to know "that guy over there" was even more fun.

 

I'm so wrong. When will I ever learn?

urgh... it's sunday, and I'm still reeling from friday. Shanghai has an absolutely excellent party scene, with more cool people than you can shake a stick at. How could I have dismissed it so quickly last weekend?
I went to the newly-opened Attica of Singapore fame and wow, it felt like being 20 in London again. A mix of money, style, great music, a pavillion overlooking Pudong (yes, this is just a few blocks from Bar Rouge), an air of cultural curiosity and intoxication. Does it get any better?



I'm a sucker for moments. At the end of the night I bumped into Mimi, yet another member of the Hong Kong gang. Since we were both going to Dragon Club (the after-hours to go to at the moment, apparently) she offered me a ride in her car. I hate it when I'm so obvioulsy "new in Asia", but I couldn't stop myself from grinning madly as we raced through the streets of Shanghai, with thumping dance music blaring from the speakers and the sun rising above skyscrapers and french mansion.

So the question is: when will i learn? I never really get a city for the first two weeks, this time was no different. If you agree that golden week doesn't count, that's just about right for my time in Shanghai too.
In fact, I've come up with a system.

Week #1, sort yourself out with an apartment or long-term hotel room, a local phone number, a map (and a guide book if you haven't already), locate the nearest Starbucks and maybe an alternative cafe/office. Fill up on all the necessities that you couldn't be bothered to bring with you.
Week #2, spend all your free-time sightseeing, learning about the public transport system and going to as many bars and discos as you can manage. Focus on quantity, not quality, see as much as possible whether it stinks or not.
Week #3, Make friends! You know what you like about the city and can start to enjoy yourself. Leave the guide book at home.
Week #4, Fall in love with the city, discover amazing things about yourself, understand the scope of beauty on a global scale, see cultures meet and mix etc.
Week #5 Forget you were only supposed to be here for 4 weeks. Figure out a way to extend your visa. Can you live her permanently? Have I ever been this happy?
Week #6 You're completely lost, the city has rooted itself inside you. Leave now or be forever lost!

Women in shanghai

I made up for me working through Friday night by partying like a hamster on Saturday night. Armed with an extensive list of bars and discos, I worked my way through the many venues of Shanghai. Shanghai was still a bit dead after golden week, obviously people had not recovered financially from whatever glorious holidays they've been on.

Two parts of the night stood out. First one was in California Club in Fuxing Park. Although it was almost completely empty, I was impressed with the energy of the music, how it mixed very dark beats with high tides of yummy build ups. But what really made this part of the night special/hilarious was the DJ and our reaction to the DJ. You see, the DJ just happened to be the most gorgeous woman ever. After a long spell staring mesmerized at her and wondering how such cool music can eminate from someone so beautiful, I looked around: the place was full of men. No, it wasn't a gay bar... that would not have been half comical. No, the entire place was full of straight men completely in love with the DJ. Now and then a couple of girls would come into the bar and shake about a little. No amount of shaking or grinding would catch anybodies attention, as all eyes were fixed on the DJ, so the girls would get bored and leave quickly. Hilarious.

Now, the second interesting part of this evening happened at Bar Rouge. Bar Rouge is an absolutely beutiful venue, overlooking the futuristic Pudong across the Huangpu river. As i'm mingling about and marvelling at the lack of hip-ness in this place, I suddenly get three blocks of ice in my stomach. Who's standing there if not Anna, from Hong Kong. Like my friend the Propaganda Meister says: "you know you've been here too long when you start to bump into people you know from other cities"... I hung out with her and her friends for the rest of the night, being drawn into all kinds of Hong Kong style dramas that I realize I miss (in moderation, of course).

Right, I understand it's going to be a bit empty just after golden week. But still... i get a feeling that there's all this supply (lot's of cool venues, great music) but very little demand. The Chinese prefer their karaokes, and the westerners are here for business, not hedonism. Maybe things will change.

Shanghai old town

I went to Shanghai's 'old town' today. It's a part of central Shanghai that hasn't been completely demolished yet, and they've even done parts of it up to make into a toursist attraction. However, it's clear most of this area will be gone in five years, as the houses here are simply not renovatable. Walking through the narrow alleys off the main street, some houses had just crumbled and nobody is going to rebuild them- why bother when the entire streets is going to be a site for a high-rise a few years from now?

This is the main street, which has been done up. In the far distance you can see the walls around a China architecture themed shopping and eating area.


I thought this was an interesting picture. The old houses, entangled in power cords, with the encroaching high-rises in the background.



This the wall to Yuanyi garden. Unfortunately it was closed when I got there, but it was just fascinating to walk around with these kind of buildings and walls everywhere around you.



But the most thrilling part of the excursion was walking down the most narrow alleyways. Life here seemed to be lived just as much out on the street as inside in the small rooms/apartments. There wasn't really any sense of privacy here, more like a massive commune. Most of the doors and windows were open, and people were sitting around outside tanning or talking. In fact, I felt as if I was walking around these folks' gardens. It was a thrilling experience, and I couldnt' make myself take up my camera to capture anything that I saw, out of respect.



I spent a good few hours here, then spent most of the early evening walking from old town all the way to JingAn temple (about a two hour walk). It's nice to be finally my bearings here.



And tonigh is party night :-)

100th post!

I hereby dedicate my 100th blog post to complaining about working on a Friday.

Eaten alive!

There's a family of mosquitoes in my studio, and they are eating me alive! I woke up 3am last night from terrible itching and when I turned on the lights I was covered in bitemarks.
I found one of them damn bloodsuckers. It had obiously had more than it should, because it was really fat and slow. Usually you have to chase them, but this one barely moved as I hit it repeatedly with a magazine.

I'm sleeping fully dressed tonight, didn't have a chance to buy repellent.

Walking through the French Concession

Went on a quick sighseeing trip today. Not so much to take in the sight, but more to get a better feeling for what is north and south in this city. Took the tube to Huaihai Road where my office is and walked all the way to Huangshan road, where all the western restaurants and bars are. There were no spectacular sights, but it was a beautiful walk though old french architecture and now and then you'd bump into some famous mantions where dimplomat so-and-so used to live.


The brick building in the foreground houses Mao in a girls dorm at some pivotal point. He was actually sharting the dorm with some politician mates of his, but still... teehee... he was in a girld dorm... Bloody massive building behind it.


There's a monument to Vogue around the corner, opposite the building that housed the first communist something. Strikes me as a rather odd monument wherever you put it.


Walking through the "French Concession" makes you wonder whether which part of the world you are in. If it wasn't so dusty and so congested, you could have made the mistake of thinking you were in some suburb in Gothenburg.
All very beautiful and green, maybe not so serene but very different and a stimulating walk.

Living near JingAn temple

I've found myself a studio on the 16th floor next to JingAn temple. As usual I'm paying through the nose for the luxury of not having to commit for longer than a month at a time. I've calculated that if I got an apartment with a six-month contract, I would be saving money even if I only stayed there two months of that time. And I would have somewhere to leave my stuff until next time. A way to expand my life beyond the 25Kg of allowed luggage in Cathay economy without having to worry about airmiles...



JingAn temple. The world-famous JingAn temple. Actually, I'm not sure it's all that famous, except as the name of the nearby metro station. It's slightly underwhelming from a tourist point of view but there's a whole bunch of Buddha's in here. I'm sure that means some sort of luck for my stay here, to have 'dem all just around the corner.


Speaking around the corner. I would like to warn every man and woman in Shanghai against this awful establishment. This place is dirty. The furniture is dirty. The people who work seem scared of their own shadows. The food is dirty. It's overpriced. Don't go there! Steakking- you really suck!

Shanghai- a meeting with destiny?

It feels as I've spent the last two years preparing for my return to this magnificent city. Nothing could be farther from the truth- it is merely a coincidence that I am ending one chapter in my life in the city that started it.

When I arrived here two years ago I started a blog about the experience. I spent a week here, and the ramblings I wrote then were along the lines of:

"No words can describe the energy and the buzz here. The contrast. I am overwhelmed by the mix of alien Chinese going-ons and familiar European architecture. The whole city feels like a construction site. Today I walked along a beautiful street, walking past laundry hanging out of windows out on the streets, endless groups of men doing strange stuff to pipes and bikes and wooden planks. TVs and Radios blaring out of windows that seem to look into houses from a hundred years ago. Next to this area there was a huge crater where they are going to build a new shimmering 21st century sky scraper. A woman was selling poultry meat next to the construction site, surrounded by construction workers busy laying pipes or lines or whatever into the site. It was such a baffling sight, such juxtaposition- the laundry hanging out to dry, the street market, the construction of another modern skyscraper and the selling of poultry in the middle of a construction project... I've decided to buy myself a digital camera."

I read through what I had written and realized that anyone writing the word "juxtaposition" in a blog probably is a little to overwhelmed to make any sense of what they are seeing. I gave up on the blogging idea after just this one post.

So, I'm here again. It's difficult to decide what is real and what is my mind indulging in romantic notions of fate. it's golden week, which means the entire city is quiet. It feels like I'm in a small village, not a 20m-head municipality.