In recent news..

So yesterday my phone was stolen, my Australian one. It's not that big a deal in terms of my ability to communicate but I did lose 13 days of photos and all my notes from Europe. Just focusing on the fact that my wifi won't turn on (it's permanently greyed out) and the location services don't work so the value they saw in pickpocketing an iPhone has probably been halved. And now that they've turned it off, they can't turn it on or use my sim becuase there's a lock on the phone and my card, and it's all been cancelled anyway.

#suchislife

Shanghai photo diary pt. 1

1. She's so cute I can't stand it.
2. Crossing roads has never been so difficult. I think your best bet would be to blindfold yourself and hope that no one runs you over..
3. Metro.
4. 5. 6. Wandering through the French Concession. My favourite area so far, it's like a hybrid of Shanghai and the West with old housing complexes down numbered avenues and streets lined with platane trees and boutiques.
7. I wonder if people actually notice this.
8. Street mugs?
9. Street tofu! Yeah I ate it. No I didn't spew (thankfully).
10. Bus.
11. 12. 13. 14. Tianzifeng. A pedestrian-bazaar-maze-thing filled with cheap asian stores and boutiques and restaurants and cafes.
15. 16. No idea where this is or how I ended up here. There were a lot of old Chinese men playing cards.
17. A lot of stuff was influenced/built by the french...

wo de zhong wen jiang de bu hao (still)

So I don't think i've given this place enough credit.

All I've done is whine about this place, even when I was here last time in June. It's just very very different, and the fact that my background in Chinese means that wherever I go strangers expect me to be able to communicate and understand how this place works and in return get splutters of confused Mandarin.

I think one of the things that has sucked most about not knowing the language is that I can't eat at those awesome hole-in-the-wall restaurants because I can't read the damn menu. And from looking at past posts I'm pretty sure you can tell that food is one of the highlights of travelling/living for me, so it's kind of depressing when I get hungry after exploring for a while and end up in some westernised chain store thing eating a sandwich that also costs three times as much as an awesome noodle soup in a tiny local eatery.

It's crazy seeing how fast everything is going up. Aside from all the high rise buildings, I've spied so many boutiques among local grocery stores and restaurants and behind buildings only accessible by hidden laneways, and in some areas, boutique restaurants offering foreign cuisine. New cafes I've seen seem to like the idea of all-day brunch.  More photos soon!

1. 2. Flying with Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong was actually great. The first/last time I'd flown with them was domestically within China a couple years back and it was horrid, so you can imagine my surprise when they had spacey comfy seats and touch screen entertainment systems!
4. 5. 6. Hong Kong to Shanghai
7. 8. Massive shopping area above Xujiahui station and where I'll be working for the next two months starting next Tuesday. Thank god I don't have any money left.
9. Educating Guo Guo nice and early.

Shanghai, I'm trying to love you, but you're bringing me down.

Ni hao from Shanghai!

I've penetrated the webosphere to attempt to update, it's been an ass not being able to access Blogspot, and now that I've finally gotten on it turns out the photos I have on here are actually being stored somewhere and are also too big so I have to go through and compress them all before I can upload any more and get up to date with all this!

I'll get there soon enough.

In the meantime here are some friends that are abroad!

My travel buddy; Chelsea

A homie living in Londontown; Maddi

Elle who just left for South America!

Things I miss already

• Milk
• Yoghurt
• Bread
• Avocados
• Being able to freely use the internet
• Road rules
• Company
• A decent gym
• Being able to see the stars at night.

Thongs and boardies

I got home today.
I knew I was in Sydney the second I saw 3 guys strutting side by side through Arrivals donning thongs and boardies, and then multitudes more in the following couple of minutes. I hadn't seen that in 4 and a half months..
I felt like I was inhaling in honey for the first 20 minutes I breathed it all in again. Like the humidity and opposing seasons to where I'd come from had thickened the air.
The smell of Aussie flora streamed through the open window on the way home, and burnt incense floated through the upper floor of the house when I finally arrived.
I ended up sprawled on the sand under the sun with a coffee the way it should be made.

It almost feels like I never left, but I did. Everything is familiar but my insides feel so different, like they've been rearranged, and I have so many vivid memories and feelings now stored away that feel like they've appeared from nowhere.
I will never be able to sufficiently express how grateful I am for every single person that I met during my 135 days abroad. And extra special thanks and a million hugs to Chelsea and Judith.

I haven't nearly finished with this, I have three weeks at home to catch up, and I'm now leaving again after those three weeks, but to China for about 3 months.

Shukran Morocco!

Couldn't of ended Morocco any better than in the hash capital of the hash capital of the world.

Chefchaouen was like what Cinque Terre was; a breath of fresh air, a place where we finally got to relax and god was it good (except of course after the taxi driver took us to some random entrance to the medina after dropping off some local guy and babbling on in Arabic probably about how he was going to drop us off at some obscure location where we'd be forced to ask someone who'd demand a tip at where we later found out was the actual Bab el Liane gate).

Here are some views from the rooftop terrace of our Riad in the morning, late afternoon and at night. Oh and a glimpse of the rooftop terrace itself. Pure bliss!

Funny story: Chels got stalked down by some creepy ass guy that said he was studying massage in Barcelona who repeatedly showed up at the door of our Riad. Creepy at the time, funny when you look back on it.

Another (not so funny) story: While leaving, a guy outside brandished a knife, Chels had just stepped out the door and I was about to but she ushered me back in before I could see what was going on. He ended up disarmed and on the ground thanks to Trevor; one of the owners of our Riad.

Why blue? From extensive googling I've gathered that Jewish refugees painted the town blue back in the 1930s but for what reason I'm not sure cause yeah blue is significant to their religion i.e. I've seen incredible synagogues tiled in white and blue, and dying one thread of their tallit's blue and it representing sky and therefore heaven, but why the walls and floor and stairs and roofs of this one small city? Oh well, beats me. Oh, it may also repel mosquitoes, don't ask why.

I think winding along Morocco's squiggly roads craning my neck to get my first glimpse of the blue and white-washed houses of Chaouen was one of the most (of many) exciting things to happen during my trip. Before I'd left, Chels and I had only planned on visiting Marrakech but after a friend of mine found out, he'd insisted on us going to at least Fes and Chefchaouen and man am I glad we did. And now I have to visit the Essaouira on the Moroccan coast when I get back to this side of the world (thanks to the two awesome guys we met in Marrakesh).

Views from another Riad:

Nice little plant they got there hey?:

And some more cats for your viewing pleasure:

These my friend, are semolina biscuits filled with dates; crumbly but soft and not too sweet, seriously could not stop eating them. I think they're called ma'amoul, my mouth is watering at the thought of them.

CATS (and Fes)

I think now is a good time to mention the cat population of Morocco. The number of cats in Morocco is probably comparable with the number of cigarette butts strewn through the sand at the beach in Barcelona, or in the gutters in Paris, or the number of people on pills at a music festival, say, Stereo, back home. They're not like domestic cats either, they're lean, small and don't tend to be as conceited. However, some were too scary looking - missing an eye/ear or mangled from a fight with the possibility of having rabies - to pat. With the number of photos I've collected of the cutest kitties I think I'm well on my way on to being that future single crazy cat lady that lives next door... and seriously, watch the video.

1. Busing it through Morocco.
2. Standard.
3. Pastilla, a pie-like pastry traditionally made with pigeon but here with chicken, as well as sultanas, nuts, an incomprehensible amount of spices (as usual) encased in phyllo-like pastry and then sprinkled with icing sugar and cinnamon.

4. 5. Fes' medina is literally a maze. We took our hostel's advice and got a private guide and we were more than thankful for her. She mentioned most visitors only see the two main streets; Talaa Kebira and Talaa Seghir that are filled with mostly uninteresting touristy stores selling fakes, and it's understandable because the second you venture off either of them, you end up in a unnavigable maze of narrow alleys shadowed by tall walls and structures that bridge low over your head.

6. 7. 8. 9. Before it was a wood museum, the Fondouk el-Nejjarine provided food and shelter for travelling traders. There's a cute little cafe on the rooftop, though not so pleasant when the sun is beating down mercilessly...

10. Trying on Morocco's latest threads.
11. 12. 13. 14. Al-Attarine Madrasa was built in the early 14th century, can't get over Arabic architecture, just look at all those hand-carved walls, and this was seven hundred years ago!!!!! Why does this stuff not have a greater influence on what is built now??

15. The closest we got to getting into a mosque. The Al-Karaouine University was built buy a rich woman called Fatima (sadly I don't remember anything else about her...) and is HUGE.
16. The famed Chouara tannery. We just stood there watching the men work like they've been doing for the last nine centuries or so. Just casually. Also it's important to note that it smelt like death. Probably from the hides and also pigeon shit (they soak the leather in it to soften it up). One cool thing though is that the whole process uses natural methods, things like saffron, poppies and henna are used to dye the leather.

17. View from a museum filled with random crap that didn't seem to be really on display...
18. 19. View of the Fez medina from the five star hotel Les Merinides just before sunset and at night.
20. Mohammed at Dar El Yasmine teaching us how to make berber whisky the right way.