The weird and wonderful.

Alright so I've been a little absent.
After New Years I finally started learning Chinese and went from working full-time to only the mornings so hence the limited time I had to really think and write about life. Though I don't think I ever really think about it, it always ends up coming out as word vomit regurgitated during my last 15 minutes at work.

Here are some stories that I thought I should share, mainly because I can't seem to erase the images from my mind.

• About a week ago I was walking home after class and came upon some used sanitary products strewn across my path. It was gross. I think a garbage collector's package thing must have exploded while riding past. It was gross and I felt a little sick. Actually this also reminds me of driving behind a garbage truck on the way to Zhujiajiao "The Venice of Shanghai", and when I say 'garbage truck' I mean a large truck, not a pick up, with huge netted sack of garbage just casually strapped to the back of the vehicle. It took about five minutes of open windows and heavy breathing to ventilate the car.

• A couple of days ago I passed some bird feathers scattered across the pavement and realised that the dark liquid around them was blood. I'm not sure where the bird went. But there was it's blood, and and some bits of it. Funnily enough, the first thing that came to mind was that maybe someone had killed the thing here in front of this garbage bin to cook and eat. 

• The other day I was waiting for my sandwich in a bakery on Wulumuqi Rd and got to witness a grown asian man throw a tantrum across the street. He was yelling and flailing his hands in the air, grabbed a street cleaner's hat and threw it across the road onto the windscreen of a car followed by a couple of empty cardboard boxes that bounced off other cars waiting for the traffic light to change.

• About a month ago, I got on the subway to go home. I noticed a dishevelled man staring weirdly at me but shrugged it off. Before I knew it he had moved over and put his arm around my shoulder, murmuring incoherently and reeking of alcohol and filth. I screamed and ran to the other end of the train.

• A while ago I was walking to the subway and spotted a huge white thing the size of an elephant drifting down the other side of the road. Turned out it was a man on a bike with bits of polystyrene tied down around him. There were five huge bundles and from a distance could have (I swear) been a huge white cloud floating down Xincun Rd.

Can I just say, the nightlife in Shanghai is incredible and shits on everything at home in Sydney. I mean I already knew that clubs back home weren't worth the cover charge, let alone free entry. And being a woman just puts the icing on the cake.

Ladies nights can involve free flowing champagne, free cosmos, free frozen margaritas, free sangria, free tequila, or just free EVERYTHING until the wee hours of the morn! How do these places make money? And this happens in incredibly nice places and not in dirty holes that people would not be caught dead in.

Seriously what is this place??