wo de zhong wen jiang de bu hao

At the moment I'm in the beautiful city of Paris and it's incredible. The view during the bus ride from Charles de Gaulle to Pigalle where I'm staying with a friend took my breath away. It's my second time here, but last time was for 3 days jam-packed full of tourist-y things and this time I'm here for about a month which really gives me the chance to fall in love with the place; even though that's already happened.

However, I'm firstly going to finish with Shanghai.

See what I mean by grey? It makes everything quite dull and it's a shame because it makes life here seem extra nitty gritty. Don't get me wrong though, Shanghai is an amazing place, crazy, but amazing. Development only really started in the late 20th century so the entire city has been one massive construction site for the past 40 years or so. Buildings are shooting upwards, each containing thousands of people, hundreds of families. There were 1500 families living in the complex where I was staying; about 10 high-rise apartment buildings surrounding a man-made lake.

1. View from my bedroom
2. View from an 8+ storey carpark in central Shanghai

I don't have a photo of the area but my dad told me a story about how one time at 'People's Place' some old senile man dropped his pants and took a shit in the middle of the concrete quad.

How to drive in Shanghai

• Traffic lights are merely guidelines
• Same with lanes
• Number plates? Unnecessary (see above)
• Never indicate
• Never give way
• If you're on a scooter/bike just go wherever you want, in any direction, whenever you feel like it
• Don't wear your seatbelt
• Honk at everyone and everything for no particular reason
• If you can't be bothered paying for parking, just leave your vehicle in the middle of the road

I don't remember what these things were called. But they were oily and delicious as fuck.

1. (right) Some little bun things that had already been eaten by the time I'd remembered to take a photo, (left) Tofu and blood (in my spoon) soup
2. Steamed then fried pork bun things with soup stuff inside.

God I'm great at explaining things.

Introducing my new baby half-sister; Guo guo

Some jelly in Carrefour

This last one is for Hannah:

Shanghai

Well hey there boys and girls, long time no see.. probably cause I'm in Shanghai, where Facebook and Blogspot are blocked. I can't go on youtube/vimeo and Google maps doesn't work either. However I've penetrated the web to let you know that I am alive.

I think the first thing you notice when you step off the plane in Shanghai is the smell. It's a musty/humid/grimy kind of smell that seeps into your nostrils. The sky is grey. And nothing else. And I can't tell if it's actually always cloudy or if it's the dust/pollution that's hanging over the city.

Also, I'm sick; sniffling and coughing up bits of phlegm. Yum.

Haven't been up to anything tourist-y because I'm here mainly to visit family. I have, however, eaten a shitload of amazingly unhealthy oily sickeningly sweet food.

Sadly, I can't post pictures at the moment because I'm not on my mac and I can't figure out how to insert my memory card into the computer I'm using.... but if I do manage to figure out how to do it, I'll be updating soon... Otherwise, see you in Paris!

Traveller's Block

I've reached the point where everything seems so overwhelming I've been reduced to sitting around and staring into space because my brain can't handle/process what I need to do. That plus the random feelings of shit-I'm-leaving-fuck-shit-balls-what-is-happening has made me extra spacey. Today I went to buy a bouquet of flowers for a friend's 21st and I ended up walking up and down a street 3 times before I walked into a florist.

So now I'm sitting here blankly with my throw, with a birthday I'm meant to be at in half an hour, and my own farewell drinks later on, and I just feel like curling into the fetal position and rocking myself backwards and forwards in the dark because my brain has hit a block. Like writer's block where an author will stand on their head to try find inspiration and stand on the edges of buildings (from what I've drawn from watching Stranger Than Fiction) except I'm a traveller.

God help me.

Vivid Sydney

Here goes..
I thought I'd use this as a test-run post because I'm new to blogger and want to get an idea of how it works so I can do a decent job of documenting my trip when I leave (i.e. in 15 days).

On Monday I went with Maddie to explore Circular Quay and The Rocks and see the light installations for this years Vivid festival.

Smiley through a transparent rotating box on dog-like sculptures (I should have made more of an effort to remember the name of the artwork hey?)

Rewind a year and we find ourselves here at last years festival:

One of my favourite installations

I really wish I could remember the name/artist of this one, it was behind the rocks off Argyle St. As you moved beneath the lanterns the lights would change in colour and intensity. My camera battery ran out after this..

Do I need to sign off? Or is that cheesy? Bye...