A headache and some denial

Even though we packed and sent a lot of our stuff, it still seems like we have tons of things here. I just put all of my clothes in my suitcase, without the socks & all and it's full. I only put one pair of shoes in, and I still have a few to go. Non of my coats are there (have 3 here) and I'm sure that by tomorrow, I'll find more things that didn't fit. That's after we sent 2 big boxes full of stuff to Germany already, and gave one small backpack full of stuff to Rob's colleagues to take with them to Germany this weekend when they go home. I have another small backpack full of stuff that is supposed to go to Israel- but only when I'll know if my dad is meeting me here in my last 3 days in Shanghai- I'll know whether to send it by post or give it to him. It's just amazing the amount of things ppl collect in 6 months. For a lot of reasons, one of them is obviously denial, I was a bit indifferent to the packing. Rob was a bit more worried than me, seeing all the stuff still here in our apartment, as if life is not about to change in a few days. But I still think it's an optical illusion- coz all of the furniture isn't ours- and it stays here in it's place- there is the feeling that nothing is changing. I have a little bit of a headache- even though the weather is brilliant and I was walking outside and enjoying it today. That might be the reason for my confused bundle of thoughts here... I apologize.
So- tomorrow 19:00 we give our apartment back- then going to Andrew's for one night (he's a walking hotel this guy I tell ya- with a 5 star service), I'll be borrowing Charles's big backpack (wonder if it's the same one he bought for our trip in Hainan 2 years ago) and on Saturday we have our flight to Chengdu. Therefore, I will probably not post a lot, well, I might, it's not like I'm going to a desert, but still- Blogspot is obviously blocked again in China (have I mentioned how I'd like to get out of here already???) and I'm not sure I'll be able to post from every computer here.

OK I'll stop now- coz I can't even keep up with what I'm saying- too tired, and my head hurts...

Oh! And everyone- have a happy Pessach!!!!! (it's Passover if you don't know...)

Last week living in Shanghai

Where should I start? telling about my last week or about the next week? Logic says that I should start with the last week- so that's what I'll do. By the way- the word 'logic' in Chinese is pronounced 'luo ji' - guess where it came from... How typically Chinese to not have that word...

OK last week... On Wednesday I went to Chinese conversation club again, as I was standing next to the gate- I didn't feel like being there, was too tired mentally, but in the end it was one of the nicest evenings I had here... I was sitting with 3 students- all there for me- speaking Chinese to them. It was fun and we laughed a lot. After that Rob came to meet me there and we went to an Italian restaurant- that had ok food for too much money. The next evening we were invited for dinner with one of Rob's bosses from Germany, and he asked us to choose a restaurant- so this time we chose a good and not too expensive Italian place. That day we also took care of Rob's registration form (I got to go to the police station 3 times just for that). On Friday we were invited for dinner with Rob's colleagues, where he works, in a nice Chinese restaurant. On Saturday we were invited for dinner with Rob's ping pong club friends, as a goodbye party for him in a nice Chinese restaurant close to our place (they were so excited to have him in their club, the manager of the club, a young guy, even gave him a nice present). Conclusion from this dinner: drunk Chinese ppl are funny. That was last week- lots of dinners. This week Rob is having a fare well dinner party in a nice restaurant close to where he works- with everyone from work- hopefully the last big dinner in a while- I'm not used to eating so much anymore! (these Chinese dinners usually contain so much food!!!)

Yesterday we bought a flight ticket to Chengdu, in Sichuan. We're giving back the apartment on Friday evening and our flight is on Saturday. I must say that as much as I'm ready to leave China- I'm tired of moving. In the last 2 and a half years I left and entered apartments about 5 times and I'm definitely tired of it. It's mentally draining. But I have no choice, and now I must move on.

***

We watched "An Inconvenient Truth" last night, Al Gore's movie. I must say that even though I was already convinced by the environmental issue before- this movie showed me just how acute it is.
Yesterday I was reading about the 15 British solders that were kidnapped in Iran- and I thought to myself- damn it! the world is full of bullies as leaders. These leaders don't want us to care if we'll all die in a Hurricane next year, as far as they're concerned, who cares if we'll all be flooded and under water and hundreds of millions of ppl will die??? Most of the world feels that if ppl like Ahmadinejad or Bush or Olmert wanna make us believe that our lives are depended on them- so be it. Let's all fight each other. Why not really. It would be really ironic if we'll all fight and kill each other and one bright day we'll be all under water - just coz we were incapable of looking ahead just one more day. This makes me so furious!!! Especially in China- where you see how little they care about keeping the environment clean. In the big cities they're a bit better, but it's still very very bad... I think to myself- what can I, or anyone for that matter do, to show the ppl in this world that our daily problems are just daily- and if we don't wanna be the ones to kill earth with all its living creatures on it including ourselves- we better change our ways. I think about Israel- the little crazy place I'm from- and I think about all the ppl living there- what they would probably tell me is: 'I have bigger problems now! I need to support my family, and I need to protect myself from the leaders of this world who decided that I'm their little toy on a game board'. From that little spot on earth nobody can see the real danger. The danger is the bullies that make us believe there are no other dangers than the other bully. They keep our perspective very limited- they make us see things in a very narrow way- they make us not look to the sides, only look towards where they want us to look. But the danger is coming from a totally different direction. And it's time we all see it. It's time we realize that we're ruining ourselves, killing ourselves with our bare hands. We must stop blaming other ppl for trying to kill us. We're doing it ourselves.

And here's what we can do to stop global warming, even if just a bit:

Click the picture to see it bigger.
(The information is from the website linked above)

Time flies...

We're leaving China in less than a month. I can't say I'm sad about it. Especially in the last few days - in which we met the Chinese bureaucracy again. To make things short- Rob needs a new visa, and we need a registration form for him, which is hard to get coz without knowing we "broke" the law- he didn't register again after coming back from Germany (in China you need to register as a resident - and let them know exactly where you are all the time). This means that he needs to pay a fine and show our contract to the apartment. Problem is that the contract ended yesterday, and we're staying here with the landlords permission. No prob you say? just get the landlords to get us a new contract or something? true. But we couldn't reach them in the last 2 days. Well we got them today, but this story isn't over yet... Not very interesting I know- but my point is that I'm really getting sick of this place, and now- as the cherry on top-blogspot is blocked again in China. At least that's what I understand- coz I can't go into any of the blogspot blogs. If I had to say how I feel about it today it would be a mixture of frustration and anger. I thought about the question whether I'll ever want to live here for more than a short period of time, meaning- more than a year, and I must say that now the answer will be "no". There's tons of good things about living in China, if its the cheap prices, or the interesting challenges you meet everyday, the great food (just pay attention to what you're eating - to not be surprised...), and even the occasional nice Chinese person you meet outside (and I admit- most of them are nice ppl) all of the above do not make me feel it's worth all the rest. I'm tired of being stared at, tired of dealing with the system all the time, and that's even though I'm not naive: I know that bureaucracy is the same shit anywhere on this planet. Here it has another dimension to it: The big brother knows all. I can not deal with that. I'm such a person of live and let live - and I just can't live in a place where someone above decides for me what websites I'm allowed to see. I can't wait to be back in Europe, and later Israel- to read in Wikipedia (I miss you my love!) or just click my favorite blogs list- and not get a page that sais "Action Cancelled"...
I still want to travel a bit, when you travel you usually don't see these little problems, or they just don't annoy you as much, but I am ready to leave.

Top 5 search results - that ended in entering my blog

I have an option of seeing how ppl got to my blog. Some click something on Google- and one of the search results have a link to my blog. Here's a list of the top 5 things ppl were looking for before entering my blog (ranked by how funny I thought it was...)

1. "photo of Ariel Sharon in comma" (searched by a person from Dubai...)
2. "problems" and "owning a subway"
3. "whats the meaning of the world is my oyster"
4. "eternal sunshine of he spoless" (someone from Turkey - probably was looking for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"...)
5. "Eurovision", "push the button-tipex"

Disappointed from the Gym

The gym I go to here doesn't have a separate room for the classes, they occur in the middle between the runners and the weights. Stupid me- I forgot to check which classes they have today, and when- to avoid the noise of the loud music they love putting for aerobics classes and such. So I arrived at the end of the quiet Yoga class, was able to enjoy my i-pod for exactly 15 minutes, and then the stupid aerobic class started. With loud music. Really loud. Really really loud. Just like in a club. And terrible music. Worse than the clubs.

I want / need QUIET!!!!!!!!!

NOISE!!!

I'm so sick of the noise in this country!!! It's unbelievable!!! Not just that they honk their stupid horns in the streets all the time, day and night, all week long, this morning my neighbours upstairs were banging with a hammer or whatever for more than 3 hours!!! Just imagine 3 and a half hours of non-stop banging on your head!!! I was trying to sleep through some of the time and then I gave up, but even being awake with this kind of really really loud noise is terrible!!! I'm gonna try to go to the gym- maybe that will get me a bit relaxed....... I don't get it- how is it that a whole country just loves noise??? What is it about them that they are so loud and noisy? If most of them aren't already deaf - they will be soon.

Lyrics for "Push The Button"

Well apperantely I can't change the last post- coz it was posted from YouTube... anyways, I wanted to put the words to the song here: (oh and their name is really Tipex, not Teapacks)

Push the Button - Tipex / Lyrics and music: Kobi Oz

The world is full of terror
If someone makes an error
He’s gonna blow us up to biddy biddy kingdom come
There are some crazy rulers they hide and try to fool us
With demonic, technologic willingness to harm

They’re gonna push the button
push the button push the bu push the bu push the button
Il ya plein de souffrance
Dans les rues il y a trop de violence
Et on a beaucoup de chance d’être vivant même pas blessés
Avancement tactique de régime fanatique
Situation tragique qui me met les larmes aux yeux

And I don’t want to die
I want to see the flowers bloom
Don’t want a go capoot ka boom
And I don’t want to cry
I wanna have a lot of fun
Just sitting in the sun

But nevertheless

He’s gonna push the button
push the button push the bu push the bu push the button


מסרים מתפוצצים עלי
טילים מתעופפים וגם נופלים עלי
שוטרים וגנבים מתרוצצים עלי
הם קופצים עלי מתקרצצים עלי
אללי אללי תענה לי אלוהי הי

הסיוט הזה ארוך מדי
כשאני בקושי חי וכולם מכוונים אלי זה מוקדם לשיר אולי
שנתתי לך חיי
ווי ווי - המשטרה
וויאוו וויאוו - צוות הצלה

הנה זה בקדם שיר ללא סלאם
אדום זה לא רק צבע זה יותר כמו דם
שוב עוצר בלב את הנשימה
שלא תפרח עכשיו הנשמה

הנה מלחמה הנה הנשמה
בום בום זה מה שקורה עכשיו
בין רקטה למצ'טה בין צופה לכתב

בין מחטף לנחטף בין גשום לשרב
הסלמה במדרגות עולה ותופסת קו
כלום כלום זה מה שכולם עושים
קיצונים מקצינים וקצינים מרצינים
התמימים מתמתנים ממתינים לנתונים

ועונים: שכולם חסרי אונים
עולם כולו דמונים שאנחנו סתם פיונים
ושמפיונים עם ז'יטונים מחליטים מה שיהיה
ניהול בעצלתיים, אוניה מלאה במים

וכולם שותים לחיים וטובעים זה לצד זה
אולי זה חד מדי צריך לשיר שירי דקלים שירי מדבר ללא דגלים
אני עוד חי חי חי ואם ימשיך להיות מפחיד
רק אז אני אגיד:

I’m gonna push the button
push the button push the bu push the bu push the button

Sorry for not translating the Hebrew... If there will be an interest- I will...

What do you think???

Teapacks - Push the button (Eurovision 2007 Song)

I know that for the ppl in Israel this is no news- BUT this is so hilarious!!!

I think that finally someone said what we think- who cares what the ppl in the Eurovision committee say!!!

Chinese Conversation Club

I was suppose to go there alone last night, while Rob goes to play ping pong close to home. But Rob was late from work coz of all kinds of transportation issues, and in the end he offered to come to Chinese Conversation Club ( = CCC) with me. We took the subway to go there and we were looking for the place for a little while. After realizing that the little room with big glass walls inside one of the front yards is the actual place - we went in. Each of us got a Chinese person to talk to, all students, some students for teaching Chinese as a foreign language. It was so great! First of all, this way you progress in your own pace of speaking and understanding - coz it's a 1 on 1 conversation. They have special forms to fill in while talking - in which you or the Chinese partner can write down the words you didn't know while talking (It's a table with 3 columns: Pinyin, Characters and Translation). I had such a nice conversation with the Chinese guy, things I never thought I'd ever talk about with any Chinese person. Things like fate, and God and peace and war, believes and wishes, hopes and hobbies. It was very nice, and I'm definitely going back there. The shame is that it's only on Thursday nights and Sunday after noons, I wish they had this every day...

***

Went shoe shopping today. Came home empty handed... Found nothing that I really liked, and in the streets I went to today there used to be a big fake market, and since they closed it down it's almost impossible to walk there without being harassed by a person trying to sell you a watch or a bag or god knows what. It sounds a bit like this: "Lady! Lady! Watch(a) Bag(a)!!! Look(a) Look(a)!!!" Chinese ppl have a hard time finishing a word without a vowel- coz of what they're used to in Chinese, so they add an "a" to most of the words... So they follow you everywhere, some touch until I have to yell at them to stop touching me, some just block the way on the street, which makes you walk in zigzags all the way and run away into stores all the time. So, I decided to go shoe shopping again some other day in a different place...

Moods & Music & new plans

Music and moods, they are always together. I guess you can figure out my mood according to the music I play here... But the music is also here coz I love music so much. It's definitely the best way to show how you feel. I think about the fact that a hundred years ago and more- music with lyrics was considered to be music of the little ppl, something unworthy. Now it occupies most of our lives. There's something genius about being able to say whatever you want in a song. How many of you actually listen to the lyrics? I always do... The music itself is just to catch our ear. Then it's the words. The real meaning. It's shouting out: "Listen to me!!!" I love that... I feel anything I have to say about music has been said before. The way it can change your mood, to better or worse. The way it can connect you to the world, or disconnect. Each song has it's own effect. Each rhythm. Each word. Each instrument. Unbelievable.

***

I hate doing nothing. It's not so bad for one day, but more than that... I haven't done anything special in about 3 days and I feel as if I'm trapped between 4 walls. It's like a loop, I can't get myself to get up and do anything. I do everything through the phone- for example, I called and changed my flight ticket -going to Germany on the 17th of April, staying until May 13th and going back to Israel. It seems so final... Now all I have to do is to plan our trip in the last 2 weeks we're here. We decided to not go to Tibet - coz we don't know if the weather is really gonna be nice in April. We both know how it's like to travel when the weather isn't the best- and we prefer spending money on things we will enjoy more. So we decided to go visit Kevin and Wang in Sichuan, travel there for a bit and make our way back to Shanghai through land. I'll have to read about it now a bit to decide on details.

I signed up for a Chinese Conversation Club. It's every Thursday between 20:00 and 21:00 and on Sundays between 15:00 and 16:00. It's really cheap (about 10€ per month) and the purpose is obviously to practice oral language. Today is the first day I'm going, tomorrow I'll let you know how it was...
Plan for the next few weeks: Plan our 2 weeks trip, pack everything and send most to Israel & Germany, go to the gym (I have 11 more times to use on the card), buy all those things I'll regret not buying coz it's so cheap here (like: boots!!!), meet my lazy friends (YES! you too Charles!!! and Liya- where are you???) coz who knows when we'll meet again, enjoy Shanghai (hopefully in good weather coz now it's rather cold...) and... well... finish this chapter of my life. Who knows when I'll be here again (last time I said that I was back in 18 months).

As promised - pictures

Well my computer is playing with me again. This morning it started... I know it just shows how sick it is... hmmm... don't even know if to really be happy about this or not...

Anyway, here's some pics as I promised.

I took the subway to meet Rob's mom in town. It was 8:30am, and everybody was on their way to work. My stop is the 3rd stop of the line going north, and the train was already full when it got there. I squeezed myself in with all the rest of the ppl, telling myself that I only have 4 stops and it's over. Then we stopped in the next stop- and even more ppl came in. Then we stopped in the next one, 2 took off, and 5 got on. I wanted to die... the only thing that relaxed me, wasn't knowing that I only have 2 more stops to go, but was closing my eyes and imagining myself on the wide open beach. Was so claustrophobic. No one could move, everybody was touching everybody, was no air, and was really really hot. I hate it so much that there are so many of them. Everywhere you go there's millions of ppl, being a gentleman here will leave you with nothing, so everyone pushes and behaves like little kids... Since the first time I was in China I realized that the individual Chinese person may be as nice as anyone else in the world- some are great and some are terrible, but in the masses, as a group of a billion gazillion ppl- it's almost impossible to feel good among them.

This is how it looked like when I got off the train. There wasn't even room for air to get on.

After meeting Rob's mom in town we did a walk from her really good book on Shanghai. I love walking in the streets, especially when the weather is nice, coz Shanghai is so huge - you always find new things in it. We were walking in some old streets, that most of the houses there were built in the 1920's, by Expats. These houses were really nice, and here's an example to how some of them look like these days:

Lets hang our laundry outside the lovely house!

Some of the houses are of course renovated and looks like some really important ppl live there (especially coz when Rob's mom asked the guards if we can go look the only thing they said was: "no no no no no no no"). It's really refreshing to see these kind of houses here. We visited Song Ching Ling's Mausoleum, which is in her old residence in Shanghai. She was Sun Yat Sen's wife, he was about 30 years older than her, and they got married in 1915 despite her parents opinion, and despite the fact he had a wife (he just decided he's "letting her go" and got married with Song Ching Ling in Japan). She was a big activist for the New China in the early 1900, and as his wife she met the most influential ppl in the Communist Party in those days. He died after 10 years of marriage, leaving her, a woman in her 30's alnoe. She never remarried, but she kept on meeting some really interesting ppl, including some ppl I wouldn't mind torturing....... The list is long, and it includes the prime ministers of India, Pakistan and North Korea, and a lot of women in international women's organizations. On the one hand this woman was very impressive (in pictures as well) and on the other hand- what would you say about a woman that got the "Stalin Peace Award" and entertained Mao in her living room???

Me next to Song Ching Ling's lawn, where she hosted tea parties... Her house was amazing. I wouldn't have minded living there...

After that we went to the Jade Buddha Temple, and I saw Chinese ppl praying- which was a rare view. Here's a picture that proves I wasn't imagining things:

Remember the Wishing Tree I put a little picture of a while ago? Here's a girl trying to throw a wish on it. I stood there for a while looking at her trying- but after 10 minuets I left. Hope she made it after that...

Looooooooooooong weekend

Rob's parents just left... His mom came on wednesday, and I was touring Shanghai with her for 2 days. Then his dad came and we spent the next two days with him too. It was his dad's birthday on Saturday, and we celebrated on Friday night in a good Chinese restaurant (same one we went to for Rob's bday). It was exhausting these last few days. Today we went to Hangzhou again (well for them it was the first time) and for Rob and I it was a really nice day - even though it was raining - coz last time we were there it was raining too with 8 degrees less and fog everywhere. This time we could actually enjoy the nice views. I'll put pictures here soon.
We gave 2 suitcases full of stuff to his paretns - all of our winter wear and some shoes and books- so we have less to take when we leave. We have just a bit of time left here till we go back home in the end of April... Wow time flies...

My computer died AGAIN. I'm losing it- I tell ya. It's so annoying. I'll go to the computer lab tomorrow again. I'm starting to think that I'll need to buy a new one- but I don't really have money for that so... I'll see...


We haven't decided yet what we wanna do in the last 2 weeks- we were thinking about Tibet- but the weather might be still too cold, and we want to enjoy it - and we both know what it is like to travel when the weather is bad. We were thinknig to see some things that we haven't seen in China yet (and there is obviously a lot of it). Rob's new semester starts in the beggining of April- so he doesn't wanna miss too much. I'm gonna try to see if I can change my flight this way that I go through Germany on the way to Israel- for a visit- and to choose our apartment in Dresden together, even though I'm not gonna be there the first few months... We haven't decided on details yet- but I'd like to spend some time in Germany in the summer, and then when Rob's done with his exams - go to Israel for a while and have some fun there in those best weather months.

I'm really tired, will keep you guys posted on the condition of my old computer ;-)