Last day in Shanghai

Qingcheng hou Shan (Qingcheng back mountain)
On the way up

Last week in Sichuan was great and the weather was nice to us. On Sunday, as I already mentioned, we went to see the cute and adorable Panda bears in the Panda breeding center in Chengdu. I could watch these animals forever!!! Here's a picture that kinda sums up what they do all day, and how lazy and cute they are:

Lazy and sweet
Panda.

On Monday we took a bus to a place called Qingcheng Shan (read it like tsingcheng, Shan = mountain). There are two main places there- the main front mountain- which has a few temples on top, and some cable cars, and the back mountain- where we went- a bigger nature reservation, with one temple on top, and a few villages. We got there just after noon, and started climbing up. It was so beautiful! They did put stairs all the way, and from concrete of course- but they did it really nicely and even made the concrete look like real wood. The vegetation was amazing, a bit subtropical, and lots of it, it was so great to breathe such clean air in China.

Lots of waterfalls and fresh air

It took us about 3-4 hours to climb to the first village, and since it was already getting late, we decided to stay there the night and go down the mountain the next day from the other side. The village was obviously for tourists, most of them come there just to have lunch and then they continue going down. The room we took cost us 80 Yuan a night, which was the price after negotiating… It wasn't a nice room and it was cold there all evening (we slept with the sleeping bag on us and 2 more blankets to be warm) but we referred to it as just a place to sleep in and leave first thing in the morning. We had an expensive dinner as well, but at least it was quiet there and we were the only tourists there at night so it was nice. The next day we woke up (I already fell asleep at 20:00, and slept all the way to 08:00!!!) had breakfast and headed up to the top of the mountain- so we can go down the other side.

The bridge might look like it's made of wood,
But it's made of concrete.
Still- it's nice work.

Up on top (about 1600 meters high) the air was actually a bit thinner, and I found it harder to go up these last "few" stairs, even though the last day I had climbed so many of them with almost no prob. The way down was just as beautiful as the way up, if not more in certain spots. Again- it was all green, with lots of waterfalls, streams and the sound of beautiful colorful birds.

At the bottom of Qingcheng Hou Shan

We got back to Chengdu on Tuesday evening after trying to get there the shortest and fastest
way- but obviously in China that doesn't work, in the end you find yourself sleeping on a van for an hour- just to find out that the driver doesn't have enough ppl to go to Chengdu with, so you get off, after wasting so much time, and take the normal bus through the bus station, that brakes down in the middle of the highway, the driver goes to the back of the bus, with a screwdriver, does whatever he has to do, and keeps on going…

The last two days in Chengdu we basically enjoyed the nice weather, and met Kevin and Wang a lot, and had good food. We booked a flight back to Shanghai, with e-long (booking company online), and found out that they didn't reserve the tickets for us with the discount price (the prices change every day) coz we didn't send them a confirmation with a signature by fax. We called them and explained that the problem is that they sent us the e-mail requesting a signature in Chinese- and what can we do- we can not read Chinese, and the woman in their call center, who spoke English to us on the phone when we booked the tickets- should have known!!! After a big mess, and a lot of stress they agreed to give us the discounted price, and we could relax until Friday afternoon- the time of our flight back.

We spent the last few days here at Andrew's place, which is great – coz it feels so homey. My dad was here for a really short visit yesterday, he made so much effort to be able to be here while I'm still here, that he took a flight that goes through Istanbul and Bangkok as well… it took him about 40 hours to come here…. We spent the day together, and had a Chinese dinner at the small restaurant we went to with Kevin and Wang (the one with the old lady who speaks English, and never moved out of Shanghai). Today he already flew to his next business stop, taking with him a small bag full of stuff I have no room for, and want them to get to Israel. Thanks dad!!!

Tomorrow's our flights to Germany, I can't believe I have less 24 hours left here, I haven't left China in about 7 months and it feels weird to leave now- and leaving to Germany, not to Israel yet…

I'll try to get connected to the internet in Dresden again, but most likely we wont have internet for a while, at least until we're settled in our apartment- which we still have to choose (Rob's making appointments for us right now to see places when we're there). In the first few days we'll stay in a Zimmer (the German word for "room", it's apartments for rent for a few days, instead of taking a hotel) and hopefully we'll find an apartment that we like as soon as possible!

OK that’s it for now, hope to write here again soon!

P.S please see the pictures I added to the last post

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...

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 ;-)

Recovery

Water Calligraphy.
For training your brain

On Saturday I felt a bit better, so I allowed myself to join Liya's dinner at her place. She invited some ppl from school and she told me that I'm more than welcomed to come if I feel any better. I thought that a dinner at someones home is a really good idea for starting to do something after being sick. Dinner obviously was great, and the evening past so fast that I was really surprised it was already 1am. The next day I slept so good until almost noon. There's no words to describe how much a good night sleep is being taken for granted... After 3 or 4 nights that I woke up almost every hour, and when I finally woke up in the morning it was to end the nightmare of "sleeping" - this long good night sleep made me feel so much better.
I had to get my certificate from uni - the one for finishing my semester (ppl who stay for another semester don't pick it up now) so I decided I wanna show Rob where I studied and the area. It was a cold and beautiful day (like today) the sun is shining and the air is kinda clear and bright (well no blue blue skies but it's good enough for me). We picked up my certificate (they put it in a really nice red hardcover) and went to the park across the street from uni.
It was Sunday afternoon and there were a lot of ppl there- it was so nice to see them doing exercise on special outdoor gym equipment, and singing together, playing cards or badminton, painting, or writing calligraphy on the ground (they do it with water- just to practice, then it dries out and they can do it again). It was especially refreshing to see them do these things coz usually we see so many of them just wondering around the supermarket or the malls on weekends and we find it really terrible that they have nothing else to do but walk like zombies.

Exercising in the park
These facilities are everywhere,
and are being used by older ppl especially.

In the evening we went to a nice Italian restaurant in the center of town and then we went to a foot massage close to where Rob stayed the first weeks before we had the apartment. It was nice talking to the 2 ppl who gave us the massages, coz they were a lot more intelligent then the young girls and boys who work in the massage place next to where we live. They actually knew some things about other countries, let alone their own.

A reflection of the modern China

Shanghai, 2006

A TV commercial boat on the Huangpu River.
Why not make some more money off the tourists crowding the Bund?
(One of the most touristic areas in Shanghai)

Some pictures

This picture I took from our balcony-
showing how here in Shanghai you can find really modern things next to really old ones...
Just behind our really modern complex there's a Chinese cheap old-fashioned neighbourhood (great for eating a noodles dinner for 4 RMB = 0.50$).
On the other side we have one of the most expensive malls around.
That's China - progressing so fast- you can actually see the changes as they happen.

This picture was taken in ZhuJiaJiao-
the small very old Chinese Beautiful town we went to with Rob's family.

Getting colder...

Until last week the weather was pretty much alright. There were a lot of sunny days and the temperature was nice at noon. But since this last weekend the temperatures dropped even more, and today I hardly woke up to a very grey rainy day... My dad is arriving tomorrow with a suitcase full with my winter clothes- and my feet can not wait to be in my boots... I hope that the fact the weather is only gonna get worse is not gonna disencourage me from going to uni- coz I really enjoy the classes there and the atmosphere.

***

Last weekend we hosted Rob's best friend's girlfriend. She's Chinese and she lives in Chengdu the capital of Sechuan province. She's working now for the same company Rob does (different division) meeting customers all over the country. Here it's very normal to take the train for long coz of the huge size of this country. She takes the train for more than 40 hours (!) to get to Shanghai from Chengdu. These are numbers we usually can't even imagine... She told me a story about a girl who used to be a friend of hers in uni. This girl came to study in Chengdu from a place far away in the north of china, roughly close to Siberia. Her family are all farmers and they obviously do not have a lot of money. She was granted with the tuition by a rich relative of her family's. The university- placed in Chengdu Is located more than 52 hours away, on 2 different trains from her home. Due to her family's situation she could not afford to go home more than once a year- between the semesters in the holiday. When she did go home she used to buy a "hard seat" ticket - meaning she would sit on a hard seat for 52 hours each way to go home. She got this kind of ticket coz it was the cheapest obviously. (The ranking of tickets in China goes like this: Hard seat, Hard sleep = sleeping on a bed in the big train cart, soft sleep = sleeping on a bed in a room with another 3 ppl). Apparently one time this girl had missed her train from Beijing home and the next one was in 24 hours. She had nowhere to go, and no money to stay anywhere- so she just slept in the train station with 2 big bags... As well- she used to send the little money that was left from the allowance she got- to her family... Today this girl has a good job in the municipality of Chengdu - and earns enough money to visit her family a bit more often. This story is probably one of thousands but it still sounded so special to me.
Just wanted to share here some views on normal daily life in China... When I hear about these kind of things- I feel really lucky with what I have.

Back to normal life at last

Rob's family left on Saturday morning. His dad left here on Tuesday already. I spent almost everyday with them- wondering the streets of Shanghai- was really nice walking in places I've seen so many times- but this time listening to his mom tell us all about the buildings and history(reading from her book- I made her leave it here so Rob and I can actually be tourists too). When you live in a place- you usually don't really look at it like a tourist does- you usually don't see things that for someone new are really interesting. Of course I've seen Shanghai in these eyes the first time I've arrived here almost 2 years ago- but I haven't spent so much time touring it then- and after a while I got so used to the scenery that it never looked so interesting and strange to me anymore. This time I could really see it and learn. Rob and I have seen more of and walked more in the streets and spots of Shanghai than we ever did and it actually felt really really nice. On Friday we both spent the day with them- he took a day off- and I just skipped school (bad girl!)- and we went to ZhuJiaJiao- a little Chinese town almost an hour to the west (an hour with traffic). It's very touristic but it was really nice to see how a real old Chinese town looked like. The fact that they actually charge you for the entrance to the town might seem weird at first- but then you see how rather clean it is (compared to Chinese standards) so you forget about it and just enjoy. Rob's mom and sis spent most of their time shopping - buying all kinds of Chinese souvenirs - nice stuff- but the stopping at every store was exhausting. In the end I think they left with a nice collection of Chinese stuff. I have these kind of things since I'm a little girl, and obviously I have a lot of these things from my last stay here- so it's not so easy to excite me with them...
I promise I'll put some pictures soon- as soon as I collect them all from everybody's cameras...
Starting a normal week now... Wish me luck

No privacy

Literally: NO PRIVACY. There's no such word as "privacy" in Chinese. REALLY. They have no word for it.
The girlfriend of Rob's best friend is Chinese. When she went to Germany last year- the first thing she told her boyfriend was: "where are all the people in the streets?". When she showed her father the pictures from Germany the first thing he said was: "Meiyou ren!" this means in Chinese- "no people!".
When you walk in the streets of Shanghai, there's so many people around you- no matter the time of the day. Well, in the middle of the night or really early in the morning there are less, but still- there's a lot of ppl, compared to any other country I've ever been to (well... Maybe in Thailand its almost as crowded in the big cities). This is very overwhelming and energy draining. There's lots of noise and you get touched all the time- by ppl you don't know, and lots of times- by ppl you don't wanna touch... The subway is so full you hardly get a seat, and most of the time you stand between dozens of ppl in each car.
We thought about going to Suzhou today- a small city- which has lots of canals and water around- suppose to be beautiful. In the end we obviously slept in a bit, and until we actually left the house- it was 11:30. We got to the train station after 45 minutes, and found out that the next sitting tickets are at 14:00 and there are no tickets to go back from there tonight. So we decided to stay in Shanghai, and go to the Shanghai Museum. As students it cost us 5 RMB (0.50 Euro) and there are a few different galleries inside- spread out on 4 floors. It all has something to do with Chinese art and culture. The problem with Chinese museums is that they don't have a lot of information about the displays. Rob really doesn't like that- Me? I don't really care. I just like looking at the nice stuff!!! LOL!!!
after the museum we met this 14 year old Chinesee girl outside- she approached us and asked us if she can practice her English with us. We said sure- and we talked to her for 45 minutes... Apparently as a Chinese school student she studies Mondays to Fridays 7:20-16:50, then goes with her mom to her grandma- then goes home does her homework and only then she has a very short time to herself- and then to bed.On Saturdays she wakes up at 7:30 (AM!!!) cleans, has breakfast (this girl was very informative) plays on the computer for about an hour, then goes to a math class for about 2 hours (her school decided she has to take it every Saturday coz of her grades or whatever) then she goes to English class (which she actually enjoys- its in her teachers house- with anotherr 6 kids). On Sundays she would wake up at 8:00-8:30 (I already said- she's VERY informative...) go to The English Corner (apparentlyy there is one) in People's square in Shanghai (some Chinesee ppl meeting up to practice their English) and then have some Chinesee snacks for lunch and then her mom would come and encourage her to approach foreigners like us to practice her English with. She said that when her mom told her to maybe approach us she told her mom: "but they look so much in love... I don't wanna interrupt them..." LOL. Anyway- if there are any young ppl not from china reading this- how do you imagine a life like this??? This is not an exception!!!They all live like this: work work work, study study study!

I would have moved to a different country a long long time ago if I had been born in china...

Exhausted...

What a week! Woke up at 6:00AM everyday - it's so hard to get used to that... Took the metro for an hour every day to school (I change the lines twice every morning coz this way I usually have a seat on it- the line leaving from here is already full when I get on it- even though its only the 3rd stop!) Chinese ppl i tell ya... They love being crowded... They will just stand waiting for the train wherever they got to the platform from the stairs. They never walk on the platform towards the beginning of the train- and this way the first cars are usually a bit emptier. How stupid of them. School itself is actually really nice, I've made friends with a Spanish girl already, and the rest of the ppl in class are really nice. We're actually from all over the world: France, Switzerland, Indonesia, Russia, Spain, Colombia, Burundi, Canada, Sweden (originally from Iran and Hong Kong), Saudi Arabia... Really all over the world... I understand most of what they say in Chinese in class- maybe even more than the rest of the students - vocabulary wise, but the characters... I hate them!!! Why do I have to learn how to write the stupid things????? Wouldn't mind recognizing some but... Hate writing them. Really.

was a really busy week. There wasn't even one day that I came straight home from school. On Monday I decided to be the good housewife and cook a nice dinner for the both of us- celebrating the first day of school and first day at work. On Tuesday went to take Rob's passport from the visa place and then went to the market to buy some clothes. It was amazing: as soon as I stepped in the building I immediately remembered all the words I need to know in Chinese in order to buy in the market. All the colors names in Chinese came back to me, and all the other words that are very helpful when shopping... The market was crowded as usual, lots of ppl, lots of really ugly clothes- I really had to dig in to find something nice, the smells, the noise... But its still a nice experience...
on Thursday I went to the visa place again- this time for me- to get me the students visa (got all the papers from uni for that) and then went to a deli in a really fancy hotel with Lia the Spanish girl, to buy some nice (and very expensive) cheese...

yesterday was Rob's birthday. So on Wednesday I got him an i-pod as a present, and yesterday I prepared a little celebration for him when he got home from work: I made a pile of blueberry pancakes (don't have an oven- couldn't bake) and I decorated them with gummies and ice cream. I hung balloons in the house, lit up two candles (couldn't find birthday candles here) and put the present on the bed. It was really nice... We went for a foot massage in the evening and then went to a hot pot restaurant (its a restaurant where you sit next to a table that has a hole in it- to put a big pot in the middle - on fire. There's soup in the pot and you order all kinds of raw food like meet and vegetables to put in the soup and fish it out- so you can eat the soup or just the cooked food).

I'm really enjoying my first real weekend in a long time. I haven't been working in a while- so this week it was hard to get used to waking up everyday and having something to do. Its fun being a student again though. Kinda weird after more than 2 years that I wasn't a student.

today we're planning on going to eat dumplings in a restaurant I got a recommendation to. And tonight I'd really love to go out... Haven't gone out in Shanghai since I got here- and I really miss going out here... This city actually has a lot to offer...

Chinese holidays...

This week is a week "off" in China coz of October 1st- which is their sort of independence day. I said "off" coz obviously a lot of them still work. They have a system - each worker gets his days off at another time- and this way places and work are not totally shut down for a whole week. There's not even one day in the year, not even one- where all the businesses are closed. Not even one day that all the people are off work. Not even one day where its totally quiet... And even so- on the holiday weeks- all the flights are booked, all the hotels are booked, all the trains are full, all the places are full of people. Two days ago we decided that we should do something - see a bit of Shanghai. So we went to the other side of the river, to the new area, to see the TV tower and maybe a museum. As soon as we got out of the subway- we realized that its pouring down cats and dogs... The rain just didn't stop. It wasn't really cold- just so so so wet. There were huge puddles everywhere, and we got wet to our bones. So I offered that we do get in the tower- just not all the way up- only to the Shanghai History Museum (which I really liked last time I was there) - it's on the bottom floor of the tower. We bought tickets and ran in to the building. We were soaked. Then we realized that we couldn't have made a better decision- the line to the tower was looooooooooooooooooong and there was no line to the museum!!! We passed all the people going to the tower, felt like VIP's not having to stand in line... We were there for about 2 hours, got dry while walking in the museum, and then left. It didn't rain anymore... The amount of people, especially Chinese tourists everywhere was amazing. They were everywhere. And it was really easy to spot who's from a city and who's from the smaller towns: first according to their clothes, second according to the taking pictures everywhere (even on the subway, and in a restaurant) and of course according to their loudness, to their saying hello to and having a conversation with the manikins in the museum (yes- even adults did that) and to the fact that they were generally astonished by the miracle called "the subway system". For example- when I went to uni a few days ago I saw one old woman standing in front of the machines that sell tickets to the subway. She was standing there for about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to work the thing. It has instructions both in Chinese and English by the way- it really couldn't be easier to use. When she finally decided what kind of a ticket she wants and clicked the right buttons on the screen (with the help of a kind man) - she took her coins and tried to put them in the bills entrance. she's probably never seen one of these things in her life I guess... Ha ha ha... Thats it for today, more stories about the aliens called "the Chinese people" next time.

Back in Shanghai!!!

So it took me about 26 hours door to door to get here... How exhausting... But a bit after I landed I met Rob... And we went to our new apartment... It's so great! It's a great place, great location (very close to the metro station and the big supermarket- how convenient), and the area is really nice.
Today I signed up for uni- took me a bit more than an hour to get there from home- which is fair enough- coz it's gonna take Rob about an hour and a half to get to work every day...

I find it a lot easier to deal with the Chinese ppl here now- coz I've been here before and have been through all the bureaucracy shit. I really don't get excited, plus my Chinese is not great- but still a lot better than what it was the first time I got here. Rob still gets annoyed sometimes. I guess I will get annoyed at some point- but my annoyance bar is a lot higher now...

I really feel at home. It's amazing how I feel comfortable in this huge city. Even though I haven't been to a lot of the places I used to know before. It still feels familiar.

So- expect more stories from the prostitute of the east (=Shanghai- if you've never heard the phrase).

Changes in life

It's unbelievable how boring life can be at one point, and how stormy it can be after a second. Just a month ago I was still wondering about my near future. 2 months ago was sure Rob's gonna come here for his internship and I'll work teaching English in kindergartens. I had an apartment that was all set to "absorb" us as a couple, and everything seemed obvious and normal and routine. But then came the stupid war, and changed my life. Completely. In a week we decided that Israel 2006-2007 is not the place for us, and we should look for a new place. Rob suggested a few places on earth. I chose China. Preferably Shanghai.

I was considering a few aspects in this decision:
1. I was already there- the shock will be a bit more subtle.
2. I already started learning the language- must be easier than starting something from scratch
3. Going to an English speaking country- gives me no benefit- I already know the language- so no language to learn- and getting a working permit in these countries for me is almost impossible.

Fortunately Rob found a place close to Shanghai.
He's flying there on Sunday, its 4 days from now... His flight makes mine closer and closer... I wish I flew with him, or at least at the same time, but I've decided to stay here for a couple of reasons: the first would be to stay here for the holiday (Rosh Hashana) on the 22nd with my mom. The second is Yifat's brother's wedding on the 20th. So I've decided to take a flight right after the holiday on the 26th of September.

To finish with what I said in the beginning- how unbelievable it is that one second your life can be so boring and the other so stormy- now it seems like I have nothing to do- I have no job, and the only highlight of my day is the gym- and even that- I'm a bit too lazy to go...
I have started going over my Chinese notes, but found that its rather hard to do that alone with no push from anyone else... But I'll just have to do it.