This morning, on my way to work, I took a picture of the park just outside my building. In fact, this is a picture from my building as well, so you can get an idea of how high up I am (20th floor - though they skip the 4th and the 14th floor because the number is bad luck).

Have a nice day!

Pictures!

Xujiahui

Well, I've obviously figured out how to upload pictures onto the blog, though it's a little more difficult than it should be (I'll spare you the details). Alas, I am doing it for you, dear reader, so that you can visualize better the land I have found myself in for the next few months.

Apologies for the less than stellar quality of the pictures. The air here is very moist and frequently hazy... Hence the haziness of the pictures. That's the story I'm sticking to. It's the air.

The two pictures show what I see if I step out of my apartment. I'm living right beside an extremely busy shopping district in the south west of Shanghai called Xujiahui. The globe on the second picture is a movie theatre, and the rest of the buildings are malls, restaurants and other locations specifially designed for me to spend my money. I've decided to await exploring this area in detail until I have my bank cards back, but it certainly is a very crowded, noisy area.

Fortunately, if I turn to the right in the first picture, there's a park (picture to come soon), so I'm not quite surrounded by cement, metal, glass and lights as the pictures imply.

I'd like to take back a comment I made in an earlier post - when I said that it's surprisingly quiet here. Though the statement isn't exactly wrong, it does give the impression that Shanghai, and more specifically where I'm living, is actually quiet. This is not the case... It's
quieter than I had thought it would be. Not actually quiet at all, though. There's plenty of traffic noise, including honking, construction sounds, and a general hum to the city. But (as my previous post says), there's a bit less honking than an equivalent area in Sri Lanka or India (based on my brief experiences in those respective countries). So yes, it's noisy. But not super duper crazy noisy. Bearly bearable.

Anyway, things are coming around for me. I now have an emergency Visa card, so I can go into debt with abandon if I want to. My other cards are on the way so soon I can begin taking advantage of the rampant capitalism in this city. And boy can you buy stuff here! Everything. I mean everything (except for maybe a spaceship, or my own personal planet) can be purchased here. I should have arrived naked with an empty bag, instead of lugging all my cool stylish clothes with me. But then again, I like my cool stylish clothes, and if I had arrived here naked the wallet stealing incident would have been that much more serious...

Well, that's it for now. I have to get back to work because that's really the reason I'm here. Until next time!

Fun happening of the day:

Alex, a fellow Level Designer from Montreal, wanted to show off his new Chinese last night while we were eating at a restaurant. So he ordered some green tea to finish off our meal. A complicated exchange ensued, where first the waiter brought us 3 empty tea cups, then more of an exchange, and then the waiter understood. About 5 minutes later, he (and a number of waiters) arrived with 3 plates of _french fries_. Yes, french fries, with "ketchup" that tasted as if it was Cambells tomato soup. Maybe "fries" and "tea" sound similar in chinese, but instead of sending them back, we all laughed and dug in. All the waiters in the restaurant watched us closely as we ate our North American food (with our fingers! horror of horrors!) - it seems like we may have been the first ever to order this particular dish at this eatery.

Bad happening of the day:
I've somehow already managed to get my wallet stolen. When I arrived at work this morning, I found that the zipper on my bag had been unzipped and my wallet had been kindly removed from the inside. I had been told that Shanghai is really safe, but obviously I'll be better off if I just walk around with my "hidden" waist pouch for my valuables like a proper tourist. The joys of sticking out like a sore thumb. I've already spent about an hour on the phone with my bank to cancel my cards and get them replaced, but fortunately the only other things of value in there were money and a picture of my sister. The money is gone, and I'm sure Kerrin has other wallet sized pictures that I can get from her.

Live and learn.

Incidently - I'm having problems accessing this site from my laptop at home, so until I can get that resolved I won't be able to upload pictures to this blog. Sorry!

Shanghai

You know, there are very few disadvantages to being tall, in my opinion. Sure, I hit my head on things occasionally, and climbing into ancient Egyptian tombs is more difficult for me than for shorter people, but the advantages of being tall far outweigh those disadvantages.

That is, until I get into an economy seat in a plane... Were, exactly, am I supposed to put my legs? I frequently ask myself this question. Well, this flight to Shanghai was especially challenging, as I sat behind a french guy who insisted on leaning his chair back as far as it could go throughout the entire 12 hour flight. My already miniscule legroom shrunk to zero as my knees pressed against the seat in front of me. Sometimes I can pass my misfortune on to the person behind me by leaning my seat back as well, but on this particular flight the guy sitting behind me put his feet on _my_ seatback, keeping me from doing any sort of leanback whatsoever. How rude! I guess it's both of their right to sit however they please on the plane, but it made my personal space rather miniscule.

Well, hello there from Shanghai! My first impression? Lots of chinese, lots of shops and lights and food. But surprisingly quiet, compared to India and Egypt (in terms of traffic noise). Like in western countries, people here honk their horns when something dangerous is about to happen, or when someone is blocking the way. In India, Sri Lanka and to a lesser degree Egypt, people use their car horn to communicate with fellow drivers: a "hello, I'm behind you" honk, a "hello, I'm passing you" honk, a "hello, I just finished passing you" honk, a "if you want, you can cut in front of me" honk, a "hey, you bastard, you just cut in front of me" honk, a "wow, you look cute in that sari" honk, a "nice car!" honk, a "I'm doing something illegal and extremely dangerous, so get out of my way" honk, a "sorry, my hand slipped on the steering wheel" honk... All these opportunities for honking results in a cacophany of sound when you're near a road (even one that doesn't see much traffic). Here in China, I still hear honking, but that is more a reflection of the number of times people make dangerous maneuvers than the fact that they literally have conversations with their car horns.

Anyway, I'm settled in and happy, but sadly I have to head to work, so I will write more and send some pictures of my immediate surroundings in upcoming posts. Hope everyone is well!

Montreal...

Today's post is my sunset post. The end of my travels (sort of), the end of the beautiful ocean crossing.

The end.

Wait! Wait! Wait! There will probably be more, there's always a night, another sunrise, and yet another day after a sunset, but this sunset post marks the end of the first circle of the globe.

I can't believe it's all over. In fact, it's all over plus a week already! I apologize for being so silent internet-wise, but somehow I felt like the pace of my trip accelerated after I got off the boat and I had a hard time to sit down and write. From last Monday, it was Athens for 1 night, London for 2 nights, then back to my home sweet home in Montreal.

Since then I've been running around, getting ready for the Shanghai trip, and also suffering a bit from what I will call Post Euphoric Voyage disorder. This is what you get when you've gone off on a big trip and then you finally get back home. For the traveller, the time away was awash with new adventures, new people, new sights, new ideas... Then you get back home and everything seems a bit, well, the _same_. It's a bit of a letdown and I often get a bit down after a holiday. "Oh poo", you say "You just spent 2 months travelling around the world and you're depressed? Pull yourself together man!". I guess you're right, but because a trip like this can be such a high, coming down off that high feels disproportionately low.

Don't worry, I'm not _that_ bummed. In fact, I'm super happy to be back in Montreal which, from all indications, is gearing up for quite a summer. Alas I will be slaving away in a sweatshop in Shanghai, instead of rollicking in the good times of Montreal Summer, but I can feel a bit of the fun already.

Over the next few days I'll be posting little "summaries" (or "high lights", as they are sometimes known) of my trip, with select pictures and such things, so stay tuned!