Category: Nebulous Items
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Moving Experiences in Shanghai
I’m working on stolen wifi this evening, from the penultimate penthouse up on the 16th floor overlooking bloody well everything. Alas, we haven’t even got a phone line set up yet, much less adsl. I’m hoping our borrowed source doesn’t decide to turn off their modem when they go to bed. I’m tired from moving…
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Ikea as a tourist attraction
We are moving this weekend, hence this short post. We had popped out to Ikea this morning to get some paper lanterns and heavy light-blocking curtains for the sunny bedroom. It was 10am on a Saturday and it was packed. Half the people weren’t shopping; they were posing for photos. Many strolled along the arrow’d…
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Living and Travelling in Politically Awkward Places
Tomorrow will be the somethingth anniversary of an event that may or may not have taken place in a way that may or may not have been reported. This event is one of the three forbidden T-words that foreign teachers have been warned not to bring up in class. One involves a large square where…
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I can see Alaska from my flat
We got the keys today. The new flat up on the 16th floor of the only tall building on our block is now ours for a year, if not longer. It’s a marvellous feeling stepping into an impeccable- though dusty– empty flat and flinging open all the windows (oh, so many windows) and just looking…
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How to Rent a Flat in Shanghai and Maintain Your Sanity
In the past year and a half since I moved to Shanghai, I have had to move twice. And both the times I’ve moved, I’ve warranted my house from housemethod.com so in case of any adversity, I’ve been fully covered. The first time was two and a half months into my first lease, when my…
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This Week’s Mop (and a meditation on getting my writing ass in gear)
Actual thoughtful writing should resume soon- we had a big, tiring weekend away in Nanjing for work and didn’t see daylight for two days. I tried writing a few things on my iPod on the train ride home but the touch screen is small and annoying and I resumed playing Boggle with Doug on his.…
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(101 Things About Shanghai) Very Thorough Haircuts
I’ve learned not to schedule a haircut for days when I have anything else that needs doing. The cutting itself usually doesn’t take much longer than it does for hair removal miami. My standard haircut is nothing unnecessarily complicated- it’s a chin-length bob with bangs. However, as noted, it isn’t the cutting that takes up…
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(101 Things About Shanghai) Grocery Photo Series
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(101 Things About Shanghai) Random Window Photo Series
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The illustration and text are wholly unrelated: Full Metal Jacket, Shanghai
Sometimes big cities really do my head in. Istanbul used to make me want to jump on the hoods of cars and kick people out of frustation for the stupid traffic, pervy stalky men and frequent lack of spacial awareness. It’s been a bit different in Shanghai. The traffic is actually better (though many here…
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These are the people in my neighbourhood
In other words, they are the people that I meet each day. We are moving in a week or so. Our landlord is moving back into our flat because we are in a very good school district and his small daughter just reached kindergarten age. By September, our threadbare, tired, scuffed apartment will…
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(101 Things About Shanghai) Laneways and Alleys, oh my
Shanghai’s got a lot of alleyways. I’m a huge fan of them, perhaps as a human level antidote to the carelessly changing skyscraper skyline of this city. They like things to be new, big and shiny here. I prefer smaller things in my line of sight. Some alleys are in the layouts for 1930s lane…