a bird's eye view

went to the pearl yesterday. nope, not the darma initiative pearl station in lost, but the oriental pearl tower.

it's been a while since i've had a chance to be somewhere high up and looking down. i guess this is what it's like to be looking down from the heavens if there was one. and to get a chance to step out into the outdoor gallery area was pretty awesome too. i just wished that i lived somewhere like this, perched high above the streets.

i bet it would look even more awesome at night.











+listening to: when i first kissed you by extreme

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small town china

haunting, familiar, yet I cant seem to place it...











it's good to be away from the big city, to see something different. as opposed to the new, all the steel and concrete, all the myriad of noises, it is refreshing to see the old, the stone and brick, the countless waterways, and the quintessential small town.


+listening to: elderly woman behind the counter in a small town by pearl jam

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bumpity bund

went to the bund last night to chill. well that's the intention anyways. it wasn't exactly very chilling out there partially because of the sweltering weather, and partially because there were so many people around.






other than the unbearable heat, it was pretty nice to see all those historic buildings that were so crucial to making shanghai the place it was. and keeping to that theme, i also visited sun yat-sen's former shanghai residence today. but too bad i wasn't allowed to take any photos. because of its close proximity to the shopping district, it was natural that i headed there right afterwards.







+listening to: jamie's got a gun by aerosmith

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shanghai!

with the bright blue skies, the morning breeze in my face, the endless stretch of country road broken up by an occasional truck ahead ferrying quarry rocks and my favourite tunes playing in the stereo, what more can i ask for?


the drive to the airport in the morning was one of THE most blissful things i have done recently. i really wished it never ended. but an hour and a half later, i inevitably reached the airport.

for once the domestic flight to shanghai was on time, a bit early actually. i guess things have really started to change from a few years back. and a mere hour and a half later i landed at shanghai pudong international.


i have always wanted to take the maglev since it went into operation, and i finally got my wish today. the whole ride was really sweet albeit being a little short, and i think i might just be addicted to it.


this is what the cabin looks like on the inside, well for regular coach anyways. you can always go for the "VIP" class seats, but it's only a 10 minute ride, and there's plenty of space already.


took a shot of the speedometer reading when the train peaked at about 431 km/h. needless to say, it was really, really fast. and when the train corners, you can seriously feel the g forces as you get pressed into the seat (certain corners are significantly banked, about 30 degrees i reckon) and the things outside the window just zoom by. it was just sweeeeeeet.

here's a vid for your viewing pleasure:

need for speed...

and here's a shot of downtown shanghai i suppose while i was in a cab to the hotel. but if i'm not wrong there's are a couple of "downtown" areas here.


anyways i'll be here for quite a few days so i'll definitely have a chance to visit a few places.

so until next time, adiós!


+listening to: patriot by pearl jam

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smokey and the bandit

apologies for the random title, it's just an impulsive thought. it's probably got something to do with the time i've had with the wilderness today. to be exact, i tried my hands at fishing.

it's like i'm re-enacting a scene from into the wild, except erm i was not fishing out of a river but from an artificial pond, with fish that were placed there and fed for people like me.


even so, i can't help but suck really bad at it, because i didn't manage to get any. so much for all the help, i'm just not gifted in this area.

and then i saw something mildly amusing: there's a chicken hanging around the basketball court and somehow it didn't look that out of place. it's just one of those really random things and make you snicker.


some people seem so obsessed with the morning, get up early just to watch the sun rise. some people like it more when there's fire in the sky, worship the sun when it's high. some people go for those sultry evenings, sipping cocktails in the blue, red and grey. but I like every minute of the day...


+listening to: blue, red & grey by the who

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with many things on my mind

traffic:
i used to think driving over here in china takes quite a bit of skill to put it mildly. that was until i came across an intersection, with broken traffic lights.

it was like playing russian roulette with a shotgun - you either get your head blown off or you live to tell the tales. here's basically what you do when you find yourself in a similar situation: close your eyes, step on the gas, say a prayer and hold on for dear life.

food:
nothing special here but your typical mix of authentic chinese food. stuff cooked up in the restaurants generally taste similar. for a real taste of local flavours you gotta head to those small time family diners where many people frequent. those are some of the best food i've tasted.

it's not that they have any secret culinary skills whatsoever. many a times it's the ingredients they use: sometimes what you get on the table might have been still alive just minutes ago, or got plucked from the fields a few hours prior. and everything on the menu depends on freshness. if the chef doesn't think the ingredients are fresh for the day, they generally wouldn't serve it.

after-hours:
not much night life around here. well at least i'm not party animal enough to actively seek them out. usually there's mahjong (everyone plays it), cards and tv. of course you get the usual mix of heavy smokers and drinkers for that.

strange phenomenon:
there's this cat around the neighbourhood that kept showing up. it's got these melancholic grey eyes, and just sits there and stares at you. and when you least expect it, it just shows up, but when you go looking for it, it never seems to be there. i've decided to name him mr. vedder, after my favourite singer eddie vedder. for the cat is full of mystery.

rugby:
i'm sorely missing some action. i can't even get any live streams until saturday's tri-nations clash. and things aren't going that smoothly with the boys either as i came to find out, mostly because of the absense of a coach. i hate it when shit like this happens, wanting to do something but lacking of the means to do it.

but then again it has never been smooth sailing, and will never be. it's all about keeping the faith and coming out of it twice the person you ever were.

there's no telling how many miles you have to run while chasing a dream, and when the world says give up, faith and hope says give it just one more shot.


+listening to: millworker by eddie vedder

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we're one big family

i feel like a fat slob. even after the hour or so post-dinner stroll to the park and back with my cousin. food and me aside, this place has really changed a lot since the last time i visited. but then again the last time was a very long while back.


here's the underground entrance to the local walmart.

i was kinda surprised to see a walmart over here. the yanks have really taken the world domination shit pretty seriously. and clearly walmart, being the 7th largest trading partner of china (yea, that's right, ahead of many nations), felt that trading is too tiresome. why not take over china for good eh

here's the extended family. how we're all related is pretty vague to me. i haven't seen most of them since i was born.

the only person i know is my cousin sitting right beside me. we don't really talk much in the literal sense because he's got a speech impairment. we sort of "talk" through a mixture of intuition, eye contact, random signals (because i don't know the proper ones) and guess work. i'm trying to learn hand signals as fast as i can so i can understand him competely!

my cousin was fooling around with my cam...

here's the local park near my cousin's house. there's this giant round thing is the middle where kids rollerblade and ride on all sorts of funny looking vehicles. i have never seen so many people on rollerblades at one time in my entire life.

there's even a makeshift slalom course. i swear some of these kids are godlyke on those blades. no kidding.


+listening to: again some random chinese song on my couz's comp by unknown

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1st pit stop

okay technically this isn't the first stop, but rather the first stop with an internet connection. after about half an hour with the locksmith hacking away at the door, finally got into my cousin's house. apparently the lock doesn't like my presence.

the past couple of days have really been spent on the road, in the proper fashion. i kinda cheated a bit for the 广洲 to 武汉 leg. took an overnight train for about 9 hours. i was gonna take a domestic flight but it's the holiday season and everything was fully booked. i can't even remember the last time i took an overnighter but the experience was overall positive.

here's a shot on my way to the train station. my camera has astigmatism and is afraid of the dark.


when i first got to the train station i sort of forgot how many people take the trains everyday. the picture says everything. now this is what i call people power.


and then i sort of got the shitty top bunk cause these were the only kind of tickets left. i got the good fortune of having the tv right beside my head. besides the speakers being literally next to my ear, i'm sure the radiation does wonders to my brain.


and so after a whole night of turning and tossing, the sight of the destination train station is sure welcoming enough.

and then came the journeying all around as i mostly followed my dad around visiting friends and family. there're about a million of them and half of them i've never met in my entire life. other than that my life consists of eating, taking huge dumps, eating some more and procrastinating. i'm not even sure where exactly i am now because i have a habit of falling asleep in between meals in the car and waking up just to pile on the food.

and oh, my capacity for holding liqour has greatly increased over the past few days. beer is cheaper than water, so erm to save water, i drink beer most of the time. and it's sort of compulsory to down at least a bottle before the meal starts. and then people would start to drink the chinese white wine. now this shit is even harder than vodka and gents here down bottles after bottles with a passion. now i need to put my drinking cap on because i've been constantly asked to join in.

i still have loads of pics in my cam waiting to be uploaded. i gotta go sort my laptop out for now. so... until next time.


+listening to: some chinese song on my cousin's hifi by unknown

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