Hi there!
Since I have started updating this site I have just been on a roll! There are tons of things I want to post and just want to get out of my chest - and my mind. :-)
I just want to share my nostalgia of Shanghai for at least four weeks now. I was fortunate enough to make about four trips to Shanghai, China. One for about ten days, one for over a week, one for less than a week and another for a few days. My first Shanghai trip was in September 2007 i think. Or was it October? Anyway, I was enchanted by the place. You cannot even communicate decently but you definitely will not feel lost or even the possibility of it. And I felt like I want to get lost to the streets of Shanghai. The people were nice, the streets are wide and clean, food is neverending, massage is everywhere, supermarkets are abundant (i love supermarkets that's why i mentioned that), and the feeling of being there is just very warm for me. I have been to the Pudong area of Shanghai. And these things i have mentioned about the place may not strike any one of you but for me it does because I came from a place where the major roads are crammed up and don't even look like highways. Where even the Central Business District could be unsafe and not really clean and green. Where the people are selectively friendly - although my fellowmen are known to be hospitable people. But I guess nowadays they aren't anymore - except when you are a foreigner in our soil! I came from a place where food is abundant but are devoid of the "tastiness" or even the enthusiasm that should have went with it while it was prepared. You should go home to the province to your mom and pop or their old folks to be able to find a good meal that was prepared with love. It is just really disappointing sometimes because our race is not like that. Our culture is not like that. We are not only nice people, we have a lot of skills and talents that should be used correctly because we have so much potential. And all these frustrations were compensated to me by Shanghai, China. After my first trip, my heart was literally brokenhearted having to leave and head home. I liked Shanghai so much I wished me and my children could live there, even for just a few years. Now i have less or no chance at all in going back there, i even feel much brokenhearted.
I will miss walking for half an hour to buy some goodies at the supermarket, all the green tea ice cream I could have, all the green tea goodies - biscuits, candies, chips, gum, etc., the shopping, the haggling, the parks and kids. The spinach bun i love sooooo much, the KFC New Orleans sandwich, their egg flan at KFC or egg pie was it, the noodles and all the mushrooms you can find, the e-bikes, the mini-vans, the trees, the huge Century Park, the buildings, the apartment complex, the Spring Festival, and the winter. I really believe I can live in Shanghai.
Now, it just leaves me its memories - fond Shanghai memories and uncertainties of seeing it again.
