Shanghai

I started writing about Shanghai right after I put up my last entry vowing to get my thoughts down about the China trip. Unfortunately life has a way of taking control of your plans sometimes and I found myself attending to more important things. Our family friend who has been battling lymphoma took a turn for the worst over the past few weeks and eventually died a couple of days ago. Lucky for me the universe aligned and sent me my best friend up for an unexpected visit right when it happened, which gave us a lot of strength and something to keep our minds off of this terrrble loss. Today I finally got a chance to take a look at the little bit I had written about Shanghai and decided to post it. I'll do my best to get some more up soon.

When I used to imagine what Shanghai was like, I always had this 1920s image in my mind. I imagined art deco façades with an Asian flair; wealthy colonizing elites having their Asian adventure in posh clubs. I’d always imagined it as one of those world cities – a crossroads where cultures came together.

In many ways, the place I had imagined was there. During our trip, we found that Shanghai was in fact the most Western of the cities we visited and home to a plethora of global corporations and businesses. In its recent history, Shanghai had been broken apart into districts by its colonizers – the French, the British and the Americans. The most famous of these is the former French Concession, an area that still causes the Chinese to lose ‘face’ when discussed. It was an area the French had controlled and is characterized by the strong French architectural influence but, like everything in China, is slowly being overtaken by time, development and change – that ubiquitous lady busy defining modern China.

The thing that seems to stay the same in this city - and define it, really - is that indescribable global flavor of a big city. It’s that posh thing about Shanghai that you can’t quite put your finger on, the thing that makes you know you’re somewhere special. No surprise here, I liked it. It was the kind of place I could wrap my head around. But I guess that's to be expected from a city girl at heart.

Where Have All the Blogs Gone!?

So in case you haven't noticed, I never got the opportunity to update my blog in China. Unfortuntely the Chinese government blocks a number of website including blogs and Facebook. It's a glaring fact of a country in which personal freedom is tightly controlled in order to maintain governmental power. Very sad. I'd like to say that I was an excellent little blogger and maintained a journal despite the lack of internet access, but I've never proved to be that diligent in the past, so why start? ;) Now that I've been able to get some perspective on the trip, I'm going to start jotting down the experiences to share. So keep and eye out for it, ok? Oh, and here I am on the Great Wall of China (in a snow storm!)

And We're Off!

It's been a wild couple of days leading up to our departure date, what with mom, dad and Katy S's birthdays and one of the biggest Halloweens I've experienced in recent years all in one week. So I got all packed up and ready to go today. I hope I have everything I need, but I have the feeling that if there is something essential, I'll be able to find it in China (as opposed to when we were in India! - nothing was easy to find there!) I'll try to update as much as possible, but I have no idea how the internet will be and what kind of access we will have. Fingers crossed that it's easily accessible!

Until then...

Up Next

Well, I guess I'm going to China pretty soon. I've wanted to go to China for quite a while, so I'm excited to finally check it out.

Pictures from Salzburg

So now that I've had time to reaclimate and upload my photos on the computer, I thought you might like to see some of the places I've been writing about. So lets start with Salzburg.
There's something about the color of Salzburg that caught me off guard. I'd say it was the green, but that doesn't quite do it justice. It's the color of the water here: opaque, seafoam, Baroque. It penetrates everything, the whole glow of the town. You feel bright and fresh, soft and warm when you walk down the streets. Like so many places we visited, Salzburg was lovely. The kind of beautiful that you don't often see at home. The kind that represents a whole part of time where people loved light and swirls and beautful things just because they were beautiful. Maybe that was because everything else was so seemingly dark.

While we were sitting in one of the Baroque churches, Emily joked to me that it was so pink and full of swirls, that it was funny that a man would have designed it. That made me laugh. But she was right, you know?

At the fortress on top of the mountain, there was this random bull, so of course, we got on and took pictures on it, haha:

We also went into the marionette "museum" on the fortress grounds, which consisted of one room and a couple of posters you could stick your head through. I figured, 'when in Salzburg...'

I'm Lame

Ok, so I realize that I've done a terrible job of writing on this thing. I can't say I'm going to make up for it just yet. I'll be heading home tomorrow and once I get a good computer to work on, I will put up some pictures and other thoughts, so stay tuned!

Amsterdam

Emily and I spent a pretty uneventful night in Cologne. Most of the city was destroyed in the war except for the big Cathedral which, after almost 2 months in Europe wasn't much to write home about. The rest of the city is big and generic and in general, I can't see going back any time soon. So on to Amsterdam....

I've had a lot of thoughts about being in Amsterdam. Most people, when you mention that you are going to Amsterdam smile and give a knowing look, as in 'I know why you're really going to Amsterdam!' and sure, while there is the whole coffee shop culture, I feel that it is an unfair assessment of the city as a whole. Amsterdam is an incredibly beautiful city with a rich history of tolerance. After walking around much of it, it makes me think twice about the way pot is viewed. While I do agree that it is probably a better use of the government's time and money to focus on harder drugs to crack down on, I find that much of the marijuana culture sullies the rest of the city. I think this happens in part because the city has become a haven for people coming to smoke, rather than just a city in which pot is tolerated. I think about a place like San Francisco and the people there who would like to see pot legalized, but after being in Amsterdam, I think I would be opposed to it. To federally address the subject is something different, but I would hate to see San Francisco's beautiful streets and cafes fill up with people who were just interested in doing drugs.