back home :[

So I was looking back at my earlier blogpost and reading my journal and thinking about how I was so close to leaving Shanghai. So close to missing out on this AMAZING experience. I am so so so SO happy I ended up staying because this was just one big, GNARLY adventure I'll never ever be able to repeat. All the things I hated at first, now make me love this place. I love that I can't speak the language that well and getting around is challenging. I love how it's NOT easy. At first it was scary, and shit, coming here by myself like the chick in the book I'm reading takes BALLS, but it's fun. The only way to ever really learn about a culture is to immerse yourelf completely in it. Shanghai is SUCH an amazing city and I really can't think of any other way to describe it. People here are so interested in what you have to say, people here are so interested in foreigners and what attracts people to their country. Shopkeepers would always want to know where I'm from and what I was doing in China. They would be a little bit shocked, a little bit impressed at my ability to converse with them. I mean, yeah China is hot, has a SHITTON of people & equal amounts of mosquitos and yeah it's not the prettiest or the cleanest place to be, but goddamn this city has charm.


& after all is said and done, you really just end up falling in love with the place.