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.

我爱上海

history of shanghai museum pictures...


crazy ass bride carriage


i don't know..


silly girls..


do silly things...


she was tempting me up to her 'massage' parlour


the bundddd, in like the 50's


funny cutouts of asian people in a time share place thing or sorts.


我的宿舍...[my dorm]

jennifer begging the spanish boys to come out..


my pile of clothes in a controlled state..


keepin' it tidy..



&& Zapatas of course, for our last free night of margaritas :[

anna and godknowswho. all i know is that I'M not on the bar (yessss!)




because he can never make normal faces in pictures..

only a few more days...

so so so so sad!
i can't believe it's been a month already!
it's so funny because in the beginning i totally hated it here and i was like...3 weeks to go...
but now i don't want to go backkkk.
there's so much to see, so much to do here.
*sigh.

i'm seriously, SERIOUSLY thinking about studying abroad again in China.
if i had already been to europe i would definitely come back.
but there's too many places in the world to see!


anyone want to come live here with me in a few years?
we'll get sweet jobs and dance our life away.
yeah yeah?


anyways, pictures..


dumpling place. mmm, i'm going to miss the dumplings. dollar dumplings.


pearl tower again.


but this time, inside!


mmm smog


the sun exists..somewhere, behind all those layers of smogg


the tallest building...in the woooorld.