Proof-positive that if an egg drops on your head, it will dent/crack on the opposite side. I’m intrigued to know what will happen when the mostly eaten apple drops…
The trash posters about littering I understand. But I have to admit, at the moment I’m a bit stumped by the egg head.

A new experience to say the least. 3 out of the past 4 days or so Pines has had no electricity. So what do you do? Get out your flashlight, phone or otherwise, and just go with it. All the great cereals are lit up so no worries there. Luckily it has been relatively cold here so most items are kept cold by default. Oh and it snowed this morning! But that doesn’t seem to be the reason for the blackout. I’ll check again tomorrow. It’s kind of fun and kind of creepy shopping in the dark!

One week it’s a space for watermelons. The next week, tanks of hairy crabs. Can’t wait to see what’s up after hairy crab season! Secretly hoping for more fruit…

When I am able to ask, I’ll figure out which lady is THE avocado lady. Maybe they all are…

Look her up, she’s in all the guidebooks. Been shopping here for 2 years and never noticed the sign.

I’ve asked my students to figure out how they would advertise a dream they have; Something they want to accomplish, a passion. Not everyone is comfortable advertising something that might be so intensely personal. If asked to advertise a dream of mine I would freeze in my tracks. No way. Not doing that. If I advertise a dream of mine, then I have to realize that dream, right? That is incredibly scary. So I default to: never mind; it can’t be done; not by me anyway; so forget it. If I ask them to advertise a true dream, something other than a generic, “My dream is to be successful.”, then I have ask and answer myself. A dream of mine is to walk across the Gobi Desert. It’s something I think about a lot so I chose a billboard to advertise my dream. I see lots of billboards everyday. I also don’t always pay attention to billboards now that I think about it…

How would you advertise your dream?

Just a few of the many words for ‘pain’ in Chinese:

疼
Téng
pain, ache, or sore

OR there is:

痛
Tòng
pain, ache, sorrow, sadness

As well as,

痠
Suān
ache in limbs, pain, pang

I  was introduced to the word pain here in China as a ‘warning’ word for my first foot massage. “If it hurts too much, just say ‘tong’.“, a friend told me. Sounded easy enough to me. Finally, a word I could pronounce and one I just might remember. (Take that Chinese tones!)  So I set off in the direction of a recommended foot massage location, armed and ready with my one word should I need it. Turns out I didn’t need the word ‘tong’, or any of the words for pain at all. (Which is a good thing as the way I pronounced it varied in translation from ‘offensive’ to ‘soup’) Like in so many situations I have found here in Shanghai the universal, ‘OK’, worked just fine as a question, as well as an answer. OK?

(Words, characters and translations compliments of Google translate…I have found that this translation service, as well as others, might steer you in the right direction, sometimes. However, most likely in this particular situation, you’ll just get some offensive soup.)

It has occurred to me many times that there are a billion blogs out there about starting over, moving to or living in new countries/cities/cultures, and, of course, about photography. And I’m sure there is at least one about Shanghai, or Photography in a city of 23 or so million people. So here I am. I join the throngs of millions of blogs. I could write about starting over by moving to a new country/culture to live and taking photographs. But who is going to see, or quite frankly, who is going to care? I don’t write that as a poor me, rather I take some solace that I can quietly take my time, post something here and there and not many people will notice. It still feels like just my own ‘private world’. But nothing online is private anymore and to think so would be naive. So here is a start of a blog that happens to be updated from Shanghai, and is about Shanghai…Shanghai Up Close. At least for now my comfort level for posting on this site is ‘up close’. In a country where culture shock didn’t hit me like a ton of bricks when I arrived, but has slowly started to seep into my conscious being, I both want to get ‘up close’ and stay far away. And for now Up Close has taken over. Yes, this photo could have been taken anywhere, but it wasn’t. I look forward to seeing where this takes me.