Because, seriously, I’ve only got 10 days left in Shanghai.

I’ve been unable to update during the last few months, because of laziness, the worst internet in the world, travelling and more. But here they are, the last two weeks of my time in China. I’m so unprepared – I still have two more laaarge boxes of stuff to send back home, and I’ve been too lazy for the past two weeks to just buy in some strong tape and send them off. Needless to say, I have a lot to do.

I’m going to write about my small backpacking trip around the south of China with Monique and Nicole when I get back home (because I want to post pictures at the same time). We travelled to Hong Kong, Macau, Guilin, Yangshou, Xing Ping, Chengdu and Leshan, and I have tons of pictures and stories. In Hong Kong, we went to Disneyland – and I took so many panda pictures in Chengdu!

Also, I have a really bad cold. The throat-rasping, lung-spitting kind. Suits me well for standing over a half hour outside in cold, rainy weather and minimal clothing while trying to hail a cab. Damn the Chinese for not having a queue system, or manners enough to let the person who hailed the cab drive off in it. Every time I managed to get the attention of a free cab, some damn person came running from the side, jumped into my cab and drove off before I could protest. And that happened several times.

Manners isn’t the greatest thing with cab, metro and traffic culture in general down here, so I get happy every time I see the governments campaigns of behaving. Lately, there’s been “metro guards” in the larger metro stations during rush hour. They force the people to cue up on the sides so people can get off before the others get on, only to fail miserably when the train doors open and the Chinese get into a desperate (no, not kidding) frenzy of getting themselves as fast as possible into the train (while elbowing, kicking and screaming) – ignoring the people inside the wagons just as desperate attempts to get out.

It’s the same thing for the seats too. “The battle of the seats”. Be one second too slow, and someone else has put their ass down in the seat you were targeting. If there are free seats when the door opens, you’ll see people diving to get them. Even if there are old people needing them nearby. I don’t see people giving away their seats very often down here. It’s much more common to really pretend like you aren’t paying attention, so you can keep the seat to yourself.

I stood at People Square for a while last week, just observing. Every time the people got forced to stand in a queue (and the queue sneaks and the ones who still didn’t get it got scolded and sent to the back of it), they’d break it and start running towards the doors as soon as they opened. I’d say amusing, if it weren’t for the fact that I have to take that damn metro reaaaaally often during rush hour. I’m going to see if I can tape it sometime before I leave. We’ll. Otherwise I can just ask to borrow some videos from friends.

On another topic, it’s also really warm here now, but the temperature changes fast.. It goes from sunny 35 degrees Celsius to 25 and raining so fast that around 20 to 23 degrees seems icy with the air condition on in the metro.

I’ve been in Shanghai about four and a half month now, and I’m actually loosing track of the time.

I came around the 25th of September, left China again during December for 3 weeks, and now we’re already at the end of February.

It’s a bit weird, really, but I’ve almost not written anything at all about the things I’ve seen and experienced. It’s been so much! People don’t behave like back in Norway in general, both in a good and in a bad way.

Good stuff; The Chinese are so hospitable! (One of my previous room mates definitely didn’t agree to this one, but still.) They’re kind, helpful, and eager to strike conversations whereas my fellow Norwegian people in most cases would never strike up a conversation about nothing in particular while standing in the check-out queue in a grocery store. I’ve also had some people follow me around for quite a while to help me find places whenever I’ve gotten lost.

Bad stuff; Too much curiosity (seriously, getting stalked while shopping clothing or groceries is not fun, and trying to “discreetly” peek from behind shelves is extremely creepy), incredibly impatient people (compared to the South-American and South-European people, Northern-Europeans are incredibly impatient, but seriously – the Chinese in the subway are unfortunately way worse), street sellers (Bag? Watch? Dvd? Plada? lookie lookie! You want sexy massage?) and beggars – I’ve had beggar children HANGING on to my leg to get money, even though I clearly stated I didn’t have any change to give (and my chuckling Canadian-Chinese friend definitely had, but they didn’t bother him).

I guess my reason for summering things up so soon is that I might go back home two months before planned, for reason I won’t share. I love Shanghai though, the mood, the way warmer temperatures, the culture, the ooold culture, the food, the club scene, and so much more. I’ll definitely come back, I just don’t know when yet.