On December 31st, I will be on a plane bound for Hong Kong, en route to Shanghai. Yep, I am moving to Shanghai again. For those who don't know/recall, I lived/worked (read 'slaved') there from 2002 to 2005 and came home an extremely angry young woman, I mean waaaay angrier than usual: the frustrations of living in Shanghai having gotten the better of me (I was 3 inches away from landing a punch on some Chinese woman's jaw in my last week in Shanghai).
I am rather surprised to find myself excited about the return. I am of course, super chuffed that I will at last be together with Scooterboy, partner in crime, again after spending a little over a year living with 8025 km between us – as brilliant as Skype video is for those in long-distance relationships, it ain't nowhere close to the real deal.
But aside from being with The Scooterboy Who Rocks again, I am also looking forward to hanging out with good friends, frequenting favourite haunts, and cheap massages! And I'm rather curious about how the city has changed in the two years that I've been away: the pace of change in Shanghai has to be seen to be believed. The frenetic energy about the place is something I am eager to jump back into after sleepy Melbourne. I love my hometown but it does sometimes feel like a big town as opposed to a real city.
So, I hope I manage to focus my attention on the positive aspects of Shanghai, and try not to let all the frustrations get the better of me too quickly: I mean, who needs clean air, clean water, queues, courtesy, good service, reliable internet banking, a fully functional internet, reliable medical care, logical solutions, repairmen who have more than a stick-with-a-nail-on-the-end on their tool belt? Pppfffttt, trifling details.
Wild Wild East, here I go again.
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