Unclear on the Concept

Quick update, just for the moment. Pictures and stories will follow soon.

Proxy Update

This says everything.

This Blog Does Not Encourage Behaviour Modification

I just realised that I have, several times, told readers to "watch this space" for follow-ups. And never followed through. Hmmm... food for thought.

Not, of course, that I'm going to do anything about it.

In Passing...

Writing about China on the basis of seeing two cities would be like judging all of India on the basis of Delhi and Bombay. Not that there's much of a comparison between Delhi / Bombay and Shanghai / Beijing. And of course, where language is a constraint, travel can't open up new vistas to the extent one would like: one can see other people going about their lives, but not really understand what they're all about - what they want, what they think about, what they really think about the cultural revolution and Chairman Mao and the world and their place in it.

Still, a story about the trip will be posted soon.

For the moment, more travel is on the cards. I'm off to London tomorrow. A week with family and friends, time to think and recharge my batteries and figure out my life a little, and hopefully when I come back, I'll know in which direction I need to start hacking to clear the undergrowth a little.

It's 1:30 in the morning. Dylan's birthday tribute plays, yellow lamplight sets everything aglow. Outside, it's thundering and lightning-ing, and there's that old feeling of excitement creeping in. Tomorrow promises a great quarter-final too, the kind that needs to be watched with friends, with copious amounts of beer and raucous cheering.

And ultimately, who cares what happens tomorrow? In the final count, may the best team (Brazil) win. :)




Update:
These @*%#-ing Brazilians. Now I'm seriously depressed.

Days Like This IV

1. Waking up to nasty emails.
2. Rushing through morning ablutions to get to work by 7:30
3. Missing 2 important calls on the way
4. Getting on a series of conference calls that flow into each other
5. Missing lunch, because there's no time to have it
6. For a conference call with an idiot
7. Who loves listening to the sound of his own voice and keeps on talking
8. So that one has to stay connected when one is desparate to take a leak
9. With hours of work still ahead
10. Spilling into offshore working hours

But still, China! Beckons! Woohoo!

Shanghai Ahoy

Takla Makan. The Gobi Desert. The great wall of China. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree. The BRICs report. The world's most populous country. All those old jokes about sardarjis who name their third child "chang", because every third person in the world is Chinese. Printing technology, huns, the way of the dragon. Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. Ho Chi Minh. Tiananamen Square. Google's China problem, or China's Google problem, as the case may be.

Hallelujah, China, here I come.

OK, so it's just a few days, and just one city / area. Still, I am thrilled beyond belief.

Shanghai it is. Any ideas, people? Things to see, things to do? Cheap hotels, if you've traveled there at all? Overcoming the language barrier? Any other tid-bits? Historical / geographical cultural info?

I shall keep posting my research. Meanwhile, in honor of this event, I shall finally buy that digital camera so many of you wrote in about so long ago.

Watch this space!

Music to live by...

"I'm so tired,
I haven't slept a wink.
I'm so tired,
My mind is on the blink
I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink
No, no, no..."

~ The Beatles, "The Beatles" (The White Album)
© 1968 Northern Songs

Does anybody find it strange that you can think of lyrics to match almost any mood? Or does everybody out there have a soundtrack for their lives?