… nor grammar! :D

walking around with the holga in the park, freezing my fingers and toes in the cold. more here.

i’m might be seriously falling in love with this camera.

Icelandic pop singer Bjork backed independence for Tibet during her concert on Sunday in Shanghai, eyewitnesses said on Monday. She shouted “Tibet, Tibet!” followed by “Raise your flag!” towards the end of her final song, “Declare independence.”

quote from shanghaiist.

we were there and it was really at the end of the concert. i had to ask someone beside me if she actually said “tibet! tibet!” because i guess my ears didn’t quite believe it too.

“It’s unlikely Bjork will be performing again in China any time soon, if ever. Bravo.”

quote from danwei.

eheh, at least we were there! :)

(image by mulder)

mediterranean food has a soft spot in our hearts, since it can bring up the nostalgy of discovering “home away from home”, through food. being portuguese, we lean towards the western side of the mediterranean style (say olive oil, tomatos, fish) whereas haya’s food is more of the eastern-mediterranean variety (turkish style, falafels, hummus, kebabs). and that’s ok - i have yet to meet a southern european dish that i didn’t like. :)

we had latkes (which i had been meaning to try since seeing matt’s yummylicious pictures), two kinds of kebab and their mini-apple pie. all very yummy. oh, and the peach juice they have there reminds me of our portuguese compal, which is more than enough to keep this girl happy.

anyway, some the pictures:

   

   

the only thing i don’t like at haya’s is the service. i’m not very picky about these things, but the waiters seem to always forget something and then pretend we’re not there… a bit annoying.

the reason we keep crossing half the city to come here? just the food. it’s good, and you should definitely give it a go, if you’re into mediterranean cuisine.

info:
haya’s mediterranean cuisine + bakery
415 Dagu Lu
near Chengdu Nan Lu
shanghai

… of christmas chinese new year, it’s the “god of fortune and wealth” birthday. to invite him in, what do you do? fireworks, of course.

because p.’s company wouldn’t pass the opportunity to attract wealth (and having fun firing some big artillery), we were invited to join the party on the boss’ house rooftop, still covered in snow.

for a couple of hours or so, we marvelled at the view from the 40th floor: everywhere we looked, fireworks and strings of firecrackers exploded loudly and bubbles of color filled the air. it’s one of those sights that really takes your breath away. (but if you dared to close you eyes for a second, i reckon the noise around you and smell of gunpowder would certainly prompt imaginary visions of armageddon)

anyway, all in all, it was fun. i don’t know how to efficiently photograph fireworks (especially with frozen hands and toes) so these are my humble tries.

    

you can find a lot of better pictures of it on flickr.

in a word: crazy. or genious. :D
i don’t know how to describe it, since i had never seen anything like this before. on time blog, someone wrote “…roughly the same as Christmas Eve (with the pyrotechnics of July 4 thrown in.)”

it was like being inside a computer game where you conquer and win everything and then at the end of the level everything erupts in joy and fireworks. something like that. surreal yet inexplicably beautiful, putting any fireworks show i’ve ever seem to shame. the city just exploded, and for hours wherever i looked there were fireworks, or strings of firecrackers on the floor!

here’s how it sounded like from our little window on the 31st floor: chinese new year.

crazy, right? as if you were in the middle of an air raid. i bet that if china had been attacked at midnight, no one would notice.

(and we can still hear them sparsely, now and then. yesterday we had to interrupt a movie we were watching more than a couple of times because we couldn’t hear anything with the noise… )

before it all gets too crazy (china is about to turn into a “warzone”, with all the firecrackers), i just want to quickly say that a lot has been going on, through ups and downs, busy productivity sprints and mellow lazy days - hence the lack of regular posting as of lately.

today is a special day though: it’s the last day of the year of the pig. china is entering the year of the rat, with noisy fireworks celebrations. it’s their way to send out the old year and invite the new one in.

i like new years, whether chinese or not, so here’s wishing you all a healthy & wealthy year of the rat!

ps - i need to go outside. all this new year fireworks is making me itchy! :)