october. november. december.
the rest of the year is stretching on sight now as the final trimester is here. i was going to write about how the weather has completely changed and now settled into a summer-autumn interlude, with nice temperatures and less mosquito bites – but today, there’s actually lots of rain (krosa was supposed to miss shanghai, yet, it’s making more damage than wipha, few weeks ago).

nevertheless, i like the rain and the wind, even if i get all soaked on my bike, while my yellow raincoat floats around me. autumn is my favorite season, for the colors and weather, and the creativity flows.

on other news, we’ve moved to a new house, slowly, on the 31st floor of the building next door. after a few days, the cats are still scared at every noise and hide below the couch most of the time. we’ve thoroughly cleaned it and we have managed to buy the contents of our previous apartment to the landlord – a difficult task, involving a couple of hours of discussing prices of items in our basic mandarin, but we did pretty well and in the end, managed to get a decent price out of the lot.

on a small remark, i can’t explain how proud i am that we haven’t given up on chinese classes, unlike many other expats i’ve seen here. no matter what they say, i still maintain that it makes a lot of difference whether you speak the language or not, in the way people treat you and on what you can achieve or understand about this culture. besides, no one can possibly convince me that learning the most spoken language in the world is a waste of time.

speaking of which, it’s been six months since we set foot on this land. maybe i should have blogged more, while things were still fresh, but first impressions are not always the most reliable, at least on this side of the globe.
through it all, i can say that i really like what we have here right now, and how shanghai is turning out to be. never mind the frustrations: the surprises have far outcome my initial expectations, though i think you have to live here for a while to understand what i mean. it’s like finding beauty in the randomness, or the chaos.

it’s not easy, but it sure is rewarding. the same thing can probably be said about the whole china. as josh puts it:

Where else is life a road that can veer off in any direction at any time? Where can you head to one of the biggest cities in the world and end up in an antiquated hotel surrounded by rice paddy fields? Where else can you wake up each morning and think to yourself, ‘something crazy is definitely going to happen today?’

rfc: what would you like me to blog about, regarding china? any questions or hidden doubts? i am by no means an expert in asian issues, but i’ve answered a few emails in the past few months of curious readers, so if you’ve been lurking and itching to ask something, go ahead and leave a comment! :)

photo by lifesucker, on flickr.