Tuesday, July 19, 2011

On the Eve of the Beginning of my Travel Blogging


I am gearing up to begin writing about my new life in Shanghai sometime this week. This is actually something that I've been putting off because, first of all, much of my life is consumed by work, and second of all, because... well, the second half might be better explained in a list, so here goes:

1. I like to take pictures of nature.
2. I find it much harder to take pictures of manmade things.
3. I find it much harder to take pictures of manmade things, particularly when other people are around.
4. I don't really take many pictures of people
5. unless I am comfortable taking pictures of them,
6. which requires me to feel comfortable with them,
7. and I don't know many of those people yet here in Shanghai
8. because I am weird and solitary and would ideally live in a cave by myself if our personalities were personified in our living situations.

On top of that,

9. Shanghai is a city of, like, 20 million people.
10. Ergo, it is an urban jungle and a nature wasteland.
11. The most greenery I typically see in a day is the plastic little bobbly plant-figure in the office. Y'know, the one that has leaves that gently bob up and down, up and down, up and down all day long.

My difficulties in writing a travel blog are further typified in the fact that

12. I don't actually, uh, do much.
13. Work takes up a significant portion of my time, and at the end of the day there's nothing I'd rather do than to sit and bed and zone out with a book or movie.
14. Plus, the sun sets at, like, 7 here in Shanghai due to various reasons both environmental and political that I am too out of my mind to get into at the moment.
15. This is particularly bad for my energy because, well, my energy goes up and down with the sun, and therefore on overcast days I am pretty much all but comatose and useless.

I would do more if

16. I had someone to do things with.
17. And by "someone," I don't mean just a friend or a family member or whatnot. I'm talking about soul-mate, best-friend, significant-other kinds of "someone."
18. Again, this is due to the fact that I have finite sources of energy when spending time with 99% of the people I know, which is nothing against them, it's just that I also need a crap-ton of alone time to recharge, whereas with the soul-mate best-friend significant-other kind of "someone" the recharging can be done in their company, mostly, oftentimes, for the most part. (See #4-8.)

Therefore,

19. the type of travel blogging you can expect here will be extensive commentary on the cultural differences between China and the US, in a variety of manners, on a variety of topics.
20. The pictures will be bland and generic and totally unworthy of National Geographic, because I am too much of a pansy to get up close and personal to take pictures of interesting strangers alongside interesting sites, and there are no natural things for me to take endless pictures of here.
21. But! I do have plans to explore a different part of Shanghai on each one of my free days, so there WILL be stuff to write about, in addition to the commentary on cultural differences.
22. And, if you'd like to help me increase my travel-blogging productivity, you can find me a boyfriend. And then we can have many fun adventures and pictures with actual people in them.

The end! First Shanghai post up soon. :)

10 comments:

  1. I can't wait to read your posts, i think your insights would be fascinating considering you're really living there (instead of just vacationing). And on the bright side, you have sun! I think when I visited it was completely smog :P

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  2. Ok Steph, I won't be your boyfriend but I'll be your best friend/travel buddy/picture taker extraordinaire.

    I love this post...it makes me miss you mucho.

    I went to the Dtown bookstore by myself the other day and I was all sadface because my main book browsing partner in crime was not there with me.

    I'll be on the lookout for a boyfriend for you :P

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  3. Can't wait to read all about your cultural experiences!

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  4. Oh, Steph! I just love this post so much!

    Politics has a hand in when the sun goes down? Wow. Things are really regulated over there. ;)

    I love hearing about cultural differences! Everything is so bland here sometimes but I don't really want to be the one to go out and explore said differences myself. I like to live vicariously through others. So blog your little heart out!

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  5. You should just go ahead and start your photo-roll by taking a picture of the bobbly plant-figure.

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  6. Fun post! You're going to do great!

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  7. i seriously loved this post. to distraction, even. i am gonna print this post and marry it. okay, i'm not going to do that but the idea gets my point across.

    i'm going to be crossing my fingers and wishing on stars, et cetera, that you meet that soul-mate best-friend significant-other kind of "someone" asap.

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  8. Aww I love this post. I hope you have tons of fun in Shanghai. It seems that so far it is pretty enjoyable & I'm sure you will find a soulmate/best friend/significant other. It may take time, but it will happen. I firmly believe everyone has one. :)

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  9. Oh & btw, you sort of remind me of me. I'm so shy what I do is if I'm feeling shy around others, I do the opposite of what I'm feeling. Instead of being a wallflower, I'll just start talking. My face sometimes gives me away (I blush like a tomato, it's AWFUL!), but I just keep going & eventually I'm comfortable enough to keep socializing. I recently learned in one of my psychology classes that it's actually a good technique for someone who is socially awkward (even slightly), so I was pretty happy that I had already started doing that hehe

    Be happy and have fun!

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Hello! I'm so excited to read what you have to say. Due to high amounts of spam, I'm forced to disabled anonymous comments for the time being. Sorry for any inconvenience this causes, and I hope you can understand and still appreciate the content here!

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