Exciting Days in Shanghai #1

Hello my few readers out there :)

Again it has been a while since my last blogpost, but since I'm in China for 5 weeks, the censorship makes things difficult for me to blog, google, facebook or youtube. That's quite annoying, but nevertheless I found a way to mail my blogpost so that I simply need to write an email to a specific email adress related to my blog account. Anyway being here is very exciting since Shanghai is such a huuuuuuuuge city! My cousin - a photo model, journalist and owner of a wedding gown shop - takes me out to manymany places, like the rooftop of the House of Roosevelt at the Bund (where only VIPs have access to) with an amazing view!

I felt a bit homesick the first days, missing friends and the free internet, but meeting some German friends, who were travelling in China made things better.

A few days ago we celebrated the Moon Cake Festival by having a huge dinner with my cousins and aunts. The Moon Cake Festival is based on a legend about a woman who wanted to be immortal and therefore swallowed a pill which brought her to the moon, because only there she could live for eternity. Besides, the meal culture is a bit different to the European food culture. People are always inviting each other out for a meal and no one just meets up to have a cup of coffee. People can always eat and most of the time my cousin and I eat out, because food is quite cheap around here (of course it also depends on the restaurant). Furthermore, the people are used to slurping and smacking, my cousin says it tastes better this way. On the other side I was shocked how expensive the alcohol prices are, maybe it's the right way to handle it as a luxury good without many youngsters getting drunk every weekend until they have to go to hospital to get their stomachs pumped. I also had the honour a few days ago, to visit some Chinese hospitals around here, because my mother wanted to get a Chinese opinion on my hand tumor. The circumstances were horrifying, everything was crowded, people had to wait up to 10hours to see a doctor and compared to Germany's hospitals those hospitals were quite insanitary...very close to gross with uncomfortable smells and short Chinese pushing you all the time. But the corrupt system also had its advantages, fortunately my mother and aunt had some contacts in the hospital so that I could get in without waiting for ages and my mother gave those doctors some money or a bottle of French wine and everything was arranged for us. My hand is fine, no worries :)

This was it for now, next week I'm flying to an isle in the south of China. It's supposed so be the hottest spot of China and is slightly comparable to the Canary Isles...sea, sand and sunshine I'm coming!

 Pictures will follow soon, the slowliness of the internet while using googlemail is annoying me...

xoxo Leu