6 Months Later

Six months has passed. 

Why didn't I write for 6 months? Because I realized that I was not writing for myself, but for someone else that didn't need to read that anymore.

Why am I writing again? That's what I hope I'll find out writing this. Maybe now I'll write for myself. Or maybe I'm still writing for her. or HIM. Or maybe it's just the bloody jetlag. Probably.

Yeah about HIM: I never found him really. I always felt he was a step forward. Or maybe it was me being always a step behind. Or maybe it was both, in that case we are now two steps distant.

And I do feel this two steps. I thought that this time was the right time, I thought I was gonna catch HIM. But I never felt further than I do right now. I'll keep looking, not sure this is the right place anymore.

But since I got no choice I can't help but keep walking.

Well let's see if I can quickly recall the streets I walked in the last 6 months, if I don't know where I am I definetly cannot know where to go, right?


In April I took some time off to re-organize my plans. A very important person came to visit and helping me recover. During that time, I forgot what I was looking for. Time will tell if it was because that's when I actually got closer to HIM.

So we visited places, like the lake city of Hangzhou :

 There's a Chinese legend that says that the 3 small towers in the lake will light like fire one night every year

 This is Longjin willage, where the best Chinese Green tea is made

 One kite slowly falling in the like as the sun is going down. (you don't say?)

     Following 3 pics of Hangzhou's lake

This is the Yu garden tample in shanghai. And no, it's not snow, it's pollution.

             Old town of Qingbo next to Shanghai

And we ate things:

Basic Ramen Noodles

Follows 3 specialties of Hangzhou's market, starting with pinapple rice

Fried crabs on a stick

An entire chicken in a clay box....

Snack in Old Town

...sa di panettone...

Xiaolongbao!!

Hotpot. It needs description: Hotpot is a chinese way of eating in which one person decides which soup he likes and then he orders few raw things which he will cook himself in his own pot. It's delicious and fun.

We just had the best time ever.

After that I kind of lost my motivation in finding HIM. It didn't felt that important any more. I just found some more pictures of HIM with kids:

  I wonder if they would still recognize HIM after all this time...


So I moved back  to Italy and Scotland during the summer.

Guess which is which 

It felt good, it felt right.

So why am I back here then? Why I felt like I had to look for HIM again? Because that's what happened, I left everything and came back, for HIM.

Can't really say if that was a good idea. Maybe with time I'll realize it was. Or maybe not, maybe it was just a bad idea and time will only remind me of that.

All I know is that now it doesn't feel good at all. I started this to find what I'm lacking, and I find myself now thinking I just lost what I was looking for.

So now I'm here, lone as I deserve to be, in the city of gambles and promises, where the first are never won and the second never kept.

And I'd better make this fuckin' worth it.

On the otherside

 A long time has passed. I'm not a tourist anymore. I started my everyday life here, it's less exiting but it makes me more confortable. The city is chaining my soul, doesn't look like I'll be able to get free any soon. As I feared I stopped looking for HIM, I'm having my own life now. But it helps me undestanding HIM better. Someway I'm closer now to HIM then when I was actually looking for HIM.

Anyway, I had just few chances to stroll around the city, and this are few picture of what I saw. This is what the other side of the Pu river looks like. It's Pudong.

    This is the most famous tower of Shanghai, the Pearl TV tower.

This is the riverside. Supposed to be romantic and beautiful during night time, it is now only alright. I'll be patiently waiting for the right occasion to have here at night. I have a feeling it may happend soon, about a month and something from now.

 It is a mistery to me how the water is so low on a side and this huge boat still manage to cruise on the river

                                                       This is instead the Pudong side

 Other two very famous towers of Shanghai, one is shaped like an old pagoda, the other is the tallest balcony in the world. It looks like a huge bottle opener to me.

                                                              A bavarian beer garden!

                             Apparently, the only place in the city in which you can actually see sOOm

                                                  The soon-next tallest tower of China

Another day, another place. Fudan University Hospital.

                                                               Pigeon in the hospital

Chinese Hospitals: If they can't even keep plants alive...

 This is...I have no idea.

 

 Here instead I moved to the historical Tianzifang district. Old houses, small alleys, a little labirinth, maybe even a very small city. The cool thing about this place? There's only bars, restaurants, and peculiar shops inside. AWESOMENESS right there

                                                     That's a shop/arte gallery right there

                                      

                    You saw well in the previous picture, it's a cat sleeping on the table of an antiques shop

Do you like pandas? This store sells ONLY panda's stuff

Then I moved to the fabric market, where tons of little shop will tailor for you anything (or copy any dress you can bring them a picture of) at the lowest price.

In the district there was also the oldest cattolic church in Shanghai, dated 1623.

ROght in the middle of real china/poor town

The only laundry shop in which you stuff could just get dirtier than it already is

To conclude, food section! Not able to find/afford western food I had to adapt and cook some chinese favorites. Here's the photos of me trying.

Dumplings/Baozi in spicy sauce

Here we have some fried/breaded pork in sweet and sour sauce

And here we have the MOCHA I ordered in a coffe shop. Why is it deep green? Only because I didn't thought about the fact that in chinese MOCHA means GREEN TEA before buying it.

Ho speso molto tempo pensando a milioni di commenti ilari da fare su questa foto. Alla fine non riuscendo a prendere una decisione ho pensato di lasciare al pubblico italiano la libertà di vivere questa foto in totale libertà di pensiero. Buon divertimento!