The mundane..

I’m not sure at what point I stopped writing about life here. The last few blogs I’ve written have read more like Lonely Planet travel guides. I think it’s because life here is becoming…well, life. Bordering on the mundane and ordinary. Nothing is really surprising me about Shanghai at this point. 3 people and a kid on a scooter? Normal. Dog wearing trainers? Normal. Old people dancing with swords in the park? Normal. Paying 20 quid for a bottle of wine? Normal. Getting out of every taxi ride just happy to be alive? Normal. Homeless guy with a pet monkey? Normal. You get the point. The novelty has worn off somewhat. 

That’s not to say I don’t still enjoy it, I do. But there’s few things now that I discover in everyday life that make me go ‘Oh wow that’s so random!’ Maybe now I’m just used to the cacophony of randomness that makes up this city. 

My parents were here a couple of weeks ago (hi mum and dad!) and that was good fun. But it did confirm my point above that nothing really surprises me about China any more. For every exclamation of ‘look at that!’ I was unfazed. But it was also really nice to see Shanghai again from a newbie’s eyes, because when you live here every day you forget how much of a culture shock it was at first.