Classic FW

Oh, hello! It has been a while, eh? Let’s not dwell on why, shall we? Big changes are afoot and this hiatus is coming to an end!

Speaking of words with h, i and a in them, I just got back from Shanghai! And Hong Kong! But I lost my phone, which is also my camera, so all my photos are gone! Which sucks terribly, yes, but in fact, is, as my co-adventurer friend Mike would say, classic FW:

This photo I stole from Mike. I do not know what kind of wacky kids Christmas display we ended up at in Hong Kong (in one of the NINE BILLION malls in Hong Kong; seriously! there is a mall in every metro station, the bus stations, every business center, every 100 yards practically. Even the Peak has a mall!) but there were weird pop-art statues, a million name tags on the ground, some of which contained curse words, and one of which was for a “fatwest.” My new nickname, quickly shortened to “FW.”

When I confused a restaurant opening I was at with a bat mitzvah? “Oh, FW.” When I spilled my coffee/water/whatever on myself? “Typical FW.” I don’t know why I don’t find being the butt of so many jokes objectionable. I quite enjoy it, actually.

And Hong Kong and Shanghai were amazing. I actually forgot about work for the most part for the first 7 days, in large part due to having no real working internet and no cellular reception. I ate Thanksgiving dinner at M on the Bund. I ate dumplings from street vendors and bought a purse at the fake market that I immediately regretted purchasing and which made everything in my suitcase smell like fish. I went to a bar called Chillax. I marveled at the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum’s statistics that 900,000 HOUSEHOLDS have been relocated into new housing over the last few years. That is nearly FIVE MILLION PEOPLE. Just moved! Can you imagine that here? Nutters.

AND I came home to chilly fall weather, the first night of Hanukkah, Christmas lights up everywhere, holiday party invitations arriving in my inbox, just general happiness. I’m going to hold onto this feeling, and try not to let the daily slog steal it away for as long as I can. Maybe the jet lag haze will help keep the onslaught of reality at bay. It certainly helped my lock myself out of my apartment at 4:50 this morning. Classic FW.