Ha ha...am blogging....

Oh my god...I am wiriting a blog...not really sure why...I think I was inspired after watching Julie and Julia last night..although unlike the character I am definately not going to be cooking over 500 recipes in one year...you are lucky if I cook one recipe in a year.

So greetings from shanghai. Not really sure anyone will read this blog and can't believe its taken me 4.5 years of being in shanghai to start one. It could be crap...it could be good...it certainly won't be every day..maybe just when I have some funny stories to tell about life in shanghai as an expat with no work (thats why I am still sat here in my dressing gown at 11.30 on a tuesday morning). Of course my first problem writing this blog is that I couldn't actually access the website...its banned here...the joys of living here is access to certain internet sites is limited. However using a sneaky little tool that tricks my computer into thinking its in the UK...here I am...However often I write it will certainly be about the strange love/hate relationship I have with this city.

Am guessing it will mainly be my pals that read this and you know all about me. If there are any strangers reading this...as you have guessed I have been living in shanghai since Oct 2005...I came over here with my bloke jobs...however I have been lucky enough to not work (not totally my choice..some of the reasons are out of my control, becauses I am not chinese, because of visa, because I don't want to teach etc etc) since I arrived and am therefore know as a 'tai tai' which basically means housewife in chinese...I have an Msc so never intended to become a housewife. Life as a tai tai basically entails sitting around drinking coffee with my pals...its just the way it is....although to be fair its not just drinking coffee...tea too :))))

The above is not true. I am actually quite busy most days. Its actually quite easy to keep busy here if you dont work as everything takes twice as long to do....you sometimes have to visit 3 different supermarkets to buy the ingredients for one nights dinner...no asda or tesco (as we know it...ignore what Piers Morgan said on his programme) here. We do have carrefour but that is one huge bun fight often with MASSIVE trollies that you can not steer for toffee and if you are perusing the goods on the shelf and have dared to leave a small gap between you and them..someone will come and stand in it..oh and they are quite fond of looking in our trollies to see what the 'laowei' are buying. You need to enter carrefour in a suit of body armour and the patience of an extremely saintly saint. There will be pushing and shoving and maybe tears. When you go to a shop say to buy some tylenol (no panadol here) you go to the counter, explain badly want you want, they then give you a hand written receipt for it, you then have to go to another counter to use the till to pay for it, she will then give you another receipt which you take back to the original person and ta da..you get your tylenol...twice as long as going to boots.

So back to how I fill my days...shopping that takes twice as long although I forgot to mention that we have M and S now with a small food hall which is my saving grace. Ok so there is charity work that we do, learning chinese although I gave that up...twice...I couldnt hear the tones and was convinced I was swearing at them the whole time although I am excellet at shopping chinese.SHopping is of course one of THE things to do here if you are a tai tai.....it is certainly fake/knock off central here and my handbag collection has grown profusely while I have been here...everyone knows about it...it all goes on..there are even big markets and 'secret' shops dedicated to it but more about shopping at a later date I think.

The main thing I do to keep myself occupied is I have gone back to school...welll OU...at the age of 36 I am still a student!!!!!!! Quite embarassing really but it keeps my brain ticking over and I wierdly quite enjoy doing it. Probably because there are no exams :)))

Anyway I really do need to get out of my dressing gown and start the day...well the afternoon...
Bye for now
Cxxx