It was an incredibly unsettling dream. I haven’t had such an unsettling dream in ages. It was a very paranoid and unrealistic dream also, and worst yet, incredibly irrelevant. Usually my dreams are incredibly relevant. The most recent dream I had when I arrived in England was just a summary of the day’s conversation. But this one was weird, and a little scary. (more…)
Filed under: Attempts, Current events, Internaute, Tangents, Travels | Tags: China, Cities, England, Gifties, Sraffies, Tate Modern
I tried to keep a China blog… it obviously failed. But I’ll be posting random photos from the trip and my memories of them in it, so it won’t be a total waste: http://shuqizaibeijing.wordpress.com/ I’m sorry if the Chinese characters appear as question marks or boxes.
I am in Zone 3, London now staying at teh BFF’s. It’s been a week since I’ve arrive and I haven’t accomplished much in sightseeing, except for when Blondie accompanies me and takes me on rapid tours of major landmarks in Central London. Yesterday we went to the Tate Modern and took a walk along the water. On Wednesday, I met up with Ian and Helen for a mini-Srafcon and after lunch, we wandered around the Harrods toy (Doctor Who toys!) and food sections, and then walked through St. James’s Park. This week I’ll probably try to kickstart the sightseeing since I only have about ten days remaining, three of which will be spent in Belgium (booked by Eurostar): the plan is one day in Antwerpen and one and a half in Bruxelles.
One of the things I love most about London is its age. It’s amazing to see building that have lasted so long… you can’t experience that sort of thing in Toronto. And the vibe a big city has is just something else. I’m glad I’m a city girl, even if my city only has a population of about 3m, compared to about 8m here and 13m in Beijing. I’ll still claim this city girl identity. The Tate had an exhibition about cities. Half of the world’s population now lives in such urban areas. Another sad statistic that Blondie worked out to be one fifth of the world lives in slums. Rosie wrote something about identity in Britain. The UN Secretary General wrote something about immigration in the Guardian. My anthropology professor said something about the majority of the Chinese population floating around as domestic migrants. I’m not sure why those are all relevant ideas, except that they clearly are… they’re just statements in my head right now. There’s something about cities and moving and people.
