My own place!

I’m writing on my computer in my ‘own’ house here in Shanghai. My Address is: Gao’an Lu 30, for the people that know this city. It doesn’t feel like home yet, but it doesn’t feel strange. I think I can quickly feel at ease in this place. It’s about 80 m2 in total. I have a living room, a bedroom and a little office-room. The furniture is quite basic and not super stylish, but nice and functional (let’s hope it doesn’t break quickly). If I look out off my window now I see the lively nightlife of this neighborhood – it's very exciting. Even if you stay at home on a Saterday night (like ‘boring’ me), you feel part of this energy on the streets. And I just found out I can spot the famous TV-tower from my window (real cool)! I already met my neighbor in the elevator. He is an Americans guy – so at least I can talk with him, and he can probably help me to find my way around 'tha hood' - Good restaurants, bars, shops, etc. etc.

This week has gone very quick - like everyday here (like live in general – but I don’t want to get philosophical here). The week was actually quite relaxing with three quiet nights at home in a row from Tuesday until Thursday. However, right now I feel totally exhausted. The result of partying until 5 am yesterday, moving all my stuffs to the new place in the early afternoon, go to IKEA and buy sheets, glasses, plates, etc. etc. And also did my first music activity today. I’m playing jazz bass with four nice people – I really have to do some homework on my bass the coming days, because they already had three lessons together and learned some songs. For me everything was new and I could hardly keep up with everything. However it’s great to be able to make music in China, and I’m totally motivated to get this jazz bass thing working.

My work for the Baak has been going well, even with my computer-situation. It toke me a few hours, and I had to hire a Chinese software specialist, but I got it working again. The sad news is I lost quite some files – it’s no crises, because I also made some back-ups from the most important stuff. Further I met many Dutch people (which is primairy target group here for the Baak). There are so many many Dutch here – sometimes I don’t even feel I'm on the other side of the world. Especially my conversations last Thursday with somebody from Philips were very interesting and nice. So I'm totally not bored and didnt got crazy (yet) here in China. I'm looking forward to start my third week in this dynamic place!

Ok, I will have one drink with a friend in the Cotton Club (a nice bluesy / jazz bar), before I’m off to bed – my ‘own’ bed in my ‘own’ house.