33/365

A Shanghai city bus seen through a rainy taxi window.

32/365

Project 365, Day 32
Painting my livingroom. The painter we hired to do the job decided to
go back to his hometown for Chinese New Year so I'm painting it myself.

31/365

Project 365 Day 31
Chinese New Year decorations on our neighbour's door.

30/365

The dreaded wait at the bank.

29/365

Alarm clocks made by the children in my nursery class.

28/365

Back to our regular Shanghai winter gloom and glare.

27/365

Project 365 Day 27
A rare blue sky in Shanghai

26/364

Project 365 Day 26
Firstly, Happy Australia Day (or Happy Invasion Day, as the case may
be).
Today's photo is of a sign seen painted all over Shanghai. The sign
'chai' means to demolish, and the buildings it is painted on are
slated for destruction. They are being pulled down for many reasons,
some out of concern for health/saftey, others to make way for roads/
subways, but most are just pulled down to make way for a brand new
highrise. It is a real shame because the old culture of Shanghai is
literally being destroyed whole city blocks at a time. The residents
of these buildings are compensated, but not at a level that would
allow them to live in the same area, so in effect it relocates large
numbers of a lower socio-economic sector of society to the
outskirts of the city.
In effect, the symbol is seen as the mark of death.

25/365

Project 365 Day 25
Despite it's sometimes advanced technology, bamboo scaffolding is
still a very common site in Shanghai.

24/365

Project 365 Day 24
Kids at a Chinese New Year art project I was helping to run yesterday painting (the bottom half of) a Chinese dragon.

"I'm an analogue girl in a digital world"

Follow-up

This is a follow-up photo for todays 365 post: the finished piece. Not
bad for their age if you ask me.

23/365

Project 365 Day 23
Instead of planting according to the climate, the incredibly smart
city planners of Shanghai plant tropical flora then wrap them against
the cold for half the year. Looks good, huh?

22/365

Not an uncommon site: groceries unceremoniously carted around on their way home to become dinner. Yes, those are chicken legs.

21/365

Project 365 day 21

Anyone complaining that girls grow up too fast these days should come
to china- the general complaint is that women don't grow up fast
enough. Obsessed with Barbie and Hello Kitty, women in Shanghai hold
on to their youth so tightly it has claw marks in it. My current co-
teacher has a doll which she plays with and buys clothes for, my
former co-teacher gave me a Hello Kitty knife fork and spoon kit for
Christmas, and Phil's former receptionist carried her tea around in a
pink Cinderella thermos.
This "bouquet" is a perfectly acceptible gift for your girlfriend-
yes, that's a bunch of skewered pink teddy bears surrounded by
glitter and feathers.

20/364

Project 365 day 20
A street-side bicycle repair shop

19/365

Project 365 day 19
A hair salon drying it's towels on the footpath.

18/365

Sometimes paying your bills can be hard enough, deciphering them in
another language can be downright madness!

17/365

Project 365 Day 17
Shanghai is a city of endless construction at the best of times, but
this construction is currently being done at a frenetic pace in a vain
attempt to complete all public works before the Expo.

16/365

Project 365 day 16
My good friend Denise on the left and her 'friend of a friend' Cathy,
who I discovered lived two streets away from where I grew up in the
Blue Mountains, Australia... It's a small world after all.

15/365

Project 365 Day 15
It has been so cold the last few days that the large fish pond at my
school has frozen over. The fish are at the bottom in serious
hybernation mode- I wouldn't want to be in their shoes... Or flippers.
I have been amusing myself by throwing a pebble into the pond in front
of my class and watching their eyes go wide with disbelief when it
just DID NOT SINK! I love how easy it is to blow the minds of two year
olds.