Ok, well here's the deal. I'm actually not in Vietnam any more, I'm in Shanghai in China. I arrived last night.
Wow. Shanghai is... amazing. The taxi ride from the airport pretty much blew my mind. Things are done on a totally different scale here than in Australia. Things are so familiar in many ways, but feels like I'm in a parallel universe.

Before I left Vietnam I started a writing a travel blog to document my travels in one place. You can read it at kombisaurus.blogspot.com
But the trouble is, now I'm in China and it seems all the blogs on blogspot.com are blocked! doh.
I've tried a few of the free proxies to circumvent things, but it seems a lot of the simple free loopholes have been blocked these days. I'm only in China for a short time so I don't really want to pay for a VPN, and it only really affects my blog and facebook (a good excuse not to use facebook), so I think I'll just lump it and wait until I leave before I post more to my blog.

So anyway, after spending all of today without being able to have a single conversation with anyone in English (in fact I haven't seen a single westerner at all today), I'm feeling a bit conversation-starved... Shuttertalk to the rescue!

I didn't do much today, just wandered around a bit trying to get my bearings and find something interesting to look at and eat. I'm not in the tourist district at all it seems, and while I don't mind that, I really have for the first time in my life had to live a day with an almost 100% language barrier. I was ordering food with no idea whatsoever what it would be, and receiving instructions I couldn't understand. It wasn't what I'd call fun. Confusing, fascinating, a bit frustrating, and definately a learning experience. These are the kind of challenges I came here for.

But I won't talk too much. Instead I'll just post some photos from today.


1. & 2. The view from my hotel room of the tower blocks that are everywhere.


3. A man sweeps autumn leaves below my room. 4. Exercise equipment is located in many public spaces.


5. This park was underneath an elevated motorway which looms about 13 storeys above. 6. I was really surprised how deserted some of the streets were.

Thanks for posting the photos and information here. I'm also looking through your blog and at the gallery you have to support it - it's quite the travelogue. I'm very impressed, and hope you're able to keep it up. No pressure, though.

Love the shot of the sweeper.

Great blog by the way.

Thanks guys.

I'm slipping behind on the blog... trying to get back up to date a bit tonight.
I arrived in Beijing today! No pics yet. I'm having trouble keeping up with myself...

Love especially the first and third photo. The contrast of light and darkness on different sides of the building is what makes the cityscape impressive. What lens did you use for it, a normal wide angle or a fisheye? The sweeper photo is maybe even better, the leaves and different shapes give it a very graphic look with the cleaner providing a human touch, just the way I like these types of images.