tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post2002827261641008655..comments2024-01-08T19:49:13.932+00:00Comments on Froogville: Slowdown - what slowdown?Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-50561022185048196552012-04-12T15:55:22.382+00:002012-04-12T15:55:22.382+00:00Yeah -- it was Kunming I remembered from an earlie...Yeah -- it was Kunming I remembered from <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2011/10/list-of-month-cities-where-i-might-have.html" rel="nofollow">an earlier post</a> (although I had to look it up just now, heh).<br /><br />"Back" may seem temporary. A couple of my family will be staying with us from this afternoon well into Monday, and although they know of my online jones* it would be awfully tacky to indulge it while they're here!<br /><br />___________________<br /><br />* Hmm. Where does that usage come from, anyhow...?JEShttp://johnesimpson.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-57739751374585820962012-04-12T00:25:50.172+00:002012-04-12T00:25:50.172+00:00Nice to have you back, JES.
The natural environme...Nice to have you back, JES.<br /><br />The natural environment in Tianjin might be <i>slightly</i> nicer (I caught it on the first day of spring, with fresh breezes blowing in from the coast), but it is one of the ugliest cities I've ever visited. Much of the city centre is constructed in that grandiose but severely plain modernist style the Communists were so fond of. It was trying to look very futuristic; and in the 1950s or early 1960s, it might even seem to have succeeded. But it dated very rapidly. Tianjin's the kind of place that at once seems oddly familiar. Then you realise it's like a rundown version of the cityscapes you saw as a kid in <i>The Jetsons</i>.<br /><br />There are other cities in China I'd consider living in (Kunming, Suzhou... maybe Shanghai); but I can't relocate anywhere without a visa.Frooghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-20171861085423717402012-04-11T17:35:40.086+00:002012-04-11T17:35:40.086+00:00Wow -- Tianjin sounds positively idyllic, next to ...Wow -- Tianjin sounds positively idyllic, next to some of your accounts of Beijing. Are you considering a halfway solution to your whether-or-not-to-leave-China dilemma -- a relocation just to a different city?JEShttp://johnesimpson.com/noreply@blogger.com