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Surprise! I’m still around! I’ve been wanting to write the blog all along, but I never seemed to have anything interesting to talk about. Well, now plenty of interesting stuff has happened all at once. We recently came back from a two-week trip of a lifetime to China. The main excuse for the visit was the World Congress of the International Federation of Translators, which was held in Shanghai (but really, it just gave us a great reason to visit a fascinating place).

Our first stop and the place we returned to in between other visits was Shanghai. Apparently, because the city doesn’t have many scenic historical spots, they have really invested into the modern aspects of it, and making it look good at night. It was a pretty amazing place, night or day.

The city is on an astounding scale that’s impossible to even understand when you come from a small place. The population of Shanghai is more than three times the population of Finland. That’s right: all of Finland. One day we travelled for more than hour to get to Hongqiao airport and we never once left what you might call the city proper. It’s also obvious that the city is growing at an incredible pace. The whole place is one big building site. Apparently, 10-15 years ago there was only one skyscraper in the Pudong area (pictured above). And now:

More than anything, Tony and I love roaming around new cities on foot to get a feel of its shape and layout and to discover places on our own, to get an idea of the “real” city. I especially loved the older parts of the town, with their markets, fruit sellers, street kitchens, people playing cards on the street… Everywhere was noisy, packed with people and traffic (cars, buses, taxis, bicycles, electric motorbikes and more… and apparently the traffic rules don’t apply to any of these vehicles), and full of life. And so colourful!

One of the most amazing things to look at was the architecture, which ranged from century-old colonial (?) buildings on their last legs, being held up by bamboo scaffolding…

To fantastic modern creations, where no limits seem to have been imposed on the architects’ creativity:

The place at the forefront in the last picture is the International Convention Center, which hosted the FIT Congress. There I gave a presentation (entitled Bilingual Opera Surtitling):

A little backstory on this: being the strange person that I am, every so often I feel the need to stretch myself and find new challenges (see: wall climbing last year). So last summer I suddenly got the idea that I could give a presentation at the congress… an idea that seemed good at the time but quickly developed into what was I thinking?! once the presentation topic was approved and I started preparing it. Typical of me. But anyway, I seem to have got through it with dignity, and hopefully people understood some of my very fast speech. At least it looks like I’m smiling in the picture. (I have a vague recollection of making some jokes??)

Anyway, the rest of my Shanghai pics are here. More on China soon!

I just can’t believe it. My mind’s boggled, in fact.

Yesterday my running buddy Susanna and I completed our first half-marathon, running all the way, in a time of 2:39:43. Amazing! I just can’t get over it. If you’d told me a couple of years ago that I would be doing it, I would have laughed. Actually, if you’d told me a couple of weeks ago, I would have laughed, too, because I only found out last Wednesday that I was doing it!

It was hard work and we were pretty slow (sorry I held you back, Susa), but the consolation is that we can only improve from here!

This is us, curving into the final 50 metres of the run. It felt pretty magical coming into the Olympic stadium, like proper runners you see on TV.

At the beginning, among those masses of people (7,500 runners), I felt sure that someone would tap me on the shoulder and tell me to get out. Surely they could tell that I wasn’t a real runner? That I was a fake? Just there by accident? I felt so out of place.

I guess now I’m on the way to believing someday I’ll be able to think of myself, if not as a “runner”, then at least as “someone who runs” (as opposed to “someone who waddles along half-heartedly a couple of times a week”). At one point (at about 19 km) the whole thing seemed like a pretty bad idea, but I’m so glad I didn’t give up!

This was our route:

Yay for us! And in case anyone out there is thinking of taking up running, I can honestly say that if I can do it, you can. Whoever would have thought…

 

Leskenlehti (Tussilago farfara): Coltsfoot - one of our first flowers of spring.

A bold little visitor that didn’t mind posing at all.

There is something very special about hanging out the washing on the line for the first time each spring. Call me silly, but for me it’s one of life’s little luxuries…

Even the sun is starting to poke its head out now and then. It too feels luxurious:

When I was writing this I came across Posie’s very different “Signs of Spring” and it made me think about how much more modest our spring is here, with our muted, earthy colours and the dark soil that is only just beginning to wake up. Somehow it feels that such an explosion of colour would be inappropriate after the long winter, that we need some time to adjust… Here the colour kind of creeps up on you much more subtly. We have a way to go yet before our explosion of colour begins. For now, we’ll have to have a little colour therapy indoors:

It’s with great sadness that I have to tell you that mum’s dear boy, Freddie the Spanish greyhound, passed away recently. He was complex, stubborn, self-centred and obnoxious, but also sweet, calm, playful and oh so lovable! We will all miss him greatly. *Sniff*

So regal!

Of course you can never replace a lost family member, but when dogs make up such a large part of your life, you just can’t be without them for very long. They work their way back into your life pretty soon! This little cutie, who goes by the name of Harold, is testing the water at mum’s house currently. Looks like a keeper!

I’m off to a christening and a conference, but I leave you with a couple of pictures of Helsinki on a rare day of winter beauty we had last week. Otherwise it’s just been slush, slush, slush and mud, mud, mud.

See you in about a week’s time!