And so I continue my recap of China 2011 with Part Two in Suzhou and Wuxi!

Another year over and a new one just begun, as the Christmas song goes. I think this year personally was a time of limbo, even though I hadn’t actually intended on it—it simply happened.

I have been quite happily doing my own thing freelancing for a while, learning the scopes, stumbling along the way to be sure, but a little more street-wise and self-aware, which is just going to come with age (or so I imagine). I’ve consolidated my client base, earning new contacts and expanding my network, so I’m growing. Next year I hope to achieve something more secure and stable in my career.

January was spent procrastinating an awful lot, wondering what to do in my post-university state and watching the Australian Open. As you do. And of course I was super excited to see Li Na reach the final. Azn prYde.

In February I got out of my 6 or 7 odd year K-drama dry spell by getting hooked on My Princess, and I mean HOOKED. Following that I watched Que Sera, Sera, Personal Preference and then Sign, so throughout this whole year I only watched two 2011 K-dramas (four K-dramas in total), which is more than enough for me, …

So it’s been just over two weeks since I returned home from my trip to China (which explains my particular absence from the blog, not that that would be noticeable given my blogging track record…) and there is so much to share and reflect on.

I’ll be covering my trip over five posts:

Part 1: A Taste of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing (covered in this post)
Part 2: Breezing Through Suzhou and Wuxi
Part 3: Back in Shanghai
Part 4: Hilarity and High Times in Shanghai
Part 5: When West Marries East (or My Dude Cousin’s Big Fat Chinese -Western Wedding)

(Can you tell that I’m no copy writer?)

Recently (and by recently I mean over the last month) I’ve had tea, brunch and all manner of meals in several interesting places. I am now straying away from the regular cappucinos and other coffees, especially after that near fatal road accident I had several months ago at a roundabout on a main road after I’d had a large latte (it wasn’t even that large). It really shot my nerves (as before that I’d not had a coffee in months), or rather electrified them.

So, it’s been an eventful month for me, to say the least, and I’ve been slacking off in my blogging promises (yet still meeting the once a month quota, hah!). I headed up to Sydney late last month for the Australian Romance Readers Convention, a week later I graduated once more with Honours, and the following Saturday I made my annual pilgrimage to Supanova Expo. I’ll be blogging about all those, and I still need to get round to my thoughts on My Princess (so abominably late, I am), but firstly – graduation!

In the lead-up towards graduation I was feeling pretty off about the whole ordeal; I mean, graduation doesn’t equate to getting a job or a good one at that; it just officially closes that chapter of tertiary study. And now I’m really in a limbo. So there certainly was a sense of finality this time, whereas last year I was joking alongside the other graduates, thinking “oh, I still have all the time in the world!” I’d been through the graduation drill before, yet this year I felt as flustered as ever. Perhaps when I finally get that PhD in the distant future, I will tick …