ni hao, it's nika on tour: Shanghai 2015

Hi there, I am sorry for not posting such a long time, but as you maybe know, Google is one of the sites that are censored in China! It was annoying that I could not translate worlds fastly or search for something on the internet. And of course I was sad that I could not share my first days in this amazing metropole with you on the social networks. Finally, I managed it to download a vpn programme, which allows me to visit the most important social networks such as Facebook and Google.

So, I had great first 2 weeks. As I have already been here in the same place 3 years ago, it is really nice to be back and recognize places, people and habits. For instance, most of the people still can't speak or understand any English word (it will be probably an important business man, if he doesn't talk back to you in chinese). Moreover, one can still see the big culture differences of the country. Not far away from a luxury shopping mall, one can sometimes see people dressed in a Pijama, doing barbecue and selling it for less than 1 Euro.
However, a lot of things have changed and it's interesting to notice that. For example the chinese market changed in my eyes. They still like to copy the European and American lifestyle, not important if that are clothes or is food. But now, everything becomes so similar to the original, that the city seems loose it's own flair and chinese culture traditions.
Me personally, I see more and more french bakeries and McDonald's or Sturbucks cafes, such as H&M, Forever21 and luxury boutiques. They are seen more often than typical small chinese tea houses with dessert or soup, noodle or seafood restaurants.

You can see a few of my first impressions on the pictures, but I think the next 2 months I will post more. I had tasty food, went ro temples, the amazing city centre, saw the beautiful skyline and went out to the greatest night clubs. And happily I already met nice girls who like to explore the city with me either in day or in night time, when we're free of castings. Castings...To be honest, I am so annoyed of sitting in the huge tourist(!!) bus which takes us sometimes longer than 2 hours from one casting to another. I am just waiting, wishing and hoping for jobs that take me out of the bus. Of course it's also often funny to drive all together, or it is a good sleeping break after a long night, or its the time to read a book or write a blog post :)

So, I am looking forward to a test shoot that I will have this Sunday and my first Chinese lesson in the evening.
This thoughts and adventures distract me from thinking how much I miss my family, my friends, my boyfriend, my dog and my own room in Germany. But actually I would be happy if they would come here at least for a few days, just seing me, talking in real and adventure some of the things I do. Let's see how it develops. How long can I stand without my lovely peole and how much I will like and get used to the people here.

Stay tuned and follow to read more every week (I'll try my best to post more than once a week but it's difficult).

Enjoy ! With love,

Your Nika