So Long Summer

My flight leaves Pudong International Airport. After three glorious months in this screwed up country I've accrued more memorable experiences than in a whole year at home. Good bye China. Good bye Shangers. Good bye Pudong. Good bye Zhangyang Lu. Good bye overcrowded buses, overcrowded metro, overcrowded streets and overcrowded restaurants. Good bye family mart with your chewy dragees (mentos). Good bye big daddy roach that lives under my sink. Good bye fake rolex peddlers. Good bye street food... mmmm street food. Good bye "Jackie Chan" and your scrumptious noodles. So long "Jet Li" and your horribly addictive smack grass (bamboo) and pigs heart skewers. Good bye wagas, element fresh, malone's and all other western food establishments. Good bye Cloud 9, Bar Rouge, Barbarossa, I Love Shanghai, Windows Scoreboard, Face Bar, Red Room, Manhattan, Peoples 6 and your all you can drink nights, ladies nights, chilled nights, overpriced and underpriced drinks. Good bye KTV and all the shenanigans involving tambourines and microphones whilst singing Backstreet Boys. Good bye Rojam and your foam, Guandii and your wannabe-black chinese dj and his hilarious texts to Ras, Zapatas for your old and sleazy germans and italians, cheese music and dirty pints, Bon Bon for such incredible guest djs, Babyface for your rude locals. Good bye creepy rundown apartment with an underground party for trendy contributors to art galleries. Good bye Nanjing Lu for all your Beijing students wanting to sell me art, Maoming Lu for the pub crawl, Tongren, Hengshan and Julu Lu for your over abudance of hookers, Peoples Park for everyone wanting to speak english to me. Good bye Xintiandi and brunch at Kabb with fantastic BLTs, Eggs Benedict and Banana pancakes. Good bye Antiques Market, Fabric Market, Fakes Market, Qipu. Good bye Old Shanghai Tea House and everything you embody in Old Town. Good bye to all the hacking, spitting, nose picking, ear picking, long fingernails and all unhygienic behavior in general. Good bye Shanghai rain, Shanghai sun, Shanghai lightening and thunder, Shanghai humidity. Good bye "watch, bag, dvd, sexy dvd, yellow". Good bye illegal dvds shops. Good bye Asian Colonel Sanders. Good bye Take My Taxi, white taxi, wu chi wu chi wu chi chi chi and all drivers that let us cram five people in. Good bye and good riddance to all the taxi drivers that could never understand where I wanted to go and couldn't even read chinese directions. Good bye Fuxing tunnel and thank you for never being jammed. Good bye Bund, roller skaters, kite flyers photo happy tourists. Good bye bund sight seeing tunnel and thank you for showing me what being on acid is like without me actually having to do it. Good bye fake EVERYTHING and I do mean everything. Good bye poker nights, dvds nights, football (soccer) nights and clubbing nights. Good bye getting stared at... Good bye TPA Shanghai, Kay, Carrie, Tommy, Kevin, Lilly, Jeff, Chrissy, Pauly, Scott, Starbucks Girl, Dream Bar Girls, Angel, Little Fish, Bin Bin, Aileen, Donna, Alex, Rodell, Benny, Aussie Jeff and all other non-tpa people I've met since being here. I won't say good bye to TPA people because you all know I shall be seeing you again, in England, in America, wherever you are. Good bye to dodgy food, dodgy stomach and the inability to flush toilet paper down the bowl. Good bye Xinhua Hospital and all the doctors so willing and helpful and all the nurses amazing at my ability to use chopsticks. Good bye to throwing caution to the wind, avoiding responsibility and forgetting all the obligations I have at home. So many things to more to say good bye to, so many things I feel like I'm leaving behind. I know most people have left Shanghai feeling like they've left a part of themselves behind.... I've felt like I've found a part of myself that I can take with me. Question is, will I find more with each country I go to? Will I lose those pieces when removed from those countries, from that atmosphere? What new adventures will India bring? What else will it reveal to me about myself, about the world and about medicine? Let's wait and see what happens. Oh yeah, one last thing. Good bye hair! Hello mohawk! MMMM smack grass.

Stronger

Miles and miles ahead to go
Rain may pour and wind may blow
Higher mountains you will climb
Go on
Taking one step at a time
Come on

Though your weary body ache
And though you ask what it will take
And though your head keeps saying no
The more you tread the more you grow
The more you know


Oh Breathe it out and breathe it in
And don't give in
Don't give in
Yeah

Miles and miles you will have been
Mountain views you will have seen
And though it felt like a bitter pain
Come on
All you had you had to gain

Strong, getting stronger
Pain, pain no longer
And so, still you grow

Breathe it out and breathe it in
Breathe it out and breathe it in
And don't give in
Don't give in

Stronger
Stronger
Give it all, give everything
Give it out and don't give in
Breathe it out and breathe it in
Breathe it out and breathe it in
Breathe it out and breathe it in
Breathe it out and breathe it in

Before you know it, you could win

Public Symphony