Designer in China- The View from My Room.

I would love to paint you a picture of how beautiful it is here. But, sadly, this is pretty much what it looks like in Wuxi. I'd say Shanghai is different, & it is, but only that there are more people & the buildings are taller. That icky smoggy sky is just that, pollution. I haven't seen but a few glimpses of the sun since I've been here. Sometimes it's a glowing red ball you see if you look up, otherwise you wouldn't even know it's there. I miss the sun.

All of the pollution & smoking (OMG they smoke everywhere here!!!) has made me sick. I've spent the weekend coughing & being generally gross in my room. I did do some laundry in the bathtub:) Traveling is interesting. I'm not sure I'll ever be up for such a long trip without any friends or my sweet man again. I'm not actually sure this type of travel is my thing. I know that's not a popular thing to say. I'm just not a eat the head of an animal type of adventurer. I've stuck with mostly vegetables so far.

I hope your weekend is lovely!

Jamie

Designer in China

"We haven't got a plan so nothing can go wrong!" -Spike Milligan

I have been working this entire year, devoting nearly my entire life to this project. I'm in China now to "complete" it. However, by the photo above you can guess that's not going to happen anytime soon. I'm designing 2 homes in Wuxi, China. They are in a residential development similar to US subdivisions, but they are called Villas. This is phase one of this developement & I am designing the interiors for the clubhouse & 1 model. The NY Times did an article about the very type of developement I'm working on, which you can find here. The difference is these homes are not modern or contemporary, they want French/Italian/American style;)

I have so much to tell you about this project & working in China. As the end of this article says... “You want to avoid clients who don’t know anything about building,” he says. “They won’t respect you; they’ll try to change things along the way". This isn't exactly the issue here, the issue is the budget, which doesn't have a real life figure, but rather one that appears anytime it's time to buy something. This may be the ideal that pushes me out of my mind;)

The culture is considerably different, so many websites are blocked so it's hard to work let alone read blogs. Blogger & Typepad are blocked, well blogger is, I just can't see any images on Typepad. Youtube is blocked. There is a snippet from Lost in Translation that I desperately want to show you. It's the scene where Bill Murray's character is being shot for the whiskey advertisement, the photographer goes on & on in Japanese & the translator tells him something like, "smile nicely". Bill Murray says, are you sure that's all he said, I'm pretty sure he said more than that & the translator says, no that is all. Then it turns out it wasn't because he's not doing the poses like the photographer wants. That's my life here. Tangled & lost in translation.

I'll have more pictures & a more interesting post sooooon!!

Jamie

Montreal.

Montreal is such an amazing city. We saw so much of it but I can't wait to go back sometime. I went up for my college roommates wedding. She got married 40 miles outside of Montreal in this amazing small town at the base of a mountain. I'm DYING to go back there & poke around. Small town charm gets me every time. We stayed in a hotel in the middle of everything. The hotel was nice but nothing special. I prefer to not go overboard on hotel expenses when I travel, unless I'm going specifically for the hotel. We flew in to Burlington Vermont & drove to Montreal. We got a deal on a cool rental so it was fun having our own car. Although we walked EVERYWHERE & took the subway we didn't take the car except to the wedding festivities. Public transportation is so great.

The people of Montreal are so hip & chic. The city is active & earth conscious & clean. It was a great time. The culture difference between there & Houston is insane. The attitude in Montreal seems so much more relaxed & easy going. Fun times all around! Have you been before? That was my first trip to Canada. Where else should I visit in Canada?

How's your week going?? I'm accomplishing my to do lists! Slowly but surely I'll get there. My completions are finally catching up with my additions!

Jamie