We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at uh...

I've just realised the thing that bugs me most about Shanghai. Sure, the people can be a bit surly at times, the pollution's pretty bad and martrydom is just a step away from crossing the road, but none of those things really bother me that much. What's bugging me most of all is that I can't see any stars in the sky at night. Sure, it may sound petty, but it's only when something's gone that you really realise how much it meant to you. In NZ I'd walk home at night and sometimes just stop in my tracks and gaze at the sky. And it may sound odd for an atheist to say this, but it made me feel part of something so much bigger, that there was so much more out there to discover and so much that'll forever remain unknown. Here in Shanghai though, I look up and all I see is, well, nothing. Just a big greyish-white gap where the sky should be. No clouds, no stars, no sun, no moon. Just nothing, like an enormous blind spot. Whether day or night, it always seems to be the same colour, that depressing washed-out grey. I never thought something I took for granted so much would feel so important. Hell, I never even considered that I took it for granted. Sometimes it really is the little things that seem to matter most.