Dis -- Connect

There are a lot of things for me to write about – you know, like what I’ve been doing for the past 2 months. But let me just start right …here…and work backwards.

I’m in Sydney, Australia now, and this is where I’ll stay through mid-August. I was in China for a little over 2 weeks before, and I would have loved to write all about it in a timely manner. Sadly, access to my blog was blocked by the Chinese government. In fact, internet access has apparently been blocked repeatedly in recent months by the government. When I first arrived in Shanghai in June, access to google and gmail had just been restored, and sometime after the 4th of July access to facebook was blocked (http://www.examiner.com/x-15615-Asia-Headlines-Examiner~y2009m7d8-Facebook-Twitter-inaccessibility-makes-China-expats-feel-disconnected). Apparently it’s due to the riots in northwestern China, but I haven’t heard too much about those either (probably a combination of censorship and lack of news seeking, but I did hear that Palin resigned and Michael Jackson died. I’m getting all the important news, right?)

While I was in China before I knew that my access to youtube was completely gone and that skype was iffy, but google? Facebook? Call it what you will, but I feel a deep seeded need for those! With the right combination of sites being blocked I would have no way to contact people back in the US other than phone (and goodness knows I do not use those while abroad).

But now I can breath a sigh of relief; a *ahem* thorough google search revealed no disruptions in Australian internet access. Hell, I may even be able to keep my same skype name for the entire time I’m here!

And to fully catch you up on what I’ve been up to: I ordered a pair of boots. Fingers crossed that they’re less drama than the dresses!