CDs from Bangkok and Changchun

Our stuff has arrived. 200 boxes of it, cluttering up the apartment. It will take weeks to unpack it all. Strangely anticlimactic. Half of it looks tired and redundant and whyever did we bring it all the way here. Boxes of CDs line the sitting room wall waiting to be put onto shelves yet to be assembled. I suppose everything just needs to find its proper place.

Left Liz to supervise and headed off to the airport for an hour-and-a-half flight to Changchun in Manchuria, not too far from the border with North Korea. It's China's 'motor city' and 'film city', though I'm more aware of its historical interest (China's last Emperor lived here for 13 years) and actually my colleague Jason and I are here for a birthday celebration - see tomorrow. But we have a bit of free time in the evening so Jason - who's an obsessive music fan - takes me to a record shop. Yes, a record shop. Selling bonafide (and not so bonafide) CDs. We spend an hour browsing the racks and I eventually buy quite a few things, mainly Chinese electronic stuff. Let's see what it's like. The shop manager brings out a bowl of water for our hands which are blackened by years of accumulated dust.