u/Beginning_Ear2761

Based in Tokyo in the 80s, a family moves in to a newly built apartment complex for cheap, only a couple of units are occupied and many are still empty. The complex is surrounded by a graveyard, a temple and a funeral crematorium on 3 sides.

Things start happening, neighbours are slowly moving out and the family remains as the sole occupant.

- - -

(Contains spoilers)

As someone who doesn't have the best attention span, even though there wasn't a strong griping aspect, I wanted to keep reading it and binge-read while on a 6h flight.

>!The reason behind why the apartment is haunted feels a little weak, or rather it's not well explained? The pacing is a little slow, and some parts just feels like a regular day. Something about the family child getting bullied in school because she lived in the graveyard apartment and that was it, nothing else follows.!<

>!The paranormal activities aren't that scary either. Glitches and figure on the tv screen that just stayed that way, they could have played that up. Random winds / things? flying around cutting up skin and making people faint, in the creepy basement that's only accessible by a lift that sometimes get stuck. Handprints on the glass door, and maybe a quick look at a figure or silhouette. !<

A lot of things could be expanded on to up the tension and the fear scale. It was good but it also was a bit lacklustre.

It was my first time going China, and solo at that, so I was really nervous since their systems - payment, transport, apps, is totally different from everywhere else I've been. I did my research and prep, and when I got there it was pretty easy making purchases and taking public transport (and really cheap!)

I've learnt Chinese so communication wasn't the biggest issue, although reading is a little but within the AliPay app, there's the translation features that was helpful. And as a visitor, I always try to respect and follow their rules.

I usually always enjoy my solo or non-solo trips, even when there's some troubles along the way but generally very positive thoughts on the place but Shanghai had me....on the fence.

Even though the places are great, the traditional-modern mix of sceneries were enjoyable, I felt something negative for the first time about a place.

It was the people, there's nice and not so nice people everywhere but, when it comes to public etiquette in Shanghai, which is such a big city, I expected people to be a little more cultured.

1. People often push and shove people on buses and trains, cutting in line, especially with older folks. I get it, I come from a city where we are also fast-paced, I'm also here for a short time so I also want do get to as much places as possible (I'm not a slow walker either). But I've never been pushed, shoved, hit, cut so much in a week while trying to get on / off transports. They also tend to touch you on your (lower) backs when trying to get through which made me uncomfortable. I get that China has a LOT of people and I think the crowd control can be improved.
2. Hygiene. I smell...a lot of things, maybe not everyone is a morning-shower-er, that's fine, but coughing, yawning, sneezing, very very few people covers their mouth when they do. I've smelt morning breaths, fish breaths etc. I can visibly see specks of dust in the air, either just dust, pollen, dandruffs or what else, who knows? But something is clearly in the air since everybody is sneezing / coughing unguardedly. Once I was in a queue, I noticed this girl behind me, she's tall and she's pretty, then she started digging her nose.

So, as much I enjoyed the city, these things put me off and made me like the city less, but I also came across nice people who would offer help or nicely help me take photos whom I’m very thankful for. Anyone else who's been to Shanghai or other parts of China experienced anything similar?

It's midnight right now, my dad's watching cdrama in the living room and I was boiling eggs in the kitchen and he scolded me for making a lot of noise at night.

But the thing is, most nights, I'm in my own room - sleeping, reading or watching shows (with earbuds), I don't even drink water past midnight so I rarely ever need the toilet. But when I am up, I try to be quiet cause I don't want to be scolded for not sleeping either, right.

We have a tenant in the spare room, she's been here for a while and I've also noticed how hard she opens and closes the door loudly, she goes to the toilet every hour and I get woken up from shock of the loud noises every hour.

I get woken up when my dad sneezes from the next room in the morning too, I'm a hell of a light sleeper, ask anyone who's been roomies with me, they all say the same thing. I would know best about keeping quiet at night.

I got pissed off from being accused again, I cried out my anger, and after calming down, I went to get my ready-eggs and gave him a piece of my mind looking tear-stricken. And all he had to say was "mm”.

(I didn't tell him earlier because of previous accidents where nothing gets heard, he always jumps the gun, AP likes to link everything tgt and blame you for smth else.)

I haven't read for fun in a long time since I was a child when I used to enjoy it, I was even in the library for club during school days.

Life got serious - homework, papers, documents, work files. Being surrounding by boring words all day, there was no energy left to read anything else. But I picked up manga and manhwas - those are fun, visuals helped.

Then one day, my tiktok algorithm changed to booktok randomly and Uketsu's Strange Pictures kept appearing.

Thriller? - Always enjoy this genre. With images? - Even better. Plot? - Really interesting.

After reading it, I've started finding the joy in reading books, even without visuals, again and it's been a good 6 months and I've hit 28 books!