Moon asked if Shanghai is a good place to live.
as usual, i'm quite pleased with the flow of my inspired reply, which i shall reproduce for your reading pleasure:

[ymchan]: fren, look on the bright side. it doesn't matter even if u don't like SH. u have to still come. Rob wants to come, and i am here. how bad can that be?
[Moon]: did u hv a chance to check out SH before ur posting?
[ymchan]: for 2 days. anyway it's like gg for a job interview. u won't really know until u r in.
[Moon]: hmm, alright. is it similar to SP?
[ymchan]: its the same and different in a lot of ways. just think abt London to you. its the same.
[Moon]: i like london. i didn't realise how quiet things are here.
on my way to work, there was no sound other than traffic.
[ymchan]: i think SH is big enough to be as quiet or as loud as you want. you have your choice. which, if you really think about it, is what we love about living elsewhere other than singapore. it doesn't matter where. so long as the place's big enough for u to have a choice to the kind of life u want.
[Moon]: true. but i thot SH is also q restrictive, after all, its still a communist country
[ymchan]: Moon. this place has no religion. no customs. no traditions. that must be the greatest misconception ever...they can eat chewing gums and set off firecrackers here.
[Moon]: haha