So I started this morning at a garden that was only so-so, and from there caught a river bus to Asakusa (I was there earlier this week as well). Apparently the main feature of the river is the 50-something bridges which span it. They were fine.
The highlight of my day focused around the (world-famous) Asakusa samba carnival. It was crowded, but the crowd did not feel like they were in the middle of a carnival. Besides quiet talking to each other, they could have been at Symphony hall they were so polite. Not even slight tapping of the feet to very energetic music. I ended up getting packed in between a few other people in a rather uncomfortable manner, and this old man next to me had face spasms. I swear he was about to faint from heat stroke, as it was ridiculously hot. I got bored after a while and went wandering around, eventually parking myself after the end of the parade, so I got to watch the people walk by in costume from a sitting position, and although I didn't get the music, most of the dancing wasn't anything special, so seeing them walk by was great.
Once I got bored of that I then wandered further, and decided that I needed one picture taken of me in Tokyo, to prove that I was actually here rather than downloading photos from the net. So I asked a nearby foreigner if he would do the honors, and got a photo with some of the be-feathered, almost-naked ladies for posterity. We then got to talking, and watched more exhausted parade dancers and musicians walk by. After about an hour we headed over to the Asakusa temple, where I give a big shout out to Amy, the Adams House tutor, who I ran into. Despite neither of us remembering the other's name at the time, it was quite exciting to see a familiar face and so surreal.
So the guy I met (I think his name was John) and I walked around the temple together, took photos, threw some money (literally threw, as in tossed over other's heads) into the collection box, and saw the last act in the parade, which was actually really good. They had actually rehearsed their act a lot and knew what they were doing, which put them pretty far ahead everyone else. But for this I will defnitely have to send you to the photos, which in this case speak much louder than words. You will be able to see the anti-smoking campaign, little unenthusiastic baton twirlers, and rows upon rows of feathers. Captions will, naturally, be included, and I hope you enjoy. Photos from all of Japan will begin to go up when I get home (tomorrow!). Best!
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
Day 4 in Tokyo: It's fishy!
Day 4 in Tokyo:
Although it was cloudy today, there was no rain, so up I got at the crack of dawn and headed to Tsukiji. The place was huge (think about twice the size of a large Target or Wal-mart, but twice as crowded and with fish!) and had row upon row upon row of all things that grow in the sea. Probably the coolest thing was the live octopi, the second coolest thing the bivalves that were about the size of dinner plates, and third coolest thing the half-tunas that I saw being butchered (if they come in frozen the butcher uses a jigsaw to cut it apart). Other things I saw, in no particular order: clams the size of my thumbnail, crabs with spikes, sea urchins, red snappers, flounder, eels, live and dead, baby octopi, squid, shrimp the length of my hand, dried shrimp less than a centimeter long, little normal crabs, live scallops, giant oysters, a mountain of Styrofoam, frozen fish large and small, a guy going at the fish with a pickaxe, tuna coffins (the boxes tuna are shipped in), and that’s the highlights of Tsukiji. If you want more info on it, I would recommend Prof. Bestor’s book aptly titled Tsukiji. He’s the world’s foremost academic expert on the place.
After the market I went to grab a sushi breakfast, which was fun. I somehow ended up at another empty place, but ordered the chef’s plate. I was watching the sushi chef prepare my fish when all of a sudden a plate was put in front of me. It was uni, but not the short, brown eel on rice that you get at American places. No no, this was a normal sized piece of sushi rice with an 8-inch fillet placed on top with sauce. It was sooo good. I learned you shouldn’t eat sushi with your hands, no matter what the New York Times suggests (one of the chefs made a face when he saw me starting to eat one piece with my hands) and that I really dislike sea urchin. Raw scallop doesn’t taste like much, I would stick with the cooked scallop, and with fresh sushi you can really tell how each fish tastes different.
So by the time I finished with all this I had been up for about four hours and had a killer headache. I noticed a hospital was nearby and so found a pharmacy and used my guidebook phrase "watashi wa kozu ga arimasu" or, "I have a headache". I then asked for asupurin, and the lady said something which I didn’t understand and asked me to stand there and wait (or something like that, I don’t really know, but the point was I stood and waited). A few minutes later someone else came by who spoke English, and she showed me the choice of medicines. One was acetaminophen, and the other two were mysteries. I picked the one with the name that sounded closest to ibuprofen (I think it was Borufen or something like that) and followed the instructions to take two. Well I really don’t know what was in there, but either I was really happy to be rid of the headache or the meds made me really giddy.
So by the time I got to my next stop, the imperial palace, I was cheerful and energetic again. Of course, per my luck, the east imperial gardens are closed on Fridays, so I needed something else to do. I decided to head to Akihabara, or the electric city, just to check it out as it was the closest thing on the map and I didn’t want to do more subway riding.
However on the way over I got pretty tired, so I stopped in a Starbucks for a java-chip frap and to have a seat and just chill for a little. This was in the middle of the financial district of Tokyo and at lunchtime. What I noticed was in the comfy chairs next to me suit-toting men would have half their drink and then tilt their heads back for a ten or fifteen minute shut-eye. When in Rome, I said, and so after finishing my drink (I didn’t want it to melt) I took myself a good fifteen minute nap. When I came to I was feeling much refreshed, and headed over to Akihabara.
Akihabara is a lot like Zhongguancun in Beijing, just shop after shop after shop filled with all things electronic. The Tsukiji of computer geeks, if I may. I picked up a pair of headphones and a few presents for people (all non-electronic related, actually), and was unabashedly hit on by a salesman. This guy was from Africa and began hitting on me the instant I entered the store. He then stopped me to have a conversation, and twenty minutes later somehow found he during his break for a drink. We sat and made small talk for an hour, he couldn’t believe that in Tokyo I would want to spend a lot of time at museums instead of discos, and gave me his number for me to call tomorrow night if I want to go out. I doubt I will, but thanks anyway.
Other than that I grabbed tempura for dinner and a crepe with custard filling for desert, and came back to the hotel. Somehow that managed to fill up a 12 hour day, but I’m okay with that as I don’t have much left that I really want to do in Tokyo. Tomorrow I hope to go to one more temple and attend the Asakusa Samba festival, because how often are you in Japan the same weekend as an international Samba festival? I figured why not. If that falls through I may try to get out to the Tokyo countryside for the day, but we’ll see. Tomorrow is my last day, however, and then Sunday I spend a whole lot of time getting back to America. That is not going to be a fun trip.
Although it was cloudy today, there was no rain, so up I got at the crack of dawn and headed to Tsukiji. The place was huge (think about twice the size of a large Target or Wal-mart, but twice as crowded and with fish!) and had row upon row upon row of all things that grow in the sea. Probably the coolest thing was the live octopi, the second coolest thing the bivalves that were about the size of dinner plates, and third coolest thing the half-tunas that I saw being butchered (if they come in frozen the butcher uses a jigsaw to cut it apart). Other things I saw, in no particular order: clams the size of my thumbnail, crabs with spikes, sea urchins, red snappers, flounder, eels, live and dead, baby octopi, squid, shrimp the length of my hand, dried shrimp less than a centimeter long, little normal crabs, live scallops, giant oysters, a mountain of Styrofoam, frozen fish large and small, a guy going at the fish with a pickaxe, tuna coffins (the boxes tuna are shipped in), and that’s the highlights of Tsukiji. If you want more info on it, I would recommend Prof. Bestor’s book aptly titled Tsukiji. He’s the world’s foremost academic expert on the place.
After the market I went to grab a sushi breakfast, which was fun. I somehow ended up at another empty place, but ordered the chef’s plate. I was watching the sushi chef prepare my fish when all of a sudden a plate was put in front of me. It was uni, but not the short, brown eel on rice that you get at American places. No no, this was a normal sized piece of sushi rice with an 8-inch fillet placed on top with sauce. It was sooo good. I learned you shouldn’t eat sushi with your hands, no matter what the New York Times suggests (one of the chefs made a face when he saw me starting to eat one piece with my hands) and that I really dislike sea urchin. Raw scallop doesn’t taste like much, I would stick with the cooked scallop, and with fresh sushi you can really tell how each fish tastes different.
So by the time I finished with all this I had been up for about four hours and had a killer headache. I noticed a hospital was nearby and so found a pharmacy and used my guidebook phrase "watashi wa kozu ga arimasu" or, "I have a headache". I then asked for asupurin, and the lady said something which I didn’t understand and asked me to stand there and wait (or something like that, I don’t really know, but the point was I stood and waited). A few minutes later someone else came by who spoke English, and she showed me the choice of medicines. One was acetaminophen, and the other two were mysteries. I picked the one with the name that sounded closest to ibuprofen (I think it was Borufen or something like that) and followed the instructions to take two. Well I really don’t know what was in there, but either I was really happy to be rid of the headache or the meds made me really giddy.
So by the time I got to my next stop, the imperial palace, I was cheerful and energetic again. Of course, per my luck, the east imperial gardens are closed on Fridays, so I needed something else to do. I decided to head to Akihabara, or the electric city, just to check it out as it was the closest thing on the map and I didn’t want to do more subway riding.
However on the way over I got pretty tired, so I stopped in a Starbucks for a java-chip frap and to have a seat and just chill for a little. This was in the middle of the financial district of Tokyo and at lunchtime. What I noticed was in the comfy chairs next to me suit-toting men would have half their drink and then tilt their heads back for a ten or fifteen minute shut-eye. When in Rome, I said, and so after finishing my drink (I didn’t want it to melt) I took myself a good fifteen minute nap. When I came to I was feeling much refreshed, and headed over to Akihabara.
Akihabara is a lot like Zhongguancun in Beijing, just shop after shop after shop filled with all things electronic. The Tsukiji of computer geeks, if I may. I picked up a pair of headphones and a few presents for people (all non-electronic related, actually), and was unabashedly hit on by a salesman. This guy was from Africa and began hitting on me the instant I entered the store. He then stopped me to have a conversation, and twenty minutes later somehow found he during his break for a drink. We sat and made small talk for an hour, he couldn’t believe that in Tokyo I would want to spend a lot of time at museums instead of discos, and gave me his number for me to call tomorrow night if I want to go out. I doubt I will, but thanks anyway.
Other than that I grabbed tempura for dinner and a crepe with custard filling for desert, and came back to the hotel. Somehow that managed to fill up a 12 hour day, but I’m okay with that as I don’t have much left that I really want to do in Tokyo. Tomorrow I hope to go to one more temple and attend the Asakusa Samba festival, because how often are you in Japan the same weekend as an international Samba festival? I figured why not. If that falls through I may try to get out to the Tokyo countryside for the day, but we’ll see. Tomorrow is my last day, however, and then Sunday I spend a whole lot of time getting back to America. That is not going to be a fun trip.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Day 3 in Tokyo: Raw chicken, anyone?
Tokyo day 3:
Did you know that they give out samples of Sake at the grocery stores here? Go figure.
So I woke up at a bright and early 6:30 AM to get ready to go to Tsukigi (pronounced like squeegee but with a k instead of a qu—the u in this case is essentially silent) and see fish and eat sushi, only to discover that it was raining. Deciding that fish would not be half as much fun in the rain, I went back to bed (no tears there). Going back to bed wasn’t torture, however, on account of my figuring out how the air-con works. Hooray!
So I got up, grabbed another onigiri at the 7-11 (salmon this time—mmmm) and headed over to an area called omote-sando. My first stop was a museum that ended up being closed, so I walked down to this little museum which specializes in ukio-e (woodblock prints). It was really cute and had all these woodblock prints of different subjects related to kabuki. From there I headed down Takeshita-dori (dori means street, or at least I think it does), which is where all the teenagers go to get their clothing (or if you’re in need of cheap lingerie or drag costume) and noticed I believe five or six crepe stands. Crepes are a snackfood here, often served with ice cream, fruit, and/or chocolate sauce, but if you’re in the mood for a savory one you can also find wholesome tuna with tomato sauce or sliced ham with mayo. I grabbed lunch at a Yoshinoya (a chain) which was not as good as the hype, and from there wanted to cross the tracks to the park and shrine on the other side. Not being able to see how to do this, I decided that if I walked along the tracks there would have to be a bridge or underpass soon. I guess I picked the wrong direction. A mile later I found an underpass, but by then had walked most of the entire length of the park.
A bonus of this walk was that I passed by a GA Houses bookstore, which was cute and fun. Saw some familiar books in there and flipped through some neat things.
Eventually reaching the top of the park, I was greeted by a giant Shinto-style arch. This thing must have been 20 feet from post to post with the lintel just as high. The wood logs used for the posts would probably take three people to encircle them. Talk about awe-inspiring! The park was the area surrounding the Meiji-Jingu, or shrine to the entombed bodies of the Emperor and Empress Meiji. The shrine itself was pretty, but not that impressive (nobody was allowed anywhere near the entrance. However, one tradition is to write a wish on a plaque and hang it up. Every year in September or so they burn all the plaques from the year. Some of the wishes were pretty funny, and I took pictures. One example, just to get you excited for it, is: "May Dusty be having fun at the cat hotel and may my family be happy and Dylan not too pissed at me and may I have lots of stories to tell at camp if I go there and not to Africa. <3, Caroline (Toronto)". I had fun reading those.
The park itself was amazing, though. It was really a thick woods in the middle of Tokyo. There isn’t much more to say about it, but wow, it was surprising to see such a dense area of forest in the middle of a huge city.
After walking back to the other end, feeling a bit tired by this point, I hopped on the metro to Rippongi to visit the highest museum in the world, or the highest gallery, or something like that. Located on the 53rd floor of the Mori tower, the Mori Art Museum does rotating exhibits, and currently they have a most excellent exhibit dedicated to Le Corbusier. The exhibit had a full-size reproduction of his atelier, a lot of his art from various periods in his life, videos going through his buildings, computer generated videos of how he designed proportions for some of his other buildings, photographs, models, documentaries, a life-size reproduction of one of his apartments, with the actual apartment furnishings on the first floor (the second floor was all plaster), a nice section on the carpenter center at Harvard, which apparently was a great time to talk about how much he hated New York, a replica of his summer vacation home in the South of France (which was very small—only about 4 meters square), and even some of the furniture he designed. The exhibit was well put together, interesting, and fun.
The 52nd floor of the building was occupied by an observatory, from where I could see Tokyo. The city just goes on and on forever in all directions it seems. There really wasn’t an end to the urban part of the city anywhere except the ocean. The Tokyo skyline isn’t anything of particular note, and so though it was nice there isn’t much to comment on. I enjoyed myself and left afterwards feeling ready for dinner.
I found a place for dinner in the nearby area, which turned out to specialize in Yakitori (things on sticks). I had rare chicken with wasabi on a stick (definitely the best one), asparagus wrapped in bacon, okra wrapped in bacon, an egg omelet with green onion and bacon (not on a stick), and eggplant with fresh ginger. Everything was smoky from the grill and delicious, and the cook spoke a little English as he had lived for a year in Australia. He and I talked a little bit as I was the only person in the restaurant, and overall it was a good choice.
After dinner I headed back to the hotel, where you find me now. I’m going to make another attempt at Tsukiji tomorrow, and am going to try and take it easy tonight, as I have a little bit of a headache and tomorrow I need to be up early (again)!
Did you know that they give out samples of Sake at the grocery stores here? Go figure.
So I woke up at a bright and early 6:30 AM to get ready to go to Tsukigi (pronounced like squeegee but with a k instead of a qu—the u in this case is essentially silent) and see fish and eat sushi, only to discover that it was raining. Deciding that fish would not be half as much fun in the rain, I went back to bed (no tears there). Going back to bed wasn’t torture, however, on account of my figuring out how the air-con works. Hooray!
So I got up, grabbed another onigiri at the 7-11 (salmon this time—mmmm) and headed over to an area called omote-sando. My first stop was a museum that ended up being closed, so I walked down to this little museum which specializes in ukio-e (woodblock prints). It was really cute and had all these woodblock prints of different subjects related to kabuki. From there I headed down Takeshita-dori (dori means street, or at least I think it does), which is where all the teenagers go to get their clothing (or if you’re in need of cheap lingerie or drag costume) and noticed I believe five or six crepe stands. Crepes are a snackfood here, often served with ice cream, fruit, and/or chocolate sauce, but if you’re in the mood for a savory one you can also find wholesome tuna with tomato sauce or sliced ham with mayo. I grabbed lunch at a Yoshinoya (a chain) which was not as good as the hype, and from there wanted to cross the tracks to the park and shrine on the other side. Not being able to see how to do this, I decided that if I walked along the tracks there would have to be a bridge or underpass soon. I guess I picked the wrong direction. A mile later I found an underpass, but by then had walked most of the entire length of the park.
A bonus of this walk was that I passed by a GA Houses bookstore, which was cute and fun. Saw some familiar books in there and flipped through some neat things.
Eventually reaching the top of the park, I was greeted by a giant Shinto-style arch. This thing must have been 20 feet from post to post with the lintel just as high. The wood logs used for the posts would probably take three people to encircle them. Talk about awe-inspiring! The park was the area surrounding the Meiji-Jingu, or shrine to the entombed bodies of the Emperor and Empress Meiji. The shrine itself was pretty, but not that impressive (nobody was allowed anywhere near the entrance. However, one tradition is to write a wish on a plaque and hang it up. Every year in September or so they burn all the plaques from the year. Some of the wishes were pretty funny, and I took pictures. One example, just to get you excited for it, is: "May Dusty be having fun at the cat hotel and may my family be happy and Dylan not too pissed at me and may I have lots of stories to tell at camp if I go there and not to Africa. <3, Caroline (Toronto)". I had fun reading those.
The park itself was amazing, though. It was really a thick woods in the middle of Tokyo. There isn’t much more to say about it, but wow, it was surprising to see such a dense area of forest in the middle of a huge city.
After walking back to the other end, feeling a bit tired by this point, I hopped on the metro to Rippongi to visit the highest museum in the world, or the highest gallery, or something like that. Located on the 53rd floor of the Mori tower, the Mori Art Museum does rotating exhibits, and currently they have a most excellent exhibit dedicated to Le Corbusier. The exhibit had a full-size reproduction of his atelier, a lot of his art from various periods in his life, videos going through his buildings, computer generated videos of how he designed proportions for some of his other buildings, photographs, models, documentaries, a life-size reproduction of one of his apartments, with the actual apartment furnishings on the first floor (the second floor was all plaster), a nice section on the carpenter center at Harvard, which apparently was a great time to talk about how much he hated New York, a replica of his summer vacation home in the South of France (which was very small—only about 4 meters square), and even some of the furniture he designed. The exhibit was well put together, interesting, and fun.
The 52nd floor of the building was occupied by an observatory, from where I could see Tokyo. The city just goes on and on forever in all directions it seems. There really wasn’t an end to the urban part of the city anywhere except the ocean. The Tokyo skyline isn’t anything of particular note, and so though it was nice there isn’t much to comment on. I enjoyed myself and left afterwards feeling ready for dinner.
I found a place for dinner in the nearby area, which turned out to specialize in Yakitori (things on sticks). I had rare chicken with wasabi on a stick (definitely the best one), asparagus wrapped in bacon, okra wrapped in bacon, an egg omelet with green onion and bacon (not on a stick), and eggplant with fresh ginger. Everything was smoky from the grill and delicious, and the cook spoke a little English as he had lived for a year in Australia. He and I talked a little bit as I was the only person in the restaurant, and overall it was a good choice.
After dinner I headed back to the hotel, where you find me now. I’m going to make another attempt at Tsukiji tomorrow, and am going to try and take it easy tonight, as I have a little bit of a headache and tomorrow I need to be up early (again)!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Day 2 in Tokyo
Day 2 in Tokyo:
Today started out horribly. I woke up several times during the morning burning up because my room got super-uncomfortably warm. However I persevered and tried to ignore the heat and am thankful I didn’t die of heat stroke.
So I got up this morning, bought an onigiri (rice and treat wrapped in seaweed, mine was chicken—mmm) at the corner Seven-Eleven and hopped on the subway to Ueno park. Today I believe is supposed to be the warmest/one of the warmest days I’m here, so decided to try and make it more indoorsy. I picked Ueno because it is where most of Tokyo’s good museums are concentrated. It’s a lot like the Mall in DC—a big park with museums (and the zoo as well as a few shrines) scattered around the perimeter. I went to a few shrines first in the morning, which was lovely, and at about noon headed over to the Tokyo National Museum. This is a museum with about four or five buildings, and I went first to the main building, which houses the Japanese art. I emerged from that one building over two hours later, very pleased. I saw some neat ceramics, some beautiful Buddhist statues, thought I saw Dean Kirby, calligraphy, screens, Samurai swords and armor, a toilet which offered to wash and dry my tushie, Kabuki costumes, a famous essay (written partially in Classical Chinese! Woot!) and laquerware, plus some other things which slip my mind. One of my favorites was the Buddhist sculptures which has crystal inlay over lacquer on their lips and eyes—that meant that the eyes looked glassy (there was this one that stared right at me, I’ll be having nightmares about that one) and lips looked like they had a touch of gloss on them. I thought that was really neat. There were good English explanations of a lot of the things (except for the toilet. Hmm…) and I had a really good time there.
The other building I went to was built exclusively for this treasure collection which I failed to appreciate properly. I think it held more significance for the locals. However I did appreciate the really great modern architecture of that building.
I ended up not going to any other museums in the area because they didn’t look as good and I don’t quite have unlimited time. However their western art museum was designed by Le Corbusier, which I appreciated. Tokyo has some really neat architecture, I have to say.
After that I walked over to this street where the center of the black market used to be located, but now it is much more like a little shopping street full of small items and shoes. I bought a hat to shade myself from the last rays of the afternoon sun. And I’ll wear it tomorrow. I think wearing a hat will be easier than dealing with an umbrella, which I did today but found very inconvenient.
From the old black market street I walked over to the street where all the commercial restaurant vendors are. It was AMAZING!! It was like a kilometer of Northwestern Cutlery in Japanese. Japan is the master of the specialty shop. Some of these places sold only knives (those were my favorite—row upon row of gorgeous knives, some from great names like Wusthof and others local Japanese names—but all good quality, full tang, sharp blades, etc. One sold only lacquered wooden dishes, others only sold server and chefs clothing, some were more all-around places, and several were exclusively focused on plastic food. Window displays. Ice cream, sushi, pasta (with fork hanging in midair above the plate), soup, crepes, all foods and all shapes and sizes. Really hilarious stuff, but surprisingly real-looking. Those were hilarious.
One store on this street where I stopped to buy something, after purchasing I was offered a cup of ice cold barley tea. I love barley tea, first of all, and second they were so nice about it and smiled and made me feel special.
From there I walked to Asakusa, which had a few streets selling somewhat touristy-type stuff, which was most definitely fun, and grabbed dinner at a small place where I picked my dinner based on the plastic food choices. The waitress and cooks behind the counter kept trying to ask me questions and I never understood them, but that was okay. One guy had a few words of English and so I could answer his questions pretty well.
One thing I like about Tokyo is that everyone presumes you know Japanese until you look at them funny and say ‘iie nihongo’ (no Japanese) and often times they have no English so you just have to get by, but at least they give you the chance. Although it is hard for me to get by (like I said yesterday) it is still fun, and I feel like they don’t treat me like an idiot here. Although the fact that I don’t speak the language leaves me panicked every now and then, it also means I feel twice as accomplished every time I get something right or do something. And at the least the things I do know how to say I can say well enough that people think I might speak Japanese from them. Though I also think that going five days without having a real conversation might drive me crazy. But so far so good, and tomorrow I have high hopes—I plan on traveling to Tsukiji—the biggest fish market in the world! That means I have to wake up early—I need to get there by about 7:30, but I am going to have sushi as fresh as it gets and see Tuna as big as me (I hope). So now I’m going to go take a soak in the hostel’s public bath (it is open for men 4 hours and women only 1—so unfair!) and head to bed before it gets too late. Until tomorrow!
Today started out horribly. I woke up several times during the morning burning up because my room got super-uncomfortably warm. However I persevered and tried to ignore the heat and am thankful I didn’t die of heat stroke.
So I got up this morning, bought an onigiri (rice and treat wrapped in seaweed, mine was chicken—mmm) at the corner Seven-Eleven and hopped on the subway to Ueno park. Today I believe is supposed to be the warmest/one of the warmest days I’m here, so decided to try and make it more indoorsy. I picked Ueno because it is where most of Tokyo’s good museums are concentrated. It’s a lot like the Mall in DC—a big park with museums (and the zoo as well as a few shrines) scattered around the perimeter. I went to a few shrines first in the morning, which was lovely, and at about noon headed over to the Tokyo National Museum. This is a museum with about four or five buildings, and I went first to the main building, which houses the Japanese art. I emerged from that one building over two hours later, very pleased. I saw some neat ceramics, some beautiful Buddhist statues, thought I saw Dean Kirby, calligraphy, screens, Samurai swords and armor, a toilet which offered to wash and dry my tushie, Kabuki costumes, a famous essay (written partially in Classical Chinese! Woot!) and laquerware, plus some other things which slip my mind. One of my favorites was the Buddhist sculptures which has crystal inlay over lacquer on their lips and eyes—that meant that the eyes looked glassy (there was this one that stared right at me, I’ll be having nightmares about that one) and lips looked like they had a touch of gloss on them. I thought that was really neat. There were good English explanations of a lot of the things (except for the toilet. Hmm…) and I had a really good time there.
The other building I went to was built exclusively for this treasure collection which I failed to appreciate properly. I think it held more significance for the locals. However I did appreciate the really great modern architecture of that building.
I ended up not going to any other museums in the area because they didn’t look as good and I don’t quite have unlimited time. However their western art museum was designed by Le Corbusier, which I appreciated. Tokyo has some really neat architecture, I have to say.
After that I walked over to this street where the center of the black market used to be located, but now it is much more like a little shopping street full of small items and shoes. I bought a hat to shade myself from the last rays of the afternoon sun. And I’ll wear it tomorrow. I think wearing a hat will be easier than dealing with an umbrella, which I did today but found very inconvenient.
From the old black market street I walked over to the street where all the commercial restaurant vendors are. It was AMAZING!! It was like a kilometer of Northwestern Cutlery in Japanese. Japan is the master of the specialty shop. Some of these places sold only knives (those were my favorite—row upon row of gorgeous knives, some from great names like Wusthof and others local Japanese names—but all good quality, full tang, sharp blades, etc. One sold only lacquered wooden dishes, others only sold server and chefs clothing, some were more all-around places, and several were exclusively focused on plastic food. Window displays. Ice cream, sushi, pasta (with fork hanging in midair above the plate), soup, crepes, all foods and all shapes and sizes. Really hilarious stuff, but surprisingly real-looking. Those were hilarious.
One store on this street where I stopped to buy something, after purchasing I was offered a cup of ice cold barley tea. I love barley tea, first of all, and second they were so nice about it and smiled and made me feel special.
From there I walked to Asakusa, which had a few streets selling somewhat touristy-type stuff, which was most definitely fun, and grabbed dinner at a small place where I picked my dinner based on the plastic food choices. The waitress and cooks behind the counter kept trying to ask me questions and I never understood them, but that was okay. One guy had a few words of English and so I could answer his questions pretty well.
One thing I like about Tokyo is that everyone presumes you know Japanese until you look at them funny and say ‘iie nihongo’ (no Japanese) and often times they have no English so you just have to get by, but at least they give you the chance. Although it is hard for me to get by (like I said yesterday) it is still fun, and I feel like they don’t treat me like an idiot here. Although the fact that I don’t speak the language leaves me panicked every now and then, it also means I feel twice as accomplished every time I get something right or do something. And at the least the things I do know how to say I can say well enough that people think I might speak Japanese from them. Though I also think that going five days without having a real conversation might drive me crazy. But so far so good, and tomorrow I have high hopes—I plan on traveling to Tsukiji—the biggest fish market in the world! That means I have to wake up early—I need to get there by about 7:30, but I am going to have sushi as fresh as it gets and see Tuna as big as me (I hope). So now I’m going to go take a soak in the hostel’s public bath (it is open for men 4 hours and women only 1—so unfair!) and head to bed before it gets too late. Until tomorrow!
Day 1 in Tokyo
Day 1 in Tokyo:
I got up at the crack of dawn to drag all my crap down the stairs (with the help of the lovely Tian Jing) found a cab to the bus stop and got the last seat on a bus to the airport. As it would be, the last seat meant squeezing between two older men who were profuse sweaters, a little pudgy, and the one on my right obviously had once been a cat, considering how many times he tried to clear his throat. I wanted to give him the good ol’ elbow in the ribs every time he did that, but I also didn’t want to touch him.
The airport was altogether uneventful, though I danced a merry little dance when my bags weren’t overweight, and the instant I got onto the super-clean Japanese-run plane I pulled a blanket around my head (no pillow again—I’m getting tired of those flights) and crashed. I woke up when the food cart was pulling away, and managed to grab a tray before it was too late. Of course, had I slept through it, the waitresses were considerate enough to leave a post-it on the seat in front of me asking me to call them when I was ready for my meal. The people on the plane were generally quiet, the half hour of spiderman 3 I watched was as bad as everyone had said, and three hours later I landed in Tokyo.
Perhaps the proudest moment of my day was when I asked where an ATM was and the lady at the counter gave me some directions. All I understood was one word—hidali—but I knew that it meant left, and so I walked in the direction she gestured (don’t point, just gesture—I pointed by accident once and the guy I was talking to dodged to avoid the direction of my index finger) and looked on the left and found it.
Trying to figure out how to get to the hotel was difficult. So the advantage of having studied Chinese is that I recognize all the kanji they use here, which is very common in place names, meaning that maps aren’t too difficult for me. The problem is I have no clue how to say anything. So although I may know how to say something and what it looks like, I probably won’t connect the dots. Or, more commonly, I just know one or the other, and that doesn’t get me very far at the end of the day. So I finally get helped by someone really nice who was working there to help us buy tickets, and she tells me how I should go and where to transfer, and I nod and get the right ticket, but only after boarding do I realize that although her directions may have been good, the only map on the subway used kanji (hence the above ramp) so I knew I wanted to go to Minami senju, but I didn’t know that that also meant . Eventually I had the guts to ask the nice-looking girl next to me, and she gave me decent directions, then went on her phone to check and told me in English very good directions. She was great.
So an hour or so later I arrive at the station, and looking at my directions I printed out from the hotel, it’s a seven minute walk. That was as much as I got regarding directions. So I asked a guy at the counter who pulled out a printed little map which I guess the hotel gave him, as marked right on it was my hotel. Blessing my fortune, I dragged my boatloads of crap behind me and headed towards the hotel, huffing and puffing along.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say. Shanghai was finally beginning to cool down to a reasonable temperature when I left, and I have discovered, to my chagrin, that Tokyo is hot. Unpleasantly hot. Really hot. Still not as bad as Shanghai was at its worst, but still warm enough that being outside is sort of unpleasant. Why me? Why, oh why?
So dripping sweat I make a turn where the map says, and continue walking. I pass one alley, then another, and realize I’ve most definitely walked too far, despite not yet running into the cross street. I review my moves, no mistakes, and then realize that those alleys are streets. Tokyo is designed in little neighborhoods, and each block has a number, so I’m in the neighborhood Kiyokawa in the 2nd area on block 38, building number 3, which is just written 2-38-3 Kiyokawa. Those little alleys are the streets which divide the blocks, and once I worked all this out I turned down the right alley to the hotel, where I got a 4th floor room, and luckily the front desk lady was nice enough to help me drag all my crap up the stairs.
So dripping sweat I opened the door to my room, which is a little 3 mat room (aka 6x10 or so. There’s a TV on a cart in one corner and a pile of blankets for making a bed in the other corner. There are some hooks along the walls and a shelf in the back. The bathroom is down the hallway one floor down, and I think there are only showers on the first floor. We aren’t allowed to wear shoes past the hotel entrance, where we change to slippers, and we aren’t even supposed to wear slippers on the mat.
The staff here are really nice, and although it is a little minimal it works just fine. They are great with directions, suggestions, and all sorts of other things. And you can drink the tap water! That makes me happy (I’m easy to please, what can I say?).
After trying to cool down I decided to go out and explore the neighborhood. I went on a long walk through a few little districts, eventually ending up at this mall nearby. I went into the grocery store there to look at produce and oh my god was it amazing. Ginger still attached to the stems, Daikon radishes the length of my forearm and twice as thick, fresh, unground wasabi, and the fish! They must have had eight different sushi boxes and the same amount of sashimi boxes, not to mention the whole baby octopus, the giant octopus arms, clams, and all sorts of other stuff. I took pictures and they’ll go up soon.
After that I picked a place for dinner. I went in and the waitress said all sorts of things to me, and I smiled and sat down and looked at the pictureless menu. I had picked this place because the plastic food outside looked good, so eventually I picked something that I knew was a set meal. She asked me a question which I think had to maybe do with what I wanted on my rice, but maybe not, and I looked at her funny, and she sort of thought for a second, wrote something down and walked off. I figured that was a good sign. I ended up ordering sobu noodles with little bits of crunchy tempura batter, seaweed, and onion, with picked vegetables and rice. The rice had a raw egg cracked on top plus a dollop of fresh wasabi. The egg white was fluffy from being steamed by the rice, and when you mixed it all together it was this fluffy, sticky, goopy, a little spice mess. I added a little soy sauce which made that part great as well.
After that I walked home, which brings me back to here. Until tomorrow!
I got up at the crack of dawn to drag all my crap down the stairs (with the help of the lovely Tian Jing) found a cab to the bus stop and got the last seat on a bus to the airport. As it would be, the last seat meant squeezing between two older men who were profuse sweaters, a little pudgy, and the one on my right obviously had once been a cat, considering how many times he tried to clear his throat. I wanted to give him the good ol’ elbow in the ribs every time he did that, but I also didn’t want to touch him.
The airport was altogether uneventful, though I danced a merry little dance when my bags weren’t overweight, and the instant I got onto the super-clean Japanese-run plane I pulled a blanket around my head (no pillow again—I’m getting tired of those flights) and crashed. I woke up when the food cart was pulling away, and managed to grab a tray before it was too late. Of course, had I slept through it, the waitresses were considerate enough to leave a post-it on the seat in front of me asking me to call them when I was ready for my meal. The people on the plane were generally quiet, the half hour of spiderman 3 I watched was as bad as everyone had said, and three hours later I landed in Tokyo.
Perhaps the proudest moment of my day was when I asked where an ATM was and the lady at the counter gave me some directions. All I understood was one word—hidali—but I knew that it meant left, and so I walked in the direction she gestured (don’t point, just gesture—I pointed by accident once and the guy I was talking to dodged to avoid the direction of my index finger) and looked on the left and found it.
Trying to figure out how to get to the hotel was difficult. So the advantage of having studied Chinese is that I recognize all the kanji they use here, which is very common in place names, meaning that maps aren’t too difficult for me. The problem is I have no clue how to say anything. So although I may know how to say something and what it looks like, I probably won’t connect the dots. Or, more commonly, I just know one or the other, and that doesn’t get me very far at the end of the day. So I finally get helped by someone really nice who was working there to help us buy tickets, and she tells me how I should go and where to transfer, and I nod and get the right ticket, but only after boarding do I realize that although her directions may have been good, the only map on the subway used kanji (hence the above ramp) so I knew I wanted to go to Minami senju, but I didn’t know that that also meant . Eventually I had the guts to ask the nice-looking girl next to me, and she gave me decent directions, then went on her phone to check and told me in English very good directions. She was great.
So an hour or so later I arrive at the station, and looking at my directions I printed out from the hotel, it’s a seven minute walk. That was as much as I got regarding directions. So I asked a guy at the counter who pulled out a printed little map which I guess the hotel gave him, as marked right on it was my hotel. Blessing my fortune, I dragged my boatloads of crap behind me and headed towards the hotel, huffing and puffing along.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say. Shanghai was finally beginning to cool down to a reasonable temperature when I left, and I have discovered, to my chagrin, that Tokyo is hot. Unpleasantly hot. Really hot. Still not as bad as Shanghai was at its worst, but still warm enough that being outside is sort of unpleasant. Why me? Why, oh why?
So dripping sweat I make a turn where the map says, and continue walking. I pass one alley, then another, and realize I’ve most definitely walked too far, despite not yet running into the cross street. I review my moves, no mistakes, and then realize that those alleys are streets. Tokyo is designed in little neighborhoods, and each block has a number, so I’m in the neighborhood Kiyokawa in the 2nd area on block 38, building number 3, which is just written 2-38-3 Kiyokawa. Those little alleys are the streets which divide the blocks, and once I worked all this out I turned down the right alley to the hotel, where I got a 4th floor room, and luckily the front desk lady was nice enough to help me drag all my crap up the stairs.
So dripping sweat I opened the door to my room, which is a little 3 mat room (aka 6x10 or so. There’s a TV on a cart in one corner and a pile of blankets for making a bed in the other corner. There are some hooks along the walls and a shelf in the back. The bathroom is down the hallway one floor down, and I think there are only showers on the first floor. We aren’t allowed to wear shoes past the hotel entrance, where we change to slippers, and we aren’t even supposed to wear slippers on the mat.
The staff here are really nice, and although it is a little minimal it works just fine. They are great with directions, suggestions, and all sorts of other things. And you can drink the tap water! That makes me happy (I’m easy to please, what can I say?).
After trying to cool down I decided to go out and explore the neighborhood. I went on a long walk through a few little districts, eventually ending up at this mall nearby. I went into the grocery store there to look at produce and oh my god was it amazing. Ginger still attached to the stems, Daikon radishes the length of my forearm and twice as thick, fresh, unground wasabi, and the fish! They must have had eight different sushi boxes and the same amount of sashimi boxes, not to mention the whole baby octopus, the giant octopus arms, clams, and all sorts of other stuff. I took pictures and they’ll go up soon.
After that I picked a place for dinner. I went in and the waitress said all sorts of things to me, and I smiled and sat down and looked at the pictureless menu. I had picked this place because the plastic food outside looked good, so eventually I picked something that I knew was a set meal. She asked me a question which I think had to maybe do with what I wanted on my rice, but maybe not, and I looked at her funny, and she sort of thought for a second, wrote something down and walked off. I figured that was a good sign. I ended up ordering sobu noodles with little bits of crunchy tempura batter, seaweed, and onion, with picked vegetables and rice. The rice had a raw egg cracked on top plus a dollop of fresh wasabi. The egg white was fluffy from being steamed by the rice, and when you mixed it all together it was this fluffy, sticky, goopy, a little spice mess. I added a little soy sauce which made that part great as well.
After that I walked home, which brings me back to here. Until tomorrow!
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
In Tokyo
I finally made it to Tokyo, where I don't speak the language. I've found that to be a challenge. In other news, my room at the hotel is a three-mat room (ie super small) but it's 'authentic' or something like that. I saw fresh wasabi today and ate a raw egg. Everyone presumes I speak Japanese, and when I don't they act as if I do anyway. It's fun. I'm going to write up blog posts on my computer and transfer them up when I get the chance, so keep your eyes peeled for better tales of adventure and woe!
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Back in Beijing
So last weekend I headed to Beijing on a night train, and the Beijing I found on the other end was disturbingly familar and comfortably different.
Upon arrival in Beijing my host father came to get Tian Jing (host sister, so this is her dad) and me. He drove down to get us instead of making us catch public transit. It took us an hour and a half to drive home, while had we taken the subway it would have been about 35 minutes to a stop 10 minutes away from their house, where they could have come to get us. Its not like either of us had a lot of luggage. Nonetheless, I spent all of Friday morning in a car in traffic. Beijing's traffic has been notoriously bad for a few years, but this is still much worse than even last time I was in Beijing, 2005.
However I did get a lot of time to look out the window (and nap) and really got to see how Beijing is changing. The buildings going up nowadays are no longer crappy-looking plaster-walled apartments that all look identical, but they are beginning to use architecture and modern materials, and things are looking like they're building up well. Buildings are still of poor quality and going up far too quickly, but its still good progress.
My host family and the house seem almost the same as ever. My host mother still worries too much, the keys they gave me still work (though it took me a while to remember how to use them, there's a trick), my host sister is still sleeping in the office because she feels that my room (her old room) is, well, my room. They still have the stuffed Halloween bears that Ning sent me in a care package sitting on a shelf, as well as the black and white sketch of Zhouzhuang that I bought. Hanging on the door is still that wicker tassel thing, and the toiletries I left behind were still sitting on a shelf in the bathroom. I can't remember if those are from '05 or '04, but I find it extremely odd that they hold on to my astringent despite the fact that none of them use it. Other things that haven't changed are their cooking, which is still really disgusting, and the cow-pattern chair covers.
Friday evening I went by Chabad, where I found more changes. They've opened up Beijing's first kosher restaurant and so dinners aren't done in the Chabad house. The family was in South Africa as Dini was delivering a child (congrats again! its a girl!), and there was not one familiar face in the crowd. However that doesn't mean that I didn't thoroughly enjoy the evening, where I met some guys who were traveling to celebrate their completion of the bar exam and had a good conversation.
As for Beijing overall, I would have to call the changes olympic. Everywhere you look there are olympic advertisements, buildings have been ripped down everywhere i look to make room for new development, and everyone is talking constantly about the olympics. The new olympic mascots, the fuwa (or friendlies in English--definitely not as good a name) are adorable, and you can watch the first few minutes of this video to hear the song that was stuck in my head for a week or two after. I almost bought the plastic dolls like on the shelf at the end these guys were so cute, but then discovered the cost the same as three really nice Chinese meals here and decided they aren't quite worth it. Though if I see them in the airport I might break down and buy them anyway, because they really are cute.
The Olympic stadium has been built, but they are keeping it behind a wall with only a few small gaps, so I never really got the time to actually see it well, but it looks pretty neat. Maybe a little less graceful than they had intended, but a cool structure and a neat concept. All the locals call it the 'bird's nest'. There is a lot of heated debate on the architectural merit of the structure.
As for the olympic village, it is only a few blocks from my house, and is huge and going up quickly. They have a sleek modern design for the condos, though I can guarantee you that in 15 years the design is going to be considered soooo dated, but olympic things should be dated. Because they're improving the roads, the detour for buses goes through the village, so I had several opportunities to see what's going on there. They have built really crappy temporary housing for the construction workers that smells like human waste.
But Beijing looks like it is improving quickly, which is exciting. I should go and spend some good time out in Shanghai as I only have three days left here until Tokyo. So psyched. Until next time!
Upon arrival in Beijing my host father came to get Tian Jing (host sister, so this is her dad) and me. He drove down to get us instead of making us catch public transit. It took us an hour and a half to drive home, while had we taken the subway it would have been about 35 minutes to a stop 10 minutes away from their house, where they could have come to get us. Its not like either of us had a lot of luggage. Nonetheless, I spent all of Friday morning in a car in traffic. Beijing's traffic has been notoriously bad for a few years, but this is still much worse than even last time I was in Beijing, 2005.
However I did get a lot of time to look out the window (and nap) and really got to see how Beijing is changing. The buildings going up nowadays are no longer crappy-looking plaster-walled apartments that all look identical, but they are beginning to use architecture and modern materials, and things are looking like they're building up well. Buildings are still of poor quality and going up far too quickly, but its still good progress.
My host family and the house seem almost the same as ever. My host mother still worries too much, the keys they gave me still work (though it took me a while to remember how to use them, there's a trick), my host sister is still sleeping in the office because she feels that my room (her old room) is, well, my room. They still have the stuffed Halloween bears that Ning sent me in a care package sitting on a shelf, as well as the black and white sketch of Zhouzhuang that I bought. Hanging on the door is still that wicker tassel thing, and the toiletries I left behind were still sitting on a shelf in the bathroom. I can't remember if those are from '05 or '04, but I find it extremely odd that they hold on to my astringent despite the fact that none of them use it. Other things that haven't changed are their cooking, which is still really disgusting, and the cow-pattern chair covers.
Friday evening I went by Chabad, where I found more changes. They've opened up Beijing's first kosher restaurant and so dinners aren't done in the Chabad house. The family was in South Africa as Dini was delivering a child (congrats again! its a girl!), and there was not one familiar face in the crowd. However that doesn't mean that I didn't thoroughly enjoy the evening, where I met some guys who were traveling to celebrate their completion of the bar exam and had a good conversation.
As for Beijing overall, I would have to call the changes olympic. Everywhere you look there are olympic advertisements, buildings have been ripped down everywhere i look to make room for new development, and everyone is talking constantly about the olympics. The new olympic mascots, the fuwa (or friendlies in English--definitely not as good a name) are adorable, and you can watch the first few minutes of this video to hear the song that was stuck in my head for a week or two after. I almost bought the plastic dolls like on the shelf at the end these guys were so cute, but then discovered the cost the same as three really nice Chinese meals here and decided they aren't quite worth it. Though if I see them in the airport I might break down and buy them anyway, because they really are cute.
The Olympic stadium has been built, but they are keeping it behind a wall with only a few small gaps, so I never really got the time to actually see it well, but it looks pretty neat. Maybe a little less graceful than they had intended, but a cool structure and a neat concept. All the locals call it the 'bird's nest'. There is a lot of heated debate on the architectural merit of the structure.
As for the olympic village, it is only a few blocks from my house, and is huge and going up quickly. They have a sleek modern design for the condos, though I can guarantee you that in 15 years the design is going to be considered soooo dated, but olympic things should be dated. Because they're improving the roads, the detour for buses goes through the village, so I had several opportunities to see what's going on there. They have built really crappy temporary housing for the construction workers that smells like human waste.
But Beijing looks like it is improving quickly, which is exciting. I should go and spend some good time out in Shanghai as I only have three days left here until Tokyo. So psyched. Until next time!
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Quick Update
Sorry its been a while since I last posted, I've been busy. Anyway, back in Shanghai now, and I will probably post about Beijing later tonight, but just wanted to say that if anyone has any requests for something they'd like from China and/or Japan, please email me soon (aka before the weekend). That's all!
Monday, August 6, 2007
Hangzhou
So on Saturday I took a trip to Hangzhou with my host sister. We won't mention what happened on Friday night, but lets just say I was a little tired when I met her at the train station. This station, might I add, was super cool. For a picture, click here. The space was really open and new, and proved that Chinese railway stations don't have to be gross, dark, and cramped.
So I slept on the two hour ride over there, and we got into Hangzhou just before noon. The main attraction in Hangzhou is the West Lake, which is known for being pretty and nice to walk around. We caught a bus there and began our walk. It was sunny and just enjoying the scenery made me feel at peace. We grabbed lunch, which consisted of a few dumplings (like five) and continued walking. It was somewhat crowded, but surprisingly non-touristy. All these boats were moored along the edges of the lake, a lot of them just little 6-person rowboat type things, and some were big 30-foot wood-paneled enclosed barges. It was all decorated to look like old China. One of the main scenic attractions of Hangzhou are the lotus flowers. Everywhere along the lake are huge bunches of lilly pads, and you can spy out the large, pink flowers within. Both Tian Jing and I took lots of pictures (I'll put links to the pictures up soon).
So since it is a very long walk along the lake, one popular activity is to rent a bicycle for about 5 RMB an hour and bike instead. We were going to do that until up on a hill I spotted a tall, thin tower. I decided that we were going to hike up to that tower instead and see what it was. Tian Jing said that though she had been to Hangzhou several times she had never gone up to that tower because it wasn't very famous. So I decided we had to go, because I wouldn't be me unless I wanted to go to the not famous places more than the famous ones (did that make sense? I'm a little low on sleep...).
We found a map and tracked down the road that led to this tower. We walked up it a bit until we ran into a big gate (ouch!) and a very wide, grand set of stairs. Taking swigs from our waterbottles we began our climb up, and up, and up. By the time we got to the top we weren't exactly energetic enough to look up, so only after resting did we manage to lift our heads and see what we had found. We were on the top of a wooded hill at the base of a five story gray brick tower. The tower was pretty, although we couldn't enter into it, and that alone was worth the hike. To add to it, as we were on top of a large hill, we had a great view of the lake on one side and the downtown city of Hangzhou on the other.
The top of the hill had a path, so we took it and in a minute found ourselves on a narrow path up some rocks between two boulders each the size of a small house. It was chaotic getting through that path, as there was only enough room for one to go by at a time, and you couldn't quite see who was around the corner coming the other way, and by the time it was our turn to go through the little path we had quite a large crowd behind us. But that part was neat too.
Being experimental, on the other side of the narrow path we took a different route down the hill, figuring that if we kept heading in the right direction (aka down) we would eventually return to the lake. Although there were a lot of bugs biting us, we got to see some treats on the way down. We saw a gecko, which was awesome! Tian Jing had never seen one before and was so confused about what it was, and the way it spread its fingers so wide to grip on to things was cool. As if that weren't enough, we began to hear insanely large amounts of buzzing in the air and tried to place it. Eventually it became apparent that there were these large bugs flying through the air with almost two inch wingspans and about an inch long. Some were on a tree, and we noticed that they were almost neon green, and then that they were beetles. They were huge and really beautiful. The last cool wildlife we saw were these little lizards about three or four inches long. They were really thin, thinner than earthworms, and had these dinky little legs. I would never have noticed them except for their iridescent blue tails. So pretty! Why they have bright blue tails I cannot for the life of me figure out, and I also have no clue how they stay alive during the winter. Hangzhou is no tropical paradise, in the winter it snows a fair amount, but in the summer they are allowed their tropical animal life, I suppose. And there was the super cool yellow and black striped centipede. Sorry, forgot about that one.
Near the bottom we saw a large garden and courtyard house that was open to the public, so we went in. We were the only ones there except for a groundskeeper, and it was this beautiful, well-kept house with absolutely no furniture in it and a verdant garden with sculpture, ponds, rocks, and all. It was simple, but really pretty.
The rest of the day we exhausted ourselves walking until our feet bled, eating ice cream, getting nodded at by the foreign man in the ferrari, and listening to a community choir practice opera (aahh! run away!). We got home exhausted, but it was fun to see a new city and it really helped relax me. I hadn't realized how tense I was and how much I missed sunlight until getting to Hangzhou and having all the time in the world and spending it in good company. I got home and felt better about the world, and Danielle came into town the next morning for the week. Hopefully I'll write about her being here next time, and probably something about my trip to Beijing on Friday.
Links to photos:
Hangzhou Photos on Facebook
So I slept on the two hour ride over there, and we got into Hangzhou just before noon. The main attraction in Hangzhou is the West Lake, which is known for being pretty and nice to walk around. We caught a bus there and began our walk. It was sunny and just enjoying the scenery made me feel at peace. We grabbed lunch, which consisted of a few dumplings (like five) and continued walking. It was somewhat crowded, but surprisingly non-touristy. All these boats were moored along the edges of the lake, a lot of them just little 6-person rowboat type things, and some were big 30-foot wood-paneled enclosed barges. It was all decorated to look like old China. One of the main scenic attractions of Hangzhou are the lotus flowers. Everywhere along the lake are huge bunches of lilly pads, and you can spy out the large, pink flowers within. Both Tian Jing and I took lots of pictures (I'll put links to the pictures up soon).
So since it is a very long walk along the lake, one popular activity is to rent a bicycle for about 5 RMB an hour and bike instead. We were going to do that until up on a hill I spotted a tall, thin tower. I decided that we were going to hike up to that tower instead and see what it was. Tian Jing said that though she had been to Hangzhou several times she had never gone up to that tower because it wasn't very famous. So I decided we had to go, because I wouldn't be me unless I wanted to go to the not famous places more than the famous ones (did that make sense? I'm a little low on sleep...).
We found a map and tracked down the road that led to this tower. We walked up it a bit until we ran into a big gate (ouch!) and a very wide, grand set of stairs. Taking swigs from our waterbottles we began our climb up, and up, and up. By the time we got to the top we weren't exactly energetic enough to look up, so only after resting did we manage to lift our heads and see what we had found. We were on the top of a wooded hill at the base of a five story gray brick tower. The tower was pretty, although we couldn't enter into it, and that alone was worth the hike. To add to it, as we were on top of a large hill, we had a great view of the lake on one side and the downtown city of Hangzhou on the other.
The top of the hill had a path, so we took it and in a minute found ourselves on a narrow path up some rocks between two boulders each the size of a small house. It was chaotic getting through that path, as there was only enough room for one to go by at a time, and you couldn't quite see who was around the corner coming the other way, and by the time it was our turn to go through the little path we had quite a large crowd behind us. But that part was neat too.
Being experimental, on the other side of the narrow path we took a different route down the hill, figuring that if we kept heading in the right direction (aka down) we would eventually return to the lake. Although there were a lot of bugs biting us, we got to see some treats on the way down. We saw a gecko, which was awesome! Tian Jing had never seen one before and was so confused about what it was, and the way it spread its fingers so wide to grip on to things was cool. As if that weren't enough, we began to hear insanely large amounts of buzzing in the air and tried to place it. Eventually it became apparent that there were these large bugs flying through the air with almost two inch wingspans and about an inch long. Some were on a tree, and we noticed that they were almost neon green, and then that they were beetles. They were huge and really beautiful. The last cool wildlife we saw were these little lizards about three or four inches long. They were really thin, thinner than earthworms, and had these dinky little legs. I would never have noticed them except for their iridescent blue tails. So pretty! Why they have bright blue tails I cannot for the life of me figure out, and I also have no clue how they stay alive during the winter. Hangzhou is no tropical paradise, in the winter it snows a fair amount, but in the summer they are allowed their tropical animal life, I suppose. And there was the super cool yellow and black striped centipede. Sorry, forgot about that one.
Near the bottom we saw a large garden and courtyard house that was open to the public, so we went in. We were the only ones there except for a groundskeeper, and it was this beautiful, well-kept house with absolutely no furniture in it and a verdant garden with sculpture, ponds, rocks, and all. It was simple, but really pretty.
The rest of the day we exhausted ourselves walking until our feet bled, eating ice cream, getting nodded at by the foreign man in the ferrari, and listening to a community choir practice opera (aahh! run away!). We got home exhausted, but it was fun to see a new city and it really helped relax me. I hadn't realized how tense I was and how much I missed sunlight until getting to Hangzhou and having all the time in the world and spending it in good company. I got home and felt better about the world, and Danielle came into town the next morning for the week. Hopefully I'll write about her being here next time, and probably something about my trip to Beijing on Friday.
Links to photos:
Hangzhou Photos on Facebook
Sunday, July 29, 2007
An Introduction to Bars
This week I began to try and introduce myself to Shanghai's classic establishment, the bar. I started on Wednesday (seriously.) with a visit to my corner Irish Pub (seriously.) Oscar's. I chose this night because it was open mic night and there were free cocktails for the ladies. Being a lady, I thought to try a free cocktail. So I went in, after cutting a path through the cigarette smoke with a chisel, took a seat in a comfy wicker chair with a good view of the band. First, all the bands were actually quite good, and that judgment was made before imbibing anything, and the cocktail only mediocre. However, after nursing my drink for a few songs, a waiter came over bearing a bailey's and cream and placed it in front of me, telling me that someone at the bar had sent it my way, just like in the movies.
I looked around and nobody disclosed themselves as the sender of my drink, but I thought it was the African guy playing the hand drum who might have sent it as he gave me a smile when I walked in the door. Note that he was probably twice my age, but he seemed nice enough, so I took a seat at the bar next to him when it opened up, at which point he made me put the drum between my legs and try to play along with the music. We ended up disagreeing about proper drum technique. I did everything he did, but lefty style. He told me that I couldn't do the main beat with my left hand, that it had to be my right hand, but as his French was better than his English and my French essentially nonexistent, I had to try and go completely against my instincts to lead with my right hand. Happy when the song was over and I could stop being under his scrutiny, I discovered that it was not he who sent me the drink.
Across the bar was a reasonably good-looking, somewhat scruffy guy who had sent me my drink. His hair was back in a ponytail (but short), and I would say that in terms of a scale between Pirate Steve and Captain Jack Sparrow, he was slightly on the Captain's side (sorry MS! You can still be the pirate queen ;) and so moved next to him to try and chat. Try being the operative word, as he was sitting right by the speakers. I learned that he is from London and either teaches or does something with computers, and that he sings heavy metal. Other than that the entire conversation was me more or less pretending I could hear. But he seemed nice enough.
Friday I was planning to go out with friends for a night on the town, but when they canceled on me I began to go home, then remembered one place I could always go to find people. So I looked up the address and told the cab driver where I wanted to go, and he drove, and drove, and then we passed the place without seeing it, and then we turned around and realized that it was hidden behind construction, but eventually I ended up at Chabad, walking in awkwardly as everyone was just about to sit down to eat. I sat with a bunch of frenchmen who were nice, made friends with some other people, ate well, went for a walk afterwards, got invited to a party at an organic farm, had some wine, it was nice.
Yesterday (Saturday), I went out to a bar called Mural which has salsa and other latin dancing on Saturday nights. So I got there early and had a chat with Giuseppe, a nice Italian guy who was way older than me (a theme, I know....) and I tried one of their on the house drinks, which was supposed to be something like a mojito, I think, but tasted almost identical to mouthwash. Anyway, Giuseppe turned out to be a really good dancer (way better than me!) and it was fun to dance with him, though I couldn't dance the whole night with him, sadly. Apparently yesterday was a Peruvian national holiday, so the bar was crowded and full of singing South Americans. Actually a pretty fun situation. So eventually this Chinese guy attached himself to me, asked me to Cha-cha, he did nothing but basic step, I was about to yawn myself to death, he and I chatted some, he has a really odd cha-cha, he sort of slips/locksteps across the floor, it is more ballet like than anything else, very odd, and he got my number (a fake) and introduced me to his Uighur friends (one of them was the bellydancer who performed during the band's breaks). He was a little odd, and it turned out later that he danced to every song as if it were a cha, no matter the beat, and so eventually I tried to avoid him a little, which was difficult, and lets just say I was pleased when he left (he asked if I wanted to join him and his friends for food afterwards, I declined). He had been wearing a Washington DC shirt he bought when he was there, it was one of those that looks a little like a kid drew it with a crayon and had the capitol building on it. That paired with athletic shorts proved that he was a guy with class. So it turned out that not many people at salsa night actually knew salsa, but it was enjoyable anyway.
Today I went out on a limb and sent Captain Jack a text message asking if he wanted to grab dinner with me. He wrote back saying he was sick and didn't really want to go out, etc, etc. So I went to dinner by myself, but to get most anywhere have to pass the corner pub. I peeked in the window, and who did I see sitting at the bar but he himself? :( <-- So not funny.
(btw, Schaffe in Mir just came up on my playlist, oh schmertz!)
A strong woman, I walked by to the restaurant around the corner which I had never tried. I followed some silent waitress in and picked a table, and she handed me a menu. This is unusual, I thought, usually the Chinese comes first and English second. And this is a flimsy selection for a restaurant like this. But I figured they just weren't that good and so ordered a standard, boring dish and sat and waited for it to arrive. It came, it was well-done, even if it was boring, and I ate it. When I was about 2/3 of the way through a couple came and sat down next to us. They were handed completely different menus. That were about five times as long, including having cheaper options and a much more interesting variety. Well, lets say I lost my appetite. I asked the waitress for a menu as she was collecting them from that table, and she was about to hand me a chinese one, but then realized her mistake and went back to get an English one. I asked her specifically for a Chinese one at that point and she looked at me with a little fear, like when the crazy talking man sits down next to you on the bus. The couple at the table had to repeat to her that I said Chinese edition before she came back and timidly handed me a menu. I looked through it to discover some dishes I would have appreciated ordering much more, folded the menu and placed it on the table.
So at this point I'm sitting there, looking like I want to order more. At first I'm too angry at the waitresses to even look at them, but eventually I wanted someone to come over and ask me if I wanted to order anything else. So I looked at waitresses as they passed by. I put my arm out along the top of the booth and tapped my fingers to signal my impatience as they passed by. I crossed my arms and looked at them, hoping one might feel so inclined to stop by and check up on me. I held the menu out, I put the menu open on the table, on my lap, I crossed the menu in my arms, I looked at it again, I turned my head, I looked at the waitress as she dealt with the two tables on either side of me, and eventually I raised my eyebrows after making contact with one of them. She looked at me confusedly, as if I had just been sitting around bored for the past twenty minutes rather than waiting for one of the people I was looking at to even take notice of me. (By the way, I think I scared the busboys. One of them almost mentioned to a waitress that maybe I wanted something, and one of them timidly filled my glass of water, like a lowly Lord trying to serve the angry lioness without her biting his head off)
But eventually after making contact with her, raising my eyebrows, nodding my head, and using my hand to motion her over, she came and stood silently sort of near my table. I was at a slight loss for words after that, but she took that as me meaning I summoned her over for no reason and so began to walk away, silently. Eventually I stammered out that I had been waiting twenty minutes for a waitress to come over and ask if I was just using that menu as a table decoration or to contemplate the meaning of life, and she continued to stand there silently. As well, I told her that I was embarrassed because she either thought that I wasn't intelligent enough to read Chinese characters or not cultured enough to enjoy real Chinese food, and hence she didn't even ask if I wanted a proper menu. I then just told her to get me the check, totally fuming, and she silently brought it back to me. I paid, and told her on the way out that there is the phrase "Is there anything else I can help you with?" and also explained that just because I'm a foreigner doesn't mean I'm stupid or need to be handled only from the other end of a twenty foot pole. Silently I stalked towards the door, and everyone who worked near the door smiled like they do at every other restaurant and told me they hope I'll come back.
No way in hell.
Yes, I was quite rude at the end, and I understand that maybe they can't read minds. I might have calmed down had someone apologized. Had someone realized that I was speaking Chinese with them since walking in the door. Had someone come over and treated me like a real human being. I've experienced discrimination in China before, but never anything like this. It has usually been positive discrimination, or discrimination until I began to speak Chinese. This time it didn't matter how many nice vocabulary words I used, and I threw in a few lovely flowers of poetry just to try and get some reaction, it didn't matter what I did. I probably could have stood on the table naked and they would have remained just as unwilling to communicate with me, unwilling to ask me what I might like, and just unpleasant. One thing I've always appreciated is how polite the Chinese are everywhere but on the roads (public transit included). I have had innumerable courteous experiences, but never have I been ignored in this manner. Never. Hundreds of meals in restaurants, and although sometimes service has been slow, they have never so entirely forgotten about me (at the least they come and ask if I want the bill to kindly suggest I get the hell out of there). It really left a sour taste in my mouth, and I just have the feeling that that was one of the most unpleasant experiences I've had in China. I have handled bad living conditions, I have handled people who don't understand me, but never people who won't understand me.
I know that it seems that I'm making mountains out of molehills, and that I probably wasn't being communicative enough, and maybe I'm hoping for too much, but that was not a cheap restaurant and in my entire time here I have never seen something like it. I remember I was close to just walking out of the place, and maybe I should have just done so. But I wanted to see what would happen, how bad it would be. Of course I've never walked out of a restaurant before either. Its odd to have that 'the worst' experience, and wonder at the same time if there aren't frustrated emotions coming out, or if this situation is unique to me in this restaurant, or if a different me would have brushed the same experience off as being just the way China is and dismissing it with a laugh. But at the same time I can't get it out of my head and feel like maybe I have a right to be angry about it, and maybe this is real discrimination. Of course, this is capitalism now, and I have as much right as anyone else to put my dollar where my mouth is: that restaurant will not see me or my money again.
I looked around and nobody disclosed themselves as the sender of my drink, but I thought it was the African guy playing the hand drum who might have sent it as he gave me a smile when I walked in the door. Note that he was probably twice my age, but he seemed nice enough, so I took a seat at the bar next to him when it opened up, at which point he made me put the drum between my legs and try to play along with the music. We ended up disagreeing about proper drum technique. I did everything he did, but lefty style. He told me that I couldn't do the main beat with my left hand, that it had to be my right hand, but as his French was better than his English and my French essentially nonexistent, I had to try and go completely against my instincts to lead with my right hand. Happy when the song was over and I could stop being under his scrutiny, I discovered that it was not he who sent me the drink.
Across the bar was a reasonably good-looking, somewhat scruffy guy who had sent me my drink. His hair was back in a ponytail (but short), and I would say that in terms of a scale between Pirate Steve and Captain Jack Sparrow, he was slightly on the Captain's side (sorry MS! You can still be the pirate queen ;) and so moved next to him to try and chat. Try being the operative word, as he was sitting right by the speakers. I learned that he is from London and either teaches or does something with computers, and that he sings heavy metal. Other than that the entire conversation was me more or less pretending I could hear. But he seemed nice enough.
Friday I was planning to go out with friends for a night on the town, but when they canceled on me I began to go home, then remembered one place I could always go to find people. So I looked up the address and told the cab driver where I wanted to go, and he drove, and drove, and then we passed the place without seeing it, and then we turned around and realized that it was hidden behind construction, but eventually I ended up at Chabad, walking in awkwardly as everyone was just about to sit down to eat. I sat with a bunch of frenchmen who were nice, made friends with some other people, ate well, went for a walk afterwards, got invited to a party at an organic farm, had some wine, it was nice.
Yesterday (Saturday), I went out to a bar called Mural which has salsa and other latin dancing on Saturday nights. So I got there early and had a chat with Giuseppe, a nice Italian guy who was way older than me (a theme, I know....) and I tried one of their on the house drinks, which was supposed to be something like a mojito, I think, but tasted almost identical to mouthwash. Anyway, Giuseppe turned out to be a really good dancer (way better than me!) and it was fun to dance with him, though I couldn't dance the whole night with him, sadly. Apparently yesterday was a Peruvian national holiday, so the bar was crowded and full of singing South Americans. Actually a pretty fun situation. So eventually this Chinese guy attached himself to me, asked me to Cha-cha, he did nothing but basic step, I was about to yawn myself to death, he and I chatted some, he has a really odd cha-cha, he sort of slips/locksteps across the floor, it is more ballet like than anything else, very odd, and he got my number (a fake) and introduced me to his Uighur friends (one of them was the bellydancer who performed during the band's breaks). He was a little odd, and it turned out later that he danced to every song as if it were a cha, no matter the beat, and so eventually I tried to avoid him a little, which was difficult, and lets just say I was pleased when he left (he asked if I wanted to join him and his friends for food afterwards, I declined). He had been wearing a Washington DC shirt he bought when he was there, it was one of those that looks a little like a kid drew it with a crayon and had the capitol building on it. That paired with athletic shorts proved that he was a guy with class. So it turned out that not many people at salsa night actually knew salsa, but it was enjoyable anyway.
Today I went out on a limb and sent Captain Jack a text message asking if he wanted to grab dinner with me. He wrote back saying he was sick and didn't really want to go out, etc, etc. So I went to dinner by myself, but to get most anywhere have to pass the corner pub. I peeked in the window, and who did I see sitting at the bar but he himself? :( <-- So not funny.
(btw, Schaffe in Mir just came up on my playlist, oh schmertz!)
A strong woman, I walked by to the restaurant around the corner which I had never tried. I followed some silent waitress in and picked a table, and she handed me a menu. This is unusual, I thought, usually the Chinese comes first and English second. And this is a flimsy selection for a restaurant like this. But I figured they just weren't that good and so ordered a standard, boring dish and sat and waited for it to arrive. It came, it was well-done, even if it was boring, and I ate it. When I was about 2/3 of the way through a couple came and sat down next to us. They were handed completely different menus. That were about five times as long, including having cheaper options and a much more interesting variety. Well, lets say I lost my appetite. I asked the waitress for a menu as she was collecting them from that table, and she was about to hand me a chinese one, but then realized her mistake and went back to get an English one. I asked her specifically for a Chinese one at that point and she looked at me with a little fear, like when the crazy talking man sits down next to you on the bus. The couple at the table had to repeat to her that I said Chinese edition before she came back and timidly handed me a menu. I looked through it to discover some dishes I would have appreciated ordering much more, folded the menu and placed it on the table.
So at this point I'm sitting there, looking like I want to order more. At first I'm too angry at the waitresses to even look at them, but eventually I wanted someone to come over and ask me if I wanted to order anything else. So I looked at waitresses as they passed by. I put my arm out along the top of the booth and tapped my fingers to signal my impatience as they passed by. I crossed my arms and looked at them, hoping one might feel so inclined to stop by and check up on me. I held the menu out, I put the menu open on the table, on my lap, I crossed the menu in my arms, I looked at it again, I turned my head, I looked at the waitress as she dealt with the two tables on either side of me, and eventually I raised my eyebrows after making contact with one of them. She looked at me confusedly, as if I had just been sitting around bored for the past twenty minutes rather than waiting for one of the people I was looking at to even take notice of me. (By the way, I think I scared the busboys. One of them almost mentioned to a waitress that maybe I wanted something, and one of them timidly filled my glass of water, like a lowly Lord trying to serve the angry lioness without her biting his head off)
But eventually after making contact with her, raising my eyebrows, nodding my head, and using my hand to motion her over, she came and stood silently sort of near my table. I was at a slight loss for words after that, but she took that as me meaning I summoned her over for no reason and so began to walk away, silently. Eventually I stammered out that I had been waiting twenty minutes for a waitress to come over and ask if I was just using that menu as a table decoration or to contemplate the meaning of life, and she continued to stand there silently. As well, I told her that I was embarrassed because she either thought that I wasn't intelligent enough to read Chinese characters or not cultured enough to enjoy real Chinese food, and hence she didn't even ask if I wanted a proper menu. I then just told her to get me the check, totally fuming, and she silently brought it back to me. I paid, and told her on the way out that there is the phrase "Is there anything else I can help you with?" and also explained that just because I'm a foreigner doesn't mean I'm stupid or need to be handled only from the other end of a twenty foot pole. Silently I stalked towards the door, and everyone who worked near the door smiled like they do at every other restaurant and told me they hope I'll come back.
No way in hell.
Yes, I was quite rude at the end, and I understand that maybe they can't read minds. I might have calmed down had someone apologized. Had someone realized that I was speaking Chinese with them since walking in the door. Had someone come over and treated me like a real human being. I've experienced discrimination in China before, but never anything like this. It has usually been positive discrimination, or discrimination until I began to speak Chinese. This time it didn't matter how many nice vocabulary words I used, and I threw in a few lovely flowers of poetry just to try and get some reaction, it didn't matter what I did. I probably could have stood on the table naked and they would have remained just as unwilling to communicate with me, unwilling to ask me what I might like, and just unpleasant. One thing I've always appreciated is how polite the Chinese are everywhere but on the roads (public transit included). I have had innumerable courteous experiences, but never have I been ignored in this manner. Never. Hundreds of meals in restaurants, and although sometimes service has been slow, they have never so entirely forgotten about me (at the least they come and ask if I want the bill to kindly suggest I get the hell out of there). It really left a sour taste in my mouth, and I just have the feeling that that was one of the most unpleasant experiences I've had in China. I have handled bad living conditions, I have handled people who don't understand me, but never people who won't understand me.
I know that it seems that I'm making mountains out of molehills, and that I probably wasn't being communicative enough, and maybe I'm hoping for too much, but that was not a cheap restaurant and in my entire time here I have never seen something like it. I remember I was close to just walking out of the place, and maybe I should have just done so. But I wanted to see what would happen, how bad it would be. Of course I've never walked out of a restaurant before either. Its odd to have that 'the worst' experience, and wonder at the same time if there aren't frustrated emotions coming out, or if this situation is unique to me in this restaurant, or if a different me would have brushed the same experience off as being just the way China is and dismissing it with a laugh. But at the same time I can't get it out of my head and feel like maybe I have a right to be angry about it, and maybe this is real discrimination. Of course, this is capitalism now, and I have as much right as anyone else to put my dollar where my mouth is: that restaurant will not see me or my money again.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
China in Photos
Tonight I feel that photos will speak louder than words (or at least photos accompanied by captions) so enjoy! Also, you can click on any of these photos to see them larger/in higher resolution.
Lets start with my favorite category, misprinted signs:
I'm so glad that since they're on sale they would like me to come in and sweep the floors! I also like how they really took the theme all the way by making the sign in the shape of a door marker that you might find in a hotel asking the maid to take care of things. This really really made me want to go in and check out what they've got...to see if it needs washing.
So for this one I went to a Beijing roast duck place, and they had these guys tiled all over the floor. Look at him, step on him, eat him. Nothing like a baby donald duck for dinner. And in marble!
So here Anne is kind enough to point out this restaurant's lovely 'Drink and Mine list'. Brings sake bombing to a whole new level.
This one I made extra big to make sure you could see it. It is the inside of the 'Mine list'. Hopefully you can read it. It is a drink menu, and has so many misspellings I just had to include it. Like champage and teguilla.
From China photos">
This one is special because it not only has 'crona beer' and 'budwei beer', but if you look at 'tea' (in the middle by the teapots) it has one special tea that would like to suck your blood. If you translate the Chinese, it is still a nobleman's tea, but he happens to usually be considered an earl, not a count. Or court.
This one is a sign in cabs which discusses who may and may not ride in cabs. Apparently psychos are not allowed. Especially dumping psychos.
So the other day I went out to dinner with some friends of my mother's (thank you again for a marvelous meal!) and after dinner they took me to their favorite movie purchasing joint. It was not the place across the street, Movie world:
No no, this place was even better than movie world:
For real. I put myself in this photo just to prove that it really was real and not photoshopped or anything (if you knew my photoshop skills you would know I couldn't do anything this complicated).
That's all for now, enjoy!
Lets start with my favorite category, misprinted signs:
I'm so glad that since they're on sale they would like me to come in and sweep the floors! I also like how they really took the theme all the way by making the sign in the shape of a door marker that you might find in a hotel asking the maid to take care of things. This really really made me want to go in and check out what they've got...to see if it needs washing.
So for this one I went to a Beijing roast duck place, and they had these guys tiled all over the floor. Look at him, step on him, eat him. Nothing like a baby donald duck for dinner. And in marble!
So here Anne is kind enough to point out this restaurant's lovely 'Drink and Mine list'. Brings sake bombing to a whole new level.
This one I made extra big to make sure you could see it. It is the inside of the 'Mine list'. Hopefully you can read it. It is a drink menu, and has so many misspellings I just had to include it. Like champage and teguilla.
From China photos">This one is special because it not only has 'crona beer' and 'budwei beer', but if you look at 'tea' (in the middle by the teapots) it has one special tea that would like to suck your blood. If you translate the Chinese, it is still a nobleman's tea, but he happens to usually be considered an earl, not a count. Or court.
This one is a sign in cabs which discusses who may and may not ride in cabs. Apparently psychos are not allowed. Especially dumping psychos.
So the other day I went out to dinner with some friends of my mother's (thank you again for a marvelous meal!) and after dinner they took me to their favorite movie purchasing joint. It was not the place across the street, Movie world:
No no, this place was even better than movie world:
For real. I put myself in this photo just to prove that it really was real and not photoshopped or anything (if you knew my photoshop skills you would know I couldn't do anything this complicated).
That's all for now, enjoy!
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The end of Xiamen and Toilet Wars
So, I was going to use this post to write about serious matters, and I will start with the rest of my Xiamen visit before down-spiraling into dirty jokes.
Wed. morning in Xiamen we went to a professor's house to do an interview. He lives on the campus of Xiamen University and is an Urban Anthropologist. Who loves to talk. Really really loves to talk. He went more than half an hour over the allotted time we had given him, and when we told him we had to go he started to show us his photos. As well he had this super strong accent, so I'm not quite sure what happened during that hour and a half of my life.
Afterwards we went to the Industrial sector of the city for an interview with some developers, and it was an interesting one as not only could I follow some of the conversation, but they were young, polite, and it gave me a chance to see what is being constructed in the city at this point in time. That area had a very different feel to it, just less crowded I suppose...
We had lunch with them, and went to this cafe place where the waitress kept trying to explain to me that I probably wouldn't like the Chinese food and so should probably just get the western-style steak. I ordered beef over rice wrapped in lotus leaf. It was okay, but not spectacular. An interesting part was that our hosts, the two young people from the other company, both ordered some cool coffee-ice-drinks, but we didn't order any drinks, wanting to be polite, and I thought it odd that they didn't invite us to order drinks, but oh well.
I was totally unsure of how to conduct myself at this meal. It was sort of a semi-business lunch, but I didn't think that really formal Chinese manners would be appropriate, however the one joke I tried to crack was either so not funny that I should be ashamed, or it was just not at a good time. It wasn't even much of a joke, just a little quip, but I didn't even get half a smile from them. Stupid corporate world...
So after lunch we went back to the hotel for a rest before heading out to Gulangyu, the scenic, touristy island right off of Xiamen island. We took a ferry over that circled the island first before docking, and the instant we were off the dock we were accosted by people interested in being our tour guides. Eventually we got some guy from Anhui province to be our tour guide for a discount (as he was unofficial) and he helped us find our way to the various sites of the island. I thought the island as a whole was quite pretty, the aviary nice (I'll upload a few cute photos/one video clip from that later), and the rocky peak at the highest point of the island really great, but as with many Chinese tourist places, I found the actual tourist sites quite grating.
A little on Gulangyu, though. This island is also known as 'the Piano island' because apparently at its height some disproportionate amount of people owned pianos. Now in its garden one of the major attractions is the Piano museum, which I went to and did like a lot. This was a spectacular collection, including a mid-19th century Steinway, several harpsichords, roll pianos, uprights, grands, baby grands, tabletop, and some others I don't know the names of. We took the tour there, and there was a little mini-performance by the tour guide at the end, but she just played a re-arrangement of the island's theme song which is apparently famous throughout China. I thought with that much respect towards pianos she should have at least played Debbusy or Bach or something, to respect the spectacular instrument she was playing on. But that's me being a snob.
For dinner we went to a place that our guide recommended, and it was fresh seafood which we picked out from the bucket again. When we went upstairs to the table our waitress was this little middle schooler who said she was sorry for us because we ordered too much. Well, she was right. The food was mediocre and very overpriced (the same price as the amazing meal from the day before, but less food of worse quality!) and we were not pleased about that, to say the least.
Our waitress had just finished what we would consider seventh grade, and worked at this restaurant during her summer vacation. She got to the restaurant at eight every morning and worked until at least ten-thirty or eleven every night. Her boss didn't feed her much, and for all that work she made about 650 RMB a month or so. Apparently she had siblings and didn't expect that her family would be able to afford to send her to college, and the money she made went to supplement her family as paying for her schooling was already a stretch. She was pretty smart and very outgoing, and really kind. She kept saying she felt sorry for us, but we probably felt sorry for her. However it was nice conversing with her anyway, and I hope that she manages to go to college in the end, as she would enjoy it.
So our tour guide got 15% commission for bringing us to that restaurant, and as it was such a flop and he made so much money off of it we didn't pay him for his services. He agreed that was fair and didn't care much because that fee was a very small part of what he made off of our meal. The rest of the evening is just us going home and then we flew out the next morning.
In other news, Anne is over, I bought the new Harry Potter today (at the Shanghai museum gift store, of all places!) and my toilet is clogged. Well, neither Anne nor I were particularly phased, because we have two plungers here and figured that would do the trick. However, we've plunged for about 45 minutes to no avail. We watched an online video advising us on what to do, we've tried some home tricks like putting dishwashing detergent down the toilet to help, and still it sits there quite clogged. So we're going out tonight, but if we can't get it fixed I plan to call a plumber tomorrow, provided I can even figure out how one goes about finding a plumber. Anyway, if anyone has any advice on how we can fix this issue, please tell me ASAP. Until then, I would just like to remind the world that shit happens and that there are so many more jokes that could be made here and I'm going to show restraint because I've got to go, but feel free to leave any jokes you'd like in the comments section. I've got so much more to share, but for now I will leave it here.
Hope everyone in America is doing well, and a shout out to Mer who I owe one. Until next time!
Wed. morning in Xiamen we went to a professor's house to do an interview. He lives on the campus of Xiamen University and is an Urban Anthropologist. Who loves to talk. Really really loves to talk. He went more than half an hour over the allotted time we had given him, and when we told him we had to go he started to show us his photos. As well he had this super strong accent, so I'm not quite sure what happened during that hour and a half of my life.
Afterwards we went to the Industrial sector of the city for an interview with some developers, and it was an interesting one as not only could I follow some of the conversation, but they were young, polite, and it gave me a chance to see what is being constructed in the city at this point in time. That area had a very different feel to it, just less crowded I suppose...
We had lunch with them, and went to this cafe place where the waitress kept trying to explain to me that I probably wouldn't like the Chinese food and so should probably just get the western-style steak. I ordered beef over rice wrapped in lotus leaf. It was okay, but not spectacular. An interesting part was that our hosts, the two young people from the other company, both ordered some cool coffee-ice-drinks, but we didn't order any drinks, wanting to be polite, and I thought it odd that they didn't invite us to order drinks, but oh well.
I was totally unsure of how to conduct myself at this meal. It was sort of a semi-business lunch, but I didn't think that really formal Chinese manners would be appropriate, however the one joke I tried to crack was either so not funny that I should be ashamed, or it was just not at a good time. It wasn't even much of a joke, just a little quip, but I didn't even get half a smile from them. Stupid corporate world...
So after lunch we went back to the hotel for a rest before heading out to Gulangyu, the scenic, touristy island right off of Xiamen island. We took a ferry over that circled the island first before docking, and the instant we were off the dock we were accosted by people interested in being our tour guides. Eventually we got some guy from Anhui province to be our tour guide for a discount (as he was unofficial) and he helped us find our way to the various sites of the island. I thought the island as a whole was quite pretty, the aviary nice (I'll upload a few cute photos/one video clip from that later), and the rocky peak at the highest point of the island really great, but as with many Chinese tourist places, I found the actual tourist sites quite grating.
A little on Gulangyu, though. This island is also known as 'the Piano island' because apparently at its height some disproportionate amount of people owned pianos. Now in its garden one of the major attractions is the Piano museum, which I went to and did like a lot. This was a spectacular collection, including a mid-19th century Steinway, several harpsichords, roll pianos, uprights, grands, baby grands, tabletop, and some others I don't know the names of. We took the tour there, and there was a little mini-performance by the tour guide at the end, but she just played a re-arrangement of the island's theme song which is apparently famous throughout China. I thought with that much respect towards pianos she should have at least played Debbusy or Bach or something, to respect the spectacular instrument she was playing on. But that's me being a snob.
For dinner we went to a place that our guide recommended, and it was fresh seafood which we picked out from the bucket again. When we went upstairs to the table our waitress was this little middle schooler who said she was sorry for us because we ordered too much. Well, she was right. The food was mediocre and very overpriced (the same price as the amazing meal from the day before, but less food of worse quality!) and we were not pleased about that, to say the least.
Our waitress had just finished what we would consider seventh grade, and worked at this restaurant during her summer vacation. She got to the restaurant at eight every morning and worked until at least ten-thirty or eleven every night. Her boss didn't feed her much, and for all that work she made about 650 RMB a month or so. Apparently she had siblings and didn't expect that her family would be able to afford to send her to college, and the money she made went to supplement her family as paying for her schooling was already a stretch. She was pretty smart and very outgoing, and really kind. She kept saying she felt sorry for us, but we probably felt sorry for her. However it was nice conversing with her anyway, and I hope that she manages to go to college in the end, as she would enjoy it.
So our tour guide got 15% commission for bringing us to that restaurant, and as it was such a flop and he made so much money off of it we didn't pay him for his services. He agreed that was fair and didn't care much because that fee was a very small part of what he made off of our meal. The rest of the evening is just us going home and then we flew out the next morning.
In other news, Anne is over, I bought the new Harry Potter today (at the Shanghai museum gift store, of all places!) and my toilet is clogged. Well, neither Anne nor I were particularly phased, because we have two plungers here and figured that would do the trick. However, we've plunged for about 45 minutes to no avail. We watched an online video advising us on what to do, we've tried some home tricks like putting dishwashing detergent down the toilet to help, and still it sits there quite clogged. So we're going out tonight, but if we can't get it fixed I plan to call a plumber tomorrow, provided I can even figure out how one goes about finding a plumber. Anyway, if anyone has any advice on how we can fix this issue, please tell me ASAP. Until then, I would just like to remind the world that shit happens and that there are so many more jokes that could be made here and I'm going to show restraint because I've got to go, but feel free to leave any jokes you'd like in the comments section. I've got so much more to share, but for now I will leave it here.
Hope everyone in America is doing well, and a shout out to Mer who I owe one. Until next time!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Xiamen
Well I feel bad leaving people where I did yesterday, as it makes the whole world seem a lot more bleak than it actually is.
Yesterday midday a car came to the office to pick me up and drive me to the airport, which it did, and I eventually figured out how to check in. You see, this was a challenge because the airport only has single screens to display flight information, such as whether it is on time, whether you can check in, which counter to check in at, etc. Because they only display it on one screen, they then will show one page at a time, with about ten flights, for about twenty seconds, then flip to the next screen, and do this for the entire day's flights. Never mind that some of those flights weren't leaving for at least another six hours, they still showed them, and so if you overlooked your flight the first time around you had to wait a few minutes before your information went back up. I, of course, needed to check twice to figure everything out, and so this took time. I checked in and went to a restauarant to get food. I ordered beef noodles and they asked me if I wanted tea. I indicated that yes, tea would be nice, and so they brought that. I got the bill and it was about half again as much as I had expected. I asked them why this was, and apparently they charge 10 yuan for a cup of tea. This is at the place that charges 20 for the beef noodles. It was more than a little ridiculous. Most of the nicer restaurants in Shanghai wouldn't even charge that much for tea, or if they did it at least wouldn't taste like hay.
For the flight I had no pillow, and the armrest was a little low for the way I like to sleep, so I managed what I considered a triumphant improvization involving placing my book on my shoulder and leaning against that. Thank you Barbara Kingsolver, and if anyone wondered whether or not Harvard students are really bibliophiles, this should confirm it.
The hotel had a car to meet me and the other person on this trip, Alexandra (she was coming in from Beijing, hence meeting her in Xiamen rather than earlier), and we soon arrived at the Sofitel Xiamen. We discovered that the company has special status, so we're part of the 'Sofitel Club', which means small, intimate breakfast room with a full buffet (they've got doughnuts, and yogurt, and bacon, and baozi, and congee, and danishes, and bread [real bread!], and jam, and marmalade, and.... ~BP) the top floors of the hotel, ocean-view rooms, free internet, and a couple other perks which don't hurt. I've got a large and fluffy king size bed, and I took a bath with hot water yesterday, and today got to shower, also with hot water. (Have I mentioned that I've yet to get the hot water running in the apartment?) They gave me a scrubby thing and bath salts, and the point is I am being spoiled, she says as she sits in a pristine white robe. The only thing is that I can't figure out what you're supposed to do with the other kind of robe, maybe it is for wearing down to the spa? It is sort of a Japanese-style one, just some plain cotton, no special textures. I can't figure it out. If you know the answer, send it my way and get 10 points!
So enough about how nice the hotel is (jealous yet?) after settling in we went out, first to dinner at a place that does 'classic Xiamen cuisine'. I ate jellied bugs. They tasted like bugs jellied with salt water and tobasco. It was not one of those 'weird but works' sort of dishes that sometimes happen in China (like the preserved egg with tofu and vinegar) this was one of those 'just plain weird' dishes, that I found totally unappetizing. However I did have noodles made out of eel that were really yummy as well as shrimp which we picked out from the tank and they cooked for us, and some other great dishes.
One of the things we needed to do this week was street interviews asking people who migrated to the city about their experience. So we got our first one done in the restaurant with one of the guys who tended the live fish before they got cooked. Our next field interviews we did with some guys across the street from the restaurant. It turns out that these guys are all marketers for herbalife, a weight loss dietary supplement. So while my partner did an interview with one of them, another one babbled on and on in fast Chinese about what I can only presume was about how wonderful this product was, and about the leader, and how I must have heard about this giant American company, and had I seen their headquarters, right next to Coca-cola's in LA. So the only association I have with that brand is on Ugly Betty where her sister is an Herbaluxe vendor, which is a parody on Herbalife, and that's all I knew about it, so I smiled and nodded until we had finished our interviews with that group. We then went to this big pedestrian mall that is one of Xiamen's major attractions and gathered more interviews there along with just seeing what there was to be seen. Back to the hotel, sleep.
This morning I got to sleep in until the lovely hour of 8 AM (almost an hour later than usual!) and eat breakfast and get dressed all professional for our interviews. We had four formal interviews today, and the entire time I felt like my Chinese was pretty much crap. The first interview I could follow only a little (it helped that there were slides), the second interview was almost completely lost on me. The third interview I actually didn't have too much trouble with, and the fourth interview I just hope she didn't notice my flagging attention. Part of the problem with the fourth interview was that we did it in a non-aircon area while i was in a full suit. It must have been 85 or 90 inside, add the suit to that, and I was just really really really uncomfortably hot. If you are out there, the person who was interviewed, accept my humble apology! That was an embarassing moment. I tried to write random things in my notebook, no matter what they were, just to make it look like I knew what was going on and was paying attention, but most of those fifty minutes are just a blur in my head. And we won't even talk about how many times our taxi driver dropped us off in the wrong place or we went to the wrong site for the interview. ;)
Dinner we did fresh seafood, and I had the best baby clams in black bean sauce in the world. Sorry Evergreen, but we picked these clams out fresh from the tank by hand, not to mention the shrimp, large bivalves, and crabs that we had for dinner. It was soooo good. You just go to the tank, pick out your victims, and they take them back, cook them in a manner that they like, and bring out to you your dishes. So we weren't quite sure what we could expect, but it ended up being so great. We sat outside and watched dusk turn to night on the ocean and had a sea breeze to keep us cool. It was super messy--crab is not an easy food to eat in the best of conditions--but it was so good!
So Xiamen has so far been great, I've got one more day here tomorrow and then I head back to Shanghai on Thursday morning. Big shoutout to that guy who emailed me, sounds like you should play more softball, and a shoutout to that girl who is visiting me this weekend. Also Celia and Marcela get shoutouts for posting comments, I miss both of you a ton! It is easy to win my love and affection through communication :) Until next time!
Yesterday midday a car came to the office to pick me up and drive me to the airport, which it did, and I eventually figured out how to check in. You see, this was a challenge because the airport only has single screens to display flight information, such as whether it is on time, whether you can check in, which counter to check in at, etc. Because they only display it on one screen, they then will show one page at a time, with about ten flights, for about twenty seconds, then flip to the next screen, and do this for the entire day's flights. Never mind that some of those flights weren't leaving for at least another six hours, they still showed them, and so if you overlooked your flight the first time around you had to wait a few minutes before your information went back up. I, of course, needed to check twice to figure everything out, and so this took time. I checked in and went to a restauarant to get food. I ordered beef noodles and they asked me if I wanted tea. I indicated that yes, tea would be nice, and so they brought that. I got the bill and it was about half again as much as I had expected. I asked them why this was, and apparently they charge 10 yuan for a cup of tea. This is at the place that charges 20 for the beef noodles. It was more than a little ridiculous. Most of the nicer restaurants in Shanghai wouldn't even charge that much for tea, or if they did it at least wouldn't taste like hay.
For the flight I had no pillow, and the armrest was a little low for the way I like to sleep, so I managed what I considered a triumphant improvization involving placing my book on my shoulder and leaning against that. Thank you Barbara Kingsolver, and if anyone wondered whether or not Harvard students are really bibliophiles, this should confirm it.
The hotel had a car to meet me and the other person on this trip, Alexandra (she was coming in from Beijing, hence meeting her in Xiamen rather than earlier), and we soon arrived at the Sofitel Xiamen. We discovered that the company has special status, so we're part of the 'Sofitel Club', which means small, intimate breakfast room with a full buffet (they've got doughnuts, and yogurt, and bacon, and baozi, and congee, and danishes, and bread [real bread!], and jam, and marmalade, and.... ~BP) the top floors of the hotel, ocean-view rooms, free internet, and a couple other perks which don't hurt. I've got a large and fluffy king size bed, and I took a bath with hot water yesterday, and today got to shower, also with hot water. (Have I mentioned that I've yet to get the hot water running in the apartment?) They gave me a scrubby thing and bath salts, and the point is I am being spoiled, she says as she sits in a pristine white robe. The only thing is that I can't figure out what you're supposed to do with the other kind of robe, maybe it is for wearing down to the spa? It is sort of a Japanese-style one, just some plain cotton, no special textures. I can't figure it out. If you know the answer, send it my way and get 10 points!
So enough about how nice the hotel is (jealous yet?) after settling in we went out, first to dinner at a place that does 'classic Xiamen cuisine'. I ate jellied bugs. They tasted like bugs jellied with salt water and tobasco. It was not one of those 'weird but works' sort of dishes that sometimes happen in China (like the preserved egg with tofu and vinegar) this was one of those 'just plain weird' dishes, that I found totally unappetizing. However I did have noodles made out of eel that were really yummy as well as shrimp which we picked out from the tank and they cooked for us, and some other great dishes.
One of the things we needed to do this week was street interviews asking people who migrated to the city about their experience. So we got our first one done in the restaurant with one of the guys who tended the live fish before they got cooked. Our next field interviews we did with some guys across the street from the restaurant. It turns out that these guys are all marketers for herbalife, a weight loss dietary supplement. So while my partner did an interview with one of them, another one babbled on and on in fast Chinese about what I can only presume was about how wonderful this product was, and about the leader, and how I must have heard about this giant American company, and had I seen their headquarters, right next to Coca-cola's in LA. So the only association I have with that brand is on Ugly Betty where her sister is an Herbaluxe vendor, which is a parody on Herbalife, and that's all I knew about it, so I smiled and nodded until we had finished our interviews with that group. We then went to this big pedestrian mall that is one of Xiamen's major attractions and gathered more interviews there along with just seeing what there was to be seen. Back to the hotel, sleep.
This morning I got to sleep in until the lovely hour of 8 AM (almost an hour later than usual!) and eat breakfast and get dressed all professional for our interviews. We had four formal interviews today, and the entire time I felt like my Chinese was pretty much crap. The first interview I could follow only a little (it helped that there were slides), the second interview was almost completely lost on me. The third interview I actually didn't have too much trouble with, and the fourth interview I just hope she didn't notice my flagging attention. Part of the problem with the fourth interview was that we did it in a non-aircon area while i was in a full suit. It must have been 85 or 90 inside, add the suit to that, and I was just really really really uncomfortably hot. If you are out there, the person who was interviewed, accept my humble apology! That was an embarassing moment. I tried to write random things in my notebook, no matter what they were, just to make it look like I knew what was going on and was paying attention, but most of those fifty minutes are just a blur in my head. And we won't even talk about how many times our taxi driver dropped us off in the wrong place or we went to the wrong site for the interview. ;)
Dinner we did fresh seafood, and I had the best baby clams in black bean sauce in the world. Sorry Evergreen, but we picked these clams out fresh from the tank by hand, not to mention the shrimp, large bivalves, and crabs that we had for dinner. It was soooo good. You just go to the tank, pick out your victims, and they take them back, cook them in a manner that they like, and bring out to you your dishes. So we weren't quite sure what we could expect, but it ended up being so great. We sat outside and watched dusk turn to night on the ocean and had a sea breeze to keep us cool. It was super messy--crab is not an easy food to eat in the best of conditions--but it was so good!
So Xiamen has so far been great, I've got one more day here tomorrow and then I head back to Shanghai on Thursday morning. Big shoutout to that guy who emailed me, sounds like you should play more softball, and a shoutout to that girl who is visiting me this weekend. Also Celia and Marcela get shoutouts for posting comments, I miss both of you a ton! It is easy to win my love and affection through communication :) Until next time!
Monday, July 16, 2007
Walking through Shanghai
I'm sitting in a five-star hotel room overlooking the ocean in a southern Chinese city called Xiamen, but I'm not going to talk about Xiamen for now. I'll save that for the end of the week when I'm on my way back to Shanghai. Just giving you a tantalizing tidbit for later, to keep you tuned in ;) Since I'm on this business trip away from home, it is a great time to call and see what I'm up to. Hint hint. My evenings work best, aka American mornings.
Today I feel like talking a little bit about China in general, because I feel that I've spent enough time here now to be able to muse on the country, if you will. And if you won't, just close the browser window and don't tell me about it.
Saturday I went into downtown Shanghai to have a look and see how the city has changed from when I was last there in 2003. I took the subway to People's Square and after getting lost going back and forth underground trying to cross the street, finally emerged where I wanted to be, at the head of Nanjing Rd. pedestrian mall, where I began my walk for the day. I was wearing my 49 RMB Birkin Sticks, a play (or 'play-garism') on Birkenstocks, on what might just be the most crowded street in China. (To follow my walking tour you can direct your browser to www.exploreshanghai.com) Every few seconds I was approached by someone who wanted to sell me bags and watches. The first person to do so said 'bag, watch', and I actually thought he might have been reminding me to keep my belongings close, I wasn't sure and could barely hear him. Eventually I figured that they were trying to sell me things (the first guy didn't have a little magazine with all his goods in it) and soon enough I got annoyed. It was difficult enough dodging the pedestrian trains that sped down the center of the way without running into others, nevermind the heat, without needing to also be approached by street hawkers peddling imitation Prada.
One girl came up to me and started speaking English, but it was so stilted I sincerely couldn't understand her. Sher repeated herself and I discovered she was actually saying "I'm student. Make art, come see my paintings." but it wasn't a simple task. I still told her I couldn't understand (in my best Chinese) and explained that I came from some country (I switch around randomly between all sorts of non-English speaking countries) that wasn't America and so had absolutely no idea what she was trying to say to me. She seemed to not understand my Chinese and continue ploughing forward using English.
By the time I had gotten 2/3 of the way to the river I was really annoyed at these people. None of the Chinese were being followed for several feet by people who were trying to rip them off! I started to be very brisk with these people, asking them to go annoy someone else, telling them I really didn't want anything, and just generally getting more and more upset. It probably didn't help that I was getting dehydrated and tired of walking, but the people I was supposed to hang out with were being unresponsive.
Having a foreign face here is such a double-sided coin. On one hand you are constantly harassed like that when walking down the street, and although all you might want to do is wander lost in your own thoughts, everyone feels that you're the perfect target for whatever plans they have brewing. On the other hand you have a get out of jail free card. If you ever get into trouble, all of a sudden you don't speak Chinese. If you want to get something done, then you do speak Chinese and it is just so amazing to see you speak that you can get your way. When I go shopping, with the clothes I sometimes wear certain nicer stores really wouldn't be so happy with my trying certain items of clothing on, but because of my face I can still get good treatment. It is really a different sort of paradox to be in, simultaneously respected and harassed.
I got to the river and from there headed south down the Bund. This is one of the oddest parts of China to me because it is all western architecture, but at the same time most of it is dirty and a little run-down. With the modern-built Pudong right across the way, (for a picture click here.)
you really do get a feeling of how much Shanghai has changed in the last century. The contrast is really striking, and if a way you get a sense of nostalgia for how Shanghai must have been back then. I have the feeling that there was more a feeling of culture than there is now. Shanghai is unique in that most of the restaurants in downtown Shanghai aren't 'Shanghaiese' or even general Chinese. You can get tons of Western, Thai, Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Japanese, but to find a place that does the classic Chinese dishes is quite difficult in the affluent part of town. The most popular show here is currently 'Mama Mia', and I just feel that I don't really understand what 'Shanghai culture' is. It may be I just have yet to get to the parts of Shanghai that haven't westernized, but I feel like there's something I'm missing yet.
I guess sometimes in China you have up days and sometimes you have down days. Today, for the most part, was actually an up, but Saturday wandering through the streets of Shanghai searching for Shanghai was sort of a down. I ended the day in Xintiandi, right by work, at a Haagen Dazs having a caramel latte (it was a normal latte but they then put dolce de leche ice cream in it--yum) and listening to jazz standards played over the speaker system in the restaurant, then heading home and watching Shrek the Third (I tried to watch Memoirs of a Geisha but either the movie itself was filmed too dark or the quality of my DVD wasn't good enough--I'll guess the latter) before bed. I imagine that as I get more familiar with the city I will find different things, and I can't wait for that day, but at the moment I feel that either Shanghai has changed a lot since I was last here, or I have. Maybe both, but the energy and liveliness that I remember Shanghai having when I was here in 2003 doesn't seem to be capturing me in the same way anymore.
Today I feel like talking a little bit about China in general, because I feel that I've spent enough time here now to be able to muse on the country, if you will. And if you won't, just close the browser window and don't tell me about it.
Saturday I went into downtown Shanghai to have a look and see how the city has changed from when I was last there in 2003. I took the subway to People's Square and after getting lost going back and forth underground trying to cross the street, finally emerged where I wanted to be, at the head of Nanjing Rd. pedestrian mall, where I began my walk for the day. I was wearing my 49 RMB Birkin Sticks, a play (or 'play-garism') on Birkenstocks, on what might just be the most crowded street in China. (To follow my walking tour you can direct your browser to www.exploreshanghai.com) Every few seconds I was approached by someone who wanted to sell me bags and watches. The first person to do so said 'bag, watch', and I actually thought he might have been reminding me to keep my belongings close, I wasn't sure and could barely hear him. Eventually I figured that they were trying to sell me things (the first guy didn't have a little magazine with all his goods in it) and soon enough I got annoyed. It was difficult enough dodging the pedestrian trains that sped down the center of the way without running into others, nevermind the heat, without needing to also be approached by street hawkers peddling imitation Prada.
One girl came up to me and started speaking English, but it was so stilted I sincerely couldn't understand her. Sher repeated herself and I discovered she was actually saying "I'm student. Make art, come see my paintings." but it wasn't a simple task. I still told her I couldn't understand (in my best Chinese) and explained that I came from some country (I switch around randomly between all sorts of non-English speaking countries) that wasn't America and so had absolutely no idea what she was trying to say to me. She seemed to not understand my Chinese and continue ploughing forward using English.
By the time I had gotten 2/3 of the way to the river I was really annoyed at these people. None of the Chinese were being followed for several feet by people who were trying to rip them off! I started to be very brisk with these people, asking them to go annoy someone else, telling them I really didn't want anything, and just generally getting more and more upset. It probably didn't help that I was getting dehydrated and tired of walking, but the people I was supposed to hang out with were being unresponsive.
Having a foreign face here is such a double-sided coin. On one hand you are constantly harassed like that when walking down the street, and although all you might want to do is wander lost in your own thoughts, everyone feels that you're the perfect target for whatever plans they have brewing. On the other hand you have a get out of jail free card. If you ever get into trouble, all of a sudden you don't speak Chinese. If you want to get something done, then you do speak Chinese and it is just so amazing to see you speak that you can get your way. When I go shopping, with the clothes I sometimes wear certain nicer stores really wouldn't be so happy with my trying certain items of clothing on, but because of my face I can still get good treatment. It is really a different sort of paradox to be in, simultaneously respected and harassed.
I got to the river and from there headed south down the Bund. This is one of the oddest parts of China to me because it is all western architecture, but at the same time most of it is dirty and a little run-down. With the modern-built Pudong right across the way, (for a picture click here.)
you really do get a feeling of how much Shanghai has changed in the last century. The contrast is really striking, and if a way you get a sense of nostalgia for how Shanghai must have been back then. I have the feeling that there was more a feeling of culture than there is now. Shanghai is unique in that most of the restaurants in downtown Shanghai aren't 'Shanghaiese' or even general Chinese. You can get tons of Western, Thai, Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Japanese, but to find a place that does the classic Chinese dishes is quite difficult in the affluent part of town. The most popular show here is currently 'Mama Mia', and I just feel that I don't really understand what 'Shanghai culture' is. It may be I just have yet to get to the parts of Shanghai that haven't westernized, but I feel like there's something I'm missing yet.
I guess sometimes in China you have up days and sometimes you have down days. Today, for the most part, was actually an up, but Saturday wandering through the streets of Shanghai searching for Shanghai was sort of a down. I ended the day in Xintiandi, right by work, at a Haagen Dazs having a caramel latte (it was a normal latte but they then put dolce de leche ice cream in it--yum) and listening to jazz standards played over the speaker system in the restaurant, then heading home and watching Shrek the Third (I tried to watch Memoirs of a Geisha but either the movie itself was filmed too dark or the quality of my DVD wasn't good enough--I'll guess the latter) before bed. I imagine that as I get more familiar with the city I will find different things, and I can't wait for that day, but at the moment I feel that either Shanghai has changed a lot since I was last here, or I have. Maybe both, but the energy and liveliness that I remember Shanghai having when I was here in 2003 doesn't seem to be capturing me in the same way anymore.
Friday, July 13, 2007
The Corporate World
I don't think I'm made out for the corporate world. I think I smile too often, and make sarcastic comments too often. I don't think that those sorts of things are appreciated in the corporate world. Or Monty Python references.
For example, yesterday I was attending a workshop on corporate finance. This is essentially how to read an end-of-year report from a company. So at first I thought this was interesting, but by the time we got to liabilities and the differences between those and just regular debt and expense and another fancy word I can't remember, I was somewhat bored. And as I drifted off to daydream-land, what did I think of but that I was in a large vessel, maybe a galleon, floating out of the window of the office building into a bright new world...as I drew said ship in the margins of my notebook, I began to hear a humming behind me, and then lyrics came unbidden: It's fun to charter an accountant, and sail the wide accountancy... I included these lovely and famous words in with my doodle and showed it to a neighboring intern. He didn't get it, despite his being British. I thought that a pity and told him as such, and demanded he come watch Meaning of Life at some point in time to redeem himself. He agreed to do so. And let's just say the person giving the talk on accounting was not particularly amused. I felt bad for being rude and felt that perhaps I have difficulty staying focused whenever the word 'finance' shows up, and thus one might be able to comprehend my feelings of inadequacy regarding the corporate world.
"But how is work?" you might ask. This week was the first official week of work, and I found myself in three very different situations. One was that I had to help call companies in Xiamen, Fujian in Southern China to schedule interviews. I prepared my script, I said things very clearly, and then the receptionist replied very quickly with things I couldn't understand because of their speed and her accent. I had to give that front up. In addition I tried to do reading put out by the Xiamen government on various aspects of the city and its development, and discovered that I didn't know half the words used. So, in short, situation one is my Chinese is inadequate.
Right now my supervisor is out of town, and so I have been delegated to another team to do work, hence calling people. When that didn't work, they ran out of things for me to do. So I didn't have any work, and sat around wasting time or helping my friends on projects they were assigned in a completely different department. Situation two: boredom.
Today I encountered situation three. Upon emailing my supervisor and asking for work, he told me that there was some confusion about a certain turnout of one of the models, and so told me to figure out what reasoning might be behind that. Essentially I had to find jobs for 2-5 million migrants to Shanghai within the next few years. Unofficially I figured out that half of them would need to be construction workers to build houses for themselves and the other half would be sex workers because that's what happens sometimes, but since I couldn't tell my boss that half of them would be whores I made some pretty charts and wrote up a page on how there would likely be jobs and some logical reasonings that rural GDP wouldn't change. It's all related, though not obviously so from my short explanation. And I think it might be classified, so to disclose more information than this non-information might cost me and anyone who reads this blog their life. So the only real way to solve the question is modelling, which is exactly how we got to the question in the first place, and yet I was supposed to work out a solution. I think this was a test to see what I could get done on a near-impossible task and see how good my problem-solving skills are. Generally speaking, however, I enjoyed thinking in work today, no matter how difficult the task, and think that if this will constitute my summer (rather than either of the other situations) I will be most pleased.
In other work-related news I go to Xiamen on Monday for a business trip. A car is going to pick me up at the office to drive me to the airport and they're putting me up in a 5* hotel. I'm sure I'll have all sorts of news about that next week.
Otherwise to close up I'm putting the permalinks to all my Australia photos for those of you without facebook access:
Sydney
Manly
Katoomba
Canberra and Melbourne
Fraser Island
Brisbane
I'll be putting pictures from Shanghai up soon enough! Hopefully I will post again before the weekend is up, because I've got lots to share! Also, please tell me if something isn't working well in the blog, as though I can post no problem, the Chinese government has blocked my access to view the blog, and so I have to go through a proxy and it is a pain in the neck, so I won't check that things are working very often.
For example, yesterday I was attending a workshop on corporate finance. This is essentially how to read an end-of-year report from a company. So at first I thought this was interesting, but by the time we got to liabilities and the differences between those and just regular debt and expense and another fancy word I can't remember, I was somewhat bored. And as I drifted off to daydream-land, what did I think of but that I was in a large vessel, maybe a galleon, floating out of the window of the office building into a bright new world...as I drew said ship in the margins of my notebook, I began to hear a humming behind me, and then lyrics came unbidden: It's fun to charter an accountant, and sail the wide accountancy... I included these lovely and famous words in with my doodle and showed it to a neighboring intern. He didn't get it, despite his being British. I thought that a pity and told him as such, and demanded he come watch Meaning of Life at some point in time to redeem himself. He agreed to do so. And let's just say the person giving the talk on accounting was not particularly amused. I felt bad for being rude and felt that perhaps I have difficulty staying focused whenever the word 'finance' shows up, and thus one might be able to comprehend my feelings of inadequacy regarding the corporate world.
"But how is work?" you might ask. This week was the first official week of work, and I found myself in three very different situations. One was that I had to help call companies in Xiamen, Fujian in Southern China to schedule interviews. I prepared my script, I said things very clearly, and then the receptionist replied very quickly with things I couldn't understand because of their speed and her accent. I had to give that front up. In addition I tried to do reading put out by the Xiamen government on various aspects of the city and its development, and discovered that I didn't know half the words used. So, in short, situation one is my Chinese is inadequate.
Right now my supervisor is out of town, and so I have been delegated to another team to do work, hence calling people. When that didn't work, they ran out of things for me to do. So I didn't have any work, and sat around wasting time or helping my friends on projects they were assigned in a completely different department. Situation two: boredom.
Today I encountered situation three. Upon emailing my supervisor and asking for work, he told me that there was some confusion about a certain turnout of one of the models, and so told me to figure out what reasoning might be behind that. Essentially I had to find jobs for 2-5 million migrants to Shanghai within the next few years. Unofficially I figured out that half of them would need to be construction workers to build houses for themselves and the other half would be sex workers because that's what happens sometimes, but since I couldn't tell my boss that half of them would be whores I made some pretty charts and wrote up a page on how there would likely be jobs and some logical reasonings that rural GDP wouldn't change. It's all related, though not obviously so from my short explanation. And I think it might be classified, so to disclose more information than this non-information might cost me and anyone who reads this blog their life. So the only real way to solve the question is modelling, which is exactly how we got to the question in the first place, and yet I was supposed to work out a solution. I think this was a test to see what I could get done on a near-impossible task and see how good my problem-solving skills are. Generally speaking, however, I enjoyed thinking in work today, no matter how difficult the task, and think that if this will constitute my summer (rather than either of the other situations) I will be most pleased.
In other work-related news I go to Xiamen on Monday for a business trip. A car is going to pick me up at the office to drive me to the airport and they're putting me up in a 5* hotel. I'm sure I'll have all sorts of news about that next week.
Otherwise to close up I'm putting the permalinks to all my Australia photos for those of you without facebook access:
Sydney
Manly
Katoomba
Canberra and Melbourne
Fraser Island
Brisbane
I'll be putting pictures from Shanghai up soon enough! Hopefully I will post again before the weekend is up, because I've got lots to share! Also, please tell me if something isn't working well in the blog, as though I can post no problem, the Chinese government has blocked my access to view the blog, and so I have to go through a proxy and it is a pain in the neck, so I won't check that things are working very often.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Discovering 'the old' China
As some of you know, I have been sad because I have felt that Shanghai is much more expensive than I remembered the rest of China being, and felt that China has just been too clean, the people too well-dressed, and just generally classier than Beijing. Now, I admit that the class is nice and all, and I'm getting used to seeing other foreigners, but today I made an exciting discovery.
I discovered my old China again.
Friday I went shopping with a friend at a mall, and she told me it was cheaper than the places by work. Relieved to have a local guide, I joined her and her mother at this other shopping venue, only to discover that yes, this stuff was cheaper than by work (work has Bally, Coach, and other big-name brands), but it was still priced similarly to that in America. I still found a skirt I liked a lot and so shelled out the cash for it, but missed my cheap hole-in-the-wall shopping places where I could get crappy clothing for good prices. This stuff was just too good!
Well I asked this co-worker to recommend a cheap place for me to go, and she gladly provided the name of a place for me. I looked it up on a map and though it was accessible by subway, it was not too close to me. Perfect, I decided, and perfect it almost was.
I set out this morning and got there about 45 minutes later, to find shopping galore! Most places I haggled a fair bit, and though things were still not as dirt cheap as they were in Beijing two years ago, things were fair-priced, and I also admit I wasn't trying too hard. I came back home with a slightly lighter wallet ($60 USD or so), and 2 pairs of shoes, two shirts, two pretty purses (more on those in a minute), a pair of earrings, a new wallet (my old one is falling apart), an umbrella with a pretty pattern on it, a nightgown, and I had lunch. I now feel much better outfitted for work and life in general.
Now this area had much less class, which I appreciated. I was on the train on the way over there and when we stopped at a station, I noted a woman holding her son towards a supporting column in an odd manner. He must of been about three, and she was holding him with his back to her, also holding his legs up, so he was in a little ball, more or less. I curiously continued watching and then he started to urinate into the trash can by the column. All of a sudden I could better understand why she was holding him in an odd position facing a pillar. This is the class I better remember China with.
When I was bag shopping I went into this store and was surrounded by cute bags. I found one that was the right size and a dark purple and really cute, and asked her how much. She gave me an answer of something like 380, I stopped listening after that. I told her not to cheat me, and per custom she asked me how much I thought it should be. I said 100, remembering that by my house something similar had been about 150, and thinking that would be reasonable. She said yes way too quickly, and so I realized my mistake. Panicked, not wanting to overspend, I went to a bag that was the same style but different color and shape (cute green bag). I asked her how much for two, and she said 200. I told her I wouldn't pay the same for two as I would for one, and countered with 150. She said 180, I said 160 and that's that. She relented, I felt better about buying them, and thus got two really cute and colorful, big purses for a good deal.
At lunch I went to a little noodle shop and got a bowl, then someone else sat at my table, and what was he wearing but a shirt with aboriginal Australian art on it. I asked if he had been to Australia, and he said he hadn't, but apparently his daughter had. So we talked for a while, about America and China and studying abroad and all sorts of things, and it was fun, the noodles were good, and he was nice.
Perhaps I'll post about work later this week, but for now I should probably go and do my work. Until the next post,
Jenny
I discovered my old China again.
Friday I went shopping with a friend at a mall, and she told me it was cheaper than the places by work. Relieved to have a local guide, I joined her and her mother at this other shopping venue, only to discover that yes, this stuff was cheaper than by work (work has Bally, Coach, and other big-name brands), but it was still priced similarly to that in America. I still found a skirt I liked a lot and so shelled out the cash for it, but missed my cheap hole-in-the-wall shopping places where I could get crappy clothing for good prices. This stuff was just too good!
Well I asked this co-worker to recommend a cheap place for me to go, and she gladly provided the name of a place for me. I looked it up on a map and though it was accessible by subway, it was not too close to me. Perfect, I decided, and perfect it almost was.
I set out this morning and got there about 45 minutes later, to find shopping galore! Most places I haggled a fair bit, and though things were still not as dirt cheap as they were in Beijing two years ago, things were fair-priced, and I also admit I wasn't trying too hard. I came back home with a slightly lighter wallet ($60 USD or so), and 2 pairs of shoes, two shirts, two pretty purses (more on those in a minute), a pair of earrings, a new wallet (my old one is falling apart), an umbrella with a pretty pattern on it, a nightgown, and I had lunch. I now feel much better outfitted for work and life in general.
Now this area had much less class, which I appreciated. I was on the train on the way over there and when we stopped at a station, I noted a woman holding her son towards a supporting column in an odd manner. He must of been about three, and she was holding him with his back to her, also holding his legs up, so he was in a little ball, more or less. I curiously continued watching and then he started to urinate into the trash can by the column. All of a sudden I could better understand why she was holding him in an odd position facing a pillar. This is the class I better remember China with.
When I was bag shopping I went into this store and was surrounded by cute bags. I found one that was the right size and a dark purple and really cute, and asked her how much. She gave me an answer of something like 380, I stopped listening after that. I told her not to cheat me, and per custom she asked me how much I thought it should be. I said 100, remembering that by my house something similar had been about 150, and thinking that would be reasonable. She said yes way too quickly, and so I realized my mistake. Panicked, not wanting to overspend, I went to a bag that was the same style but different color and shape (cute green bag). I asked her how much for two, and she said 200. I told her I wouldn't pay the same for two as I would for one, and countered with 150. She said 180, I said 160 and that's that. She relented, I felt better about buying them, and thus got two really cute and colorful, big purses for a good deal.
At lunch I went to a little noodle shop and got a bowl, then someone else sat at my table, and what was he wearing but a shirt with aboriginal Australian art on it. I asked if he had been to Australia, and he said he hadn't, but apparently his daughter had. So we talked for a while, about America and China and studying abroad and all sorts of things, and it was fun, the noodles were good, and he was nice.
Perhaps I'll post about work later this week, but for now I should probably go and do my work. Until the next post,
Jenny
Just Arrived
So I have made it to Shanghai!
To get here I flew Brisbane to Sydney (about 1 hr) and then Sydney to Shanghai (about 10 hours). I made friends with the flight attendant, and the guy next to me flirted with her and got her number. She gave us fruit and we talked a lot. I will probably hang out with her when she's in Shanghai next. I landed about 8:30 PM and Tian Jing (host sister from SYA) was there to meet me, angel that she is. She helped me get my things to my apartment.
My apartment is really nice, it has a study, which must be about 7'x10', a kitchen, an entryway/dining room/hallway which is about 8'x10', and a largeish bedroom which must be about 16' square, and the classic Chinese sunporch/closet for drying clothes. Why they couldn't have made the bedroom smaller and the bathroom larger, I don't know....it is a lot of space for just me, but hopefully I will have people over often enough to be able to make good use of it.
I've learned a lot about the guy who lives here from the things he has left behind. From his DVD collection I have learned that he is gay (he has Will and Grace, Scrubs, Queer as Folk, and a large collection of musicals and art films), from his sunporch I have learned that he is tall (I need to buy a stool to be able to reach the hanging wires semi-comfortably), from the drawer in the kitchen I have learned that he smokes, and from the kitchen itself I have learned that he doesn't cook much (he has a knife still in its casing on his counter, his wok looks completely unused, and he had no mixing bowls nor any sort of cooking spoon). He also is not a tea person, as he has no teapot. I feel like Nancy Drew.
Shanghai is HOT. Shanghai is HUMID. I am so thankful for the air-con in my house. I wish I never had to go outside while here. I have been sweating like a pig and it is disgusting. According to weather.com, right now (10:30 PM) it is 90 F, but with 66% humidity feels like 102. It actually isn't any different from what it was during the day. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, which will cool things down during the day, but not exactly keep the humidity down. Small comfort is that the average temperature stays around this for the rest of the summer, so at least it shouldn't get much worse. And the subway is air-conditioned.
In other news I got a new cell phone number (one of the many things I did today). It's +86 136 3655 9611, and if you get the sudden urge to call just please make sure that you've got the time zones right. Some of the other things I did today were to go and buy things for the apartment, like paper towels, frozen dumplings, sugar, rice, oil, vinegar, laundry items, a good knife, a mixing bowl for the kitchen, etc. I did a load of laundry, very exciting as I had no clean clothes left after tour, I figured out how to say 'bleach' in Chinese, I had lunch with the other interns at McKinsey, which was really fun. They're a great group of people, very international mix with everyone having lived in at least two countries at some point in time, and everyone is just as confused about what's actually going on in terms of the internship. We're all really confused about what we're actually up to at this job, but we hope to find out tomorrow on the first day of work. So we spent about four hours hanging out and chatting and that was good. Otherwise I spent the day going around shopping and searching for a grocery store. I have everything I need in the kitchen except for fresh vegetables, which I hope to remedy tomorrow, as since I got internet hooked up (harder than I thought it would be, I needed to configure a PPPoE or something like that, which wasn't obvious), I looked up where some good supermarkets are and discovered that had I walked one more block yesterday I would have gotten to one, but what can you do...nobody would tell me where one was, I asked around a lot. Did I mention that Shanghai is a fair bit more expensive than the rest of China? I am totally thrown off in haggling because i no longer have a clue as to how much I should be paying for things.
So that's what is happening in my life. I'm working on getting pictures of Australia up on Facebook, I just redid the Sydney album so that it has all my sydney photos instead of just some of them. Here's the link.
So that's a pretty good summary of my life in Shanghai, feel free to forward this on to anyone you think might care.
And last, a little information on contacting me. I'm getting some heavy-duty skype stuff so that I can contact people in America and you guys can contact me. So I can call out whenever I feel like it or you can call me at (312)235-2009. It will go to my computer and if i'm around I'll answer, if I'm not you can leave me a voicemail. Or if you have skype you can find me under the screen name brightwinds. Pretty cool, huh? So give it a try since I'll be around a lot without company.
Best,
Jenny
To get here I flew Brisbane to Sydney (about 1 hr) and then Sydney to Shanghai (about 10 hours). I made friends with the flight attendant, and the guy next to me flirted with her and got her number. She gave us fruit and we talked a lot. I will probably hang out with her when she's in Shanghai next. I landed about 8:30 PM and Tian Jing (host sister from SYA) was there to meet me, angel that she is. She helped me get my things to my apartment.
My apartment is really nice, it has a study, which must be about 7'x10', a kitchen, an entryway/dining room/hallway which is about 8'x10', and a largeish bedroom which must be about 16' square, and the classic Chinese sunporch/closet for drying clothes. Why they couldn't have made the bedroom smaller and the bathroom larger, I don't know....it is a lot of space for just me, but hopefully I will have people over often enough to be able to make good use of it.
I've learned a lot about the guy who lives here from the things he has left behind. From his DVD collection I have learned that he is gay (he has Will and Grace, Scrubs, Queer as Folk, and a large collection of musicals and art films), from his sunporch I have learned that he is tall (I need to buy a stool to be able to reach the hanging wires semi-comfortably), from the drawer in the kitchen I have learned that he smokes, and from the kitchen itself I have learned that he doesn't cook much (he has a knife still in its casing on his counter, his wok looks completely unused, and he had no mixing bowls nor any sort of cooking spoon). He also is not a tea person, as he has no teapot. I feel like Nancy Drew.
Shanghai is HOT. Shanghai is HUMID. I am so thankful for the air-con in my house. I wish I never had to go outside while here. I have been sweating like a pig and it is disgusting. According to weather.com, right now (10:30 PM) it is 90 F, but with 66% humidity feels like 102. It actually isn't any different from what it was during the day. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, which will cool things down during the day, but not exactly keep the humidity down. Small comfort is that the average temperature stays around this for the rest of the summer, so at least it shouldn't get much worse. And the subway is air-conditioned.
In other news I got a new cell phone number (one of the many things I did today). It's +86 136 3655 9611, and if you get the sudden urge to call just please make sure that you've got the time zones right. Some of the other things I did today were to go and buy things for the apartment, like paper towels, frozen dumplings, sugar, rice, oil, vinegar, laundry items, a good knife, a mixing bowl for the kitchen, etc. I did a load of laundry, very exciting as I had no clean clothes left after tour, I figured out how to say 'bleach' in Chinese, I had lunch with the other interns at McKinsey, which was really fun. They're a great group of people, very international mix with everyone having lived in at least two countries at some point in time, and everyone is just as confused about what's actually going on in terms of the internship. We're all really confused about what we're actually up to at this job, but we hope to find out tomorrow on the first day of work. So we spent about four hours hanging out and chatting and that was good. Otherwise I spent the day going around shopping and searching for a grocery store. I have everything I need in the kitchen except for fresh vegetables, which I hope to remedy tomorrow, as since I got internet hooked up (harder than I thought it would be, I needed to configure a PPPoE or something like that, which wasn't obvious), I looked up where some good supermarkets are and discovered that had I walked one more block yesterday I would have gotten to one, but what can you do...nobody would tell me where one was, I asked around a lot. Did I mention that Shanghai is a fair bit more expensive than the rest of China? I am totally thrown off in haggling because i no longer have a clue as to how much I should be paying for things.
So that's what is happening in my life. I'm working on getting pictures of Australia up on Facebook, I just redid the Sydney album so that it has all my sydney photos instead of just some of them. Here's the link.
So that's a pretty good summary of my life in Shanghai, feel free to forward this on to anyone you think might care.
And last, a little information on contacting me. I'm getting some heavy-duty skype stuff so that I can contact people in America and you guys can contact me. So I can call out whenever I feel like it or you can call me at (312)235-2009. It will go to my computer and if i'm around I'll answer, if I'm not you can leave me a voicemail. Or if you have skype you can find me under the screen name brightwinds. Pretty cool, huh? So give it a try since I'll be around a lot without company.
Best,
Jenny
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