A Mess of Things

In my earlier post I forgot to mention one of my favorite places I have been to in Shanghai. The House of Jazz and Blues. Right off the Bund this small bar has live music almost every night. Some of the boys went here one of the first weekends in Shanghai and talked so highly of it that I can't believe didn't go there now. We went on a Wednesday night to help Elliot celebrate his 21st birthday. Elliot's Aunt, Cousin, and Sister were all here in Shanghai for a week and at the same time Kevin's parents were also here. About 6 boys and myself met up with Elliot, Kevin and their families and listened to a live band from the states over glasses of wine and beer. It was a great break from school during the middle of the week. And of course James didn't let Elliot go through his 21st without a shot of Jose. Happy 21st Elliot!

House of Jazz and Blues

Birthday Tequila Shot

Last Saturday we had another visitor from the states. Issei's girlfriend, Emma, came into Shanghai on Saturday afternoon and we wanted to take her out for her first night in the city. We went to dinner at a restaurant that was rated Top 10 in the world by the New York Times in 2008. It did not disappoint. We followed this with a evening in XinTianDi and had a fantastic time. We also used her as an excuse to get all dressed up one night and go to some of the fancier places that we hadn't been to yet. After getting all gussied up, we went to what we like to call the "bottle opener". This picture doesn't illustrate the bottle opener effect very well put a picture in a previous post should. At the top of this building is a lounge that happened to have a live band. We spend most of the evening there and then went to Cloud 9, which is supposed to be the highest lounge in the world... We didn't stay long because they have a minimum charge that we weren't willing to pay. Instead we looked at the view and then called it a night. There is nothing I enjoy more in Shanghai than seeing the city at night. It is beautiful.

"Bottle Opener" Building
(aka Shanghai World Financial Center)

 Thursday was Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, living in a country that doesn't celebrate the holiday means you still have to go to class. Luckily my long class, International Relations, coincidently got cancelled because Professor Zheng was at a conference in the states. Thank the lord! Laurie and I got really excited in Chinese class about the holiday and decided to show Liu laoshi (Chinese teacher) how to draw turkeys out of the outline of our hands. We decorated the whole chalkboard and got on the discussion about dinner that night. Liu laoshi told us that she didn’t know how to do her make-up so Laurie and I told her to come down to our room and we would do it for her. After class we played Pandora Christmas music setting the mood while we got ready and did laoshi’s make-up. Dinner was at a hotel called the Crowne Plaza and it was buffet style. The dinner was better than expected but nothing like Thanksgiving back home.  There was a variety of American thanksgiving food along with Chinese food, sushi, burritos, pizza, a desert bar, etc… I had turkey, "mashed potatoes", green beans (cooked Chinese style), apple and walnut salad, rolls, and sweet potatoes (again cooked Chinese style). The desert was good but not Thanksgiving desert. They had ice cream and their version of apple and pumpkin pie which was more like a bar cookie with some topping. The boys made it a point/competition to see who could go through the line the most often. After one helping I was stuffed. After dinner we took pictures and then some of the group headed out while the rest of us (only a few of us) went back to campus on the bus to sleep off our food intake.

Thanksgiving Dinner in Shanghai

Laurie, Shao 邵 (a Chinese roommate), and I

Myself, Liu laoshi, and Laurie

Half of our Chinese class

Friday morning we got up and packed for Nanjing. We got on the bus at 12:45 for a four-hour trip to Nanjing. The worse part of the whole ride was when our tour guide, Hot Dog (sadly that is really the English name he gave himself), got on the bus. He immediately grabbed the microphone and began shouting into it to wake us up. Bad move Hot Dog. He now had 40 grumpy hungry college students that did not have a good first impression of him. He followed this mistake with another, he told us we were going to make a tourist stop before dinner instead of going straight there like we had planned. Hungry, tired college students then went up a mountain to see the mausoleum of Sun Yat-Sen only to get to the top and realize it was closed. I don’t know how he figure it would be open considering at 5:15 at the bottom of the mountain he kept saying “we must hurry, it closes at 5:00. Please follow me closely, like a bunch of bananas.” Bananas?? His Chi-nglish was not so good. We proceeded to walk back down the mountain to the bus and on to dinner. Dinner was in the basement of a restaurant were I am pretty sure they had the air conditioner running even though it was about 45 outside. The waitresses were in winter coats! We got used to great meals in Beijing were we were fed so well we always left stuffed with leftovers on the table. The laoshis’ that were with us on this trip obviously don’t have as big of appetites as John Tai. We left hungry. We got back on the bus with the intentions to boycott the “comedy show” (in a dialect we wouldn’t understand) that we were supposed to go to next. In Beijing we had quite a bit of control over what we did, and if no one wanted to go somewhere they wouldn’t make us. This trip was different. No one on the bus wanted to go to this comedy show, yet Hot Dog had already made reservations and he was not about to let us skip it. Strike 3 for Hot Dog. Dan, Matt, and Kyle got called up on stage and Matt ended up having to "marry" a Chinese woman on stage. He was asked to say a few words to the audience about his marriage and all he said was “For the love of God please don’t tell my girlfriend.” The entire CIEE group went into an uproar of laughter. It made the entire show worth it! That night we discovered that the internet in the hotel was fabulous, so Rob and I decided that we were going to skip out on the museums the next morning and watch the Duck game instead. I woke Rob and James up at 8am on the dot and Rob streamed the game live on his computer. The quality was great and with the W it made for a perfect morning. After the game, Drew, Robert, James and I met up with the rest of the group and took an hour bus ride to a hot springs resort. It was far more crowded than the one we went to in Sanya and less appealing. Having 40 CIEE in one place though always makes for a good time. We made the best of it. After the hot springs we went back to the hotel and had the evening to ourselves. We took naps (James and I caught up on some Prisonbreak, which I am now obsessed with) and then looked for a place for dinner. A group of 13 of us decided to go out in search of a high rated French restaurant. The food was amazing. I had 2 glasses of wine, smoked salmon loks salad, shrimp with mashed potatoes and veggies, and chocolate lava cake for around 20 dollars. It was a splurge but it was fabulous and totally worth it. The next morning we checked out of the hotel and got on the bus to head for Shanghai, although we had to make a stop along the way. Mudu, a watertown. We rode in little Chinese gondolas down the river and then got out and went into a garden where the boys played tagged for about 20 minutes while Laurie and I watched. We had an awful lunch were I think some people in the group were served dog. We got back on the bus and headed for Shanghai. I brought a nasty cold back to Shanghai with me and have been miserably trying to make it to classes and get through the homework successfully. 

Chinese Gondolas

Twins

 Monday we had two field trips. The morning trip was with John Tai to the Propaganda Art Center. It was awesome. I got to see the Big Character Posters that I am so fascinated with! I loved it! These posters are supposed to be originals from during the cultural revolution and era of Mao Zedong. I was fascinated that a man could collect these pieces and quietly show them to the world from the basement of an apartment building. After Chinese class we got on a bus and headed to the Bund to meet Amy Goldman for a tour of the Shanghai Gallery of Art. This time we were seeing art from a contemporary Chinese artist's point of view. Again it was amazing and a great way to start the week, especially when I haven't been feeling well sitting in the classroom is the last thing I wanted to do. 
 

Shanghai Propaganda Art Center 

Big Character Posters

Shanghai Gallery of Art