It's Rude to Spit Out the Grape Stems.

To preface the autumn festival holiday, I should mention the visa issues up to this point. When I came back from Hong Kong, I was on an L-class tourist visa that expired November 8th, which is in the middle of the holiday when the visa-extension office is closed. In addition, I was told that the extension started the day I  applied, so I would want to apply as late as possible, but the later you apply, the more dangerous it gets. The sequence of event ends up being: going to the extension office, realizing that I was missing some materials, going to the police office to redo my residence permit because I changed to a new visa, going to the visa office again and getting it extended after a five day turnaround (turns out, they will extend it the full period), picking up a temporary passport- essentially the receipt stapled to a picture and stamped with various red seals. This all occurs during various mornings and afternoons over a three day period. Not terribly efficient. 

The XinJiang trip started for me on Friday, which meant that I had to take two days out of my annual leave because we were expected to work the Friday and Saturday before the break. For some reason, the travel agency thought it best to book my flight to Urumuqi in the airport at the exact opposite end of the subway line I was on(Hongqiao), instead of the airport at  my end (Pudong), which would have taken me thirty minutes. After getting laughed at by an attendant for screwing up the electronic check-in and getting rushed through the premier line because even though I left at 5:30 for an 8:00 train, i was just barely in time, I made it to West China. After a day I met up with my parents and their four friends.

 I started typing out events in chronological order, but I decided against it; I'll just go through individual topics.

I would say that there are three primary biomes that I traveled through: desert, grassy plains, and forest. I happened to really enjoy all of them (perhaps its in my blood?) Deserts in Urumuqi were a chalky white dotted with rows of young trees, which I can only assume were planted as part of a local erosion project. In the "Devil's Valley", the desert was more sandy and red-colored, filled with odd rock formations and columns looked right out of National Geographic (especially since we came around Golden Hour). Huge oil derricks were sometimes the only man-made constructions breaking the horizon, almost like mythical beasts rhythmically grazing on sand. The desert in DenHuang was half rock cliffs and caves, half giant sand dunes. The main dune was a huge tourist attraction. Multiple convoys of camels would make loops from this point, reminiscent of some sort of  brightly colored tourist army, especially from the top of one of the dunes. Running down the side of a dune is probably the most fun that I've had on the trip; having to dump sand out of your shoes at the bottom was a minor inconvenience. 

The grass on the plains was not like California's at all. While California's is fairly long  and grows golden, XinJiang's plains are short, pale and fine. Look far enough and you would think you were looking at fake model grass. Sheep and cattle were common, the former much more than the latter. On the plains, white yurts were much more common. Sometimes small rocky formations would breach the plains, but they only added perspective to the huge expanses of pale green on blue. We didn't do much activity in the plains though, which was quite unfortunate. I think it would be awesome to go backpacking there one day. 

I normally don't care for forests; perhaps I've just seen too many up to this point. XinJiang's forests, though, were quite a sight. During autumn, every tree was bright yellow, so that the primary color theme, especially in Kanas national park, was blue and yellow for water, mountains, and sky. What really pleased me, was that a majority of the trees were poplars and aspens, members of my favorite tree species. There's something about white bark, a long, thin trunk, almost invisible branches, and yellow, circular leaves that makes a good impression on both sight and hearing. Apparently the national park was a favorite for training of the national photographer's association, or so I've been told. I would believe it, as people with tripods and huge camera lenses were everywhere. 

The local people in that particular national park lived in log cabins and generally looked very different from Han Chinese. Some of the young boys would even start out with blonde hair, which would gradually turn to black as they grew older. The natives were overall much more western, with bigger eyes and eyelashes, more olive skin color, and different facial structure and noses. Some were definitely lookers. Interestingly enough, there are a few traditions in regards to women that I thought were quite odd. Women would strive to give daughters a unibrow look, as it means that they wouldn't move far from home when married. If a woman remained slim after she got married, it means her husband wasn't feeding her enough. Women were pretty subservient to men in traditional Uygher culture. This one was learned at a traditional meal-type event, where the men in our group had to wear traditional hats and sit on the side of the table with a  backrest, while the women kind of sat on their side on a ledge facing the exit so they can easily go get things. Kind of uncomfortable. On that topic, men there seem to be a bit more feminine looking, imo. They make up for this by sporting sporty mustaches. There weren't too many people until the end of the trip, where so many tourists came that at one point while visiting some caves, we stood for around fifteen to thirty minutes in line just to get into thirteen small caverns each. I feel as if the tourist experience is less interactive in China compared to the West, but that may be because of the sheer amount of people seeing it. Although it was silly to me that they disallowed flash in the caves, but were fine with both flashlights and fluorescent lighting. 

Food there was mostly various types of sheep and noodles. Most things had this nice spice on it that wasn't too strong, but very flavorful. Some highlights included sheep kebabs, roast whole sheep, sheep broth (there was a lot of sheep), and this type of noodles that was served by stir-frying the vegetable/meats separately, and then having the patron themselves combine them together. Naan was also popular, although quite different from indian or nepal-type naan. Dried grapes and dates were also quite common. In the same place which taught us Uygher traditions, we got a lesson on how to purchase good raisins. Apparently one of the tricks is to have different quality raisins on the front and back of those huge piles of dried fruit in open air markets. The vendor would grab the lower quality raisins from the back and pass them off as higher quality ones. We were also told that if we expressed interest at a shop in a bazaar and didn't' buy, there would be trouble. Anyway, I've become quite partial to raisins with the seeds and a bit of stem inside. Nice combination of chewy and crunchy. Surprisingly, their wine was pretty bad. 

There wasn't really anything to buy there as souvenirs besides raisins. Camel plashes were everywhere, as well as various types of minerals, such as jade, ect. Thin shawls were common too; probably to protect against the sun. The days were warm and the nights were fairly cold. I actually got sick with congestion because of a miscommunication, which resulted in me having a sweatshirt as my thickest layer (insufficient). Traveling from destination to destination essentially consisted of me sitting in the backseat of the van, alternately looking out the window, dozing, or fiddling with my iPad and listening to music. Some periods of time were up to five hours long. It's a bit too much traveling for my tastes, especially the sleeper car. Turns out, one doesn't get much sleep when there are two loud snorers in the room. At least most of the restrooms were clean and regular, although definitely there were some that were just platforms elevated above open air shitpiles. 

Let me finish by recounting my favorite highlights. Staying at a music-themed hotel was pretty cute. At one point at the sky pool in Urumuqi, there were about 5 wedding couples doting the field in front of me posing for studio photos. Winding wooden stairs among poplars and blue sky have to be one of the most picturesque scenes. Sunset while standing on a sandstone column in the middle of an empty desert is pretty surreal. Walking among the ruins of an ancient civilization away from the crowds is pretty fantastic, especially when you run into destroyed temples. Again, running down a sand dune is awesome. Reading about the discovery of the silk road caves at DenHuang was informative, as well as seeing all the massive construction projects such as the kazahks? and the western great wall (they used local materials for each portion of the wall, so that they all look extremely different from each other). 

Other than that trip, two interns managed to leave since I last blogged; unfortunately, they were the foreign interns I was closest to here (both German). I don't know if we'll stay in contact. I do hope so though; Facebook should help. One of them had studio pictures of him and his girlfriend done in Shanghai, which was funny because he was too tall for most of the clothes and they asked him to totally shave, for whatever reason. They came out pretty good though, although definitely at times hilarious. 

Another one of the Chinese interns signed up for Facebook. It's too late to hide my pictures now though, sigh. For now, I'm back in California until the 27th of October; we'll see how it goes. 

Arcades and Hong Kong

Last Saturday, I walked around with one of my friends here, as the mainland Chinese love to do. We ended up spending around three or four hours in an arcade, something I haven’t really done since elementary school. I finally got to try that Japanese drum game, as well as this “advanced” DDR-esque game that had eight inputs (foot diagonals and left-right for each hand. It turns out rhythm skills are transferrable, even though I looked extremely silly doing the latter. Lots of random waving and cardinal direction missteps the first time I tried it. After cycling through racing, shooting, and those silly basketball and air hockey games (I have no chivalry when it comes to gaming, so I was literally undefeated throughout the period).

Sometime over the weekend, I also made pot stickers with another group of friends, which was also pretty interesting .

The average Chinese home seems to be quite cluttered with random things. I know that a significant amount of my friends here like collecting tiny trinkets and displaying them over any available space. Then again, it also happens in the U.S. I guess my personal aesthetic is basically the opposite of that.

I thought Hong Kong would be somewhat like Shanghai, but it is totally different. In terms of architecture and road layout, it is pretty much the definition of urban jungle. Raised walkways are everywhere, sometimes three levels of pedestrian bridges going different directions. It’s fairly easy and quick to traverse the city horizontally, but since everything is more vertical, its much easier to miss sights. I’ve definitely passed some big malls thinking they were office buildings.

The people here are definitely more polite, I suppose the stereotype holds true. It was somewhat surprising that people actually waited when the stop walking sign was on. I was always totally disoriented because of the reverse driving directions though, so I stayed pretty close to other people. The bad thing about looking Chinese in this case is that everyone initially speaks Cantonese to me, and not English. Awkward.

Mostly outside of work I just walked around, and tried to avoid taking the subway. I like getting the “feel” of a city a bit more than going to see individual places, although I did take the requisite trip to the peak. Things were cheap, but not so much that I felt good buying things I didn’t really need at the time.

Merck HK was more like a trade office than anything; however, the people were quite nice. The office was located on the 29^th floor, leading to some nice views. It’s smaller than the office in shanghai, but a bit more friendly feeling.

A huge problem came up in terms of the visa; I had applied for an F visa (180 days) and got back an L visa (14 days). This means that I will have to renew it for another 14 days, and then make a trip back to the U.S. I should probably use this opportunity to use my holiday vacations, however, the possibility that the Chinese consulate in SF would also reject it is, while small, cannot be totally discounted. It’s just a worrisome situation. On the plus side, maybe I can use this opportunity to get a 6 month multiple entry, or even a 1 year multiple entry visa, only available in the united states. Hehe.

Getting an extension was a big pain. First I read the address wrong, then I learned they had the wrong address on their website, then finally I learned that the marterials I had needed to be updated to the new visa. Everything has worked out though… I think. I’ll still be back to the US from the 18^th to the 27^th.

I eat a lot better when my parents are here… haha

Ootoro and others

I actually wrote a story to go with this picture to practice my “writing skills”, but it was bad, so I trashed it. But this was totally inspired from that one drunken night when I went back to Princeton and the comic that Carol and I drunkenly made when we were pregaming Margaret?s party. Something about a girl getting killed by a dog and doing a magical girl transformation into a monster. Something like that.

Today I attended the opening ceremony of a new factory in Shanghai for our company. At least, that’s the most succinct description for it. A more accurate one would be a … we-just-rented-this-place-and-our-board-executive-is-coming-ceremony. They had a red carpet leading to a totally empty warehouse and a small room, where the executives eventually had a meeting. Our department was bussed over there at 7:45 am (had to wake up extra early to get to work today), and we didn’t really interact with them at all. The board executive merely came, had the meeting, did a photo op with the other executives, and left. Although it was interesting to see the factory, I’m not sure it was necessary for the entire department to be there, other than for “face”. At least some people got souvenir power point slide manipulators out of it…

Two of my fellow foreign interns recently left. To see one of them off, we went to all you can eat teppanyaki place near people’s square, quite a good deal for the quality of food. Even though buffets are usually a losing proposition for me, I feel as if I got my money’s worth this time, since they served pretty good sushi in addition to the beer and meat. I’m not sure if I like fatty tuna more because it tastes good, or because it’s traditionally associated as super expensive and prized. Either way, I ate quite a bit of it. The other interesting part of the night was going to a super seedy expat club, as it was “something we had to see.” At this point it was a Canadian, two German guys, and one of their native girlfriends. We ended up going to Judy’s, featuring skimpy philipino singers belting out classic tunes on a stage. I’m almost completely sure all the girls in that club, except the one that came with us, were prostitutes. One of the German guys mentioned that seeing all these seedy European middle-aged men with “young-looking” girls really disgusted him. I have to agree, it was one of the more pathetic sights I’ve seen. The club was packed with overweight expats, and average looking middle-aged women with too much eye makeup and tasteless skimpy clothing eyeing potentials like hawks. Not all of them were even Chinese, but all of them had the same style of… prostitute.

Looking like a native Chinese allowed me to escape from experiences my foreigner friends had, like middle aged ladies sidling up to them and pressing themselves onto them without permission, or little girls clinging to their legs until they buy something. It was an interesting experience though, even if we didn’t stay long at all.

Later that weekend, I went with a Chinese friend to Da Pu Qiao area. Lots of interesting souvenir shops there… I feel if I need to buy gifts for friends in the U.S, it will either be here, or in that Japanese model store (Aside: I want to get some sort of figurine or model, but there are a few things stopping me. I don’t really follow any show with cool figurines in it, therefore making the premium unjustifiable. The cheap ones are either shoddily constructed or tasteless. The good ones are either expensive or lewd. In short, I think I like the idea of having a figurine/model to look at, but don’t actually want any specific one/think most are not worth it or embarrassing. One day I should learn to make my own). China has so much nicer stationary than the U.S, for a lot cheaper too. Unfortunately that day, I didn’t have any reason to buy anything, so I didn’t… feel it would just be clutter. I also discovered a Japanese food court area on the bottom of the mall, with mocha stores/really good matcha stores/ramen restaurants. Very nice, will go there more often.

I mentioned to that girl that almost everything she wore contained/was a shade of pink in the past, and this week she came in a navy blue dress that she bought earlier that weekend. Coincidence?

Other than these activities, I visited grandparents and shopped. A few things worth mentioning: I get an inordinate amount of satisfaction shopping for cleaning supplies, and I really like the cheese green tea drink from Happy Lemon. Maybe I should have tried the cheese milk tea at Tea Era back in Cali…

I feel as if the older I get, the more stock I put in people’s opinions about products and the less I put in people’s opinions about general abstract ideas, like politics. Either that or I spend a bit too much time reading opinion pieces on Google News.

Parents are coming and I need to think of things to get from the U.S. The centerpiece so far is Nutella… just way too expensive here. Otherwise…

Heeeeey sexy ladieee

The Friday two weeks ago was yet another English corner. This one is probably one of my most interesting ones, though, as I introduced and taught the students how to read Tarot cards for fortune telling (When there are only one or two boys in the class, you kind of start tailoring subjects). It started out awkwardly, but I got the feeling they enjoyed it, especially when I did readings for them. One of them even went out immediately,found my exact type of cards on Chinese Ebay (taobao), and bought them. I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

In the evening I found myself at the top of one of the buildings a friend of mine works at, in her bosses’ office. The office consisted of his “office”, a secretary’s nook, a bathroom, and even a bed. It was tastefully decorated with various plants and models (everything from fighter jets to Korean dolls), and had an elegant seating area. We perhaps spent an hour just sitting on the couch or looking out the large window over the surrounding area as the sun set. Even though the stereotype of China is pollution and cloudy skies, the sky that day was one of the more beautiful examples I’ve seen, with extremely nice contrast between the red sky and the glowing dark clouds. Looking through the glass bowl of the houseplants turned it into an almost surreal experience, with the floating roots making a miniature forest with its own tiny upside-down sunset. All we did was sit, talking didn’t even happen much. It was probably the most peaceful I’ve been for a while.

After that, we went back down to the company campus; it was practically a college, with some people working the factories 24/7. The cafeteria food was nice though; I wish we had such an option in my company. Regardless, we walked around and talked, and then I went to meet another group of friends, this time coworkers, at a homey place fittingly called “mama’s diner”… or something like that. One of the girls sang for the restaurant. I didn’t order anything, but we just talked and laughed. I mentioned I was going to a gaming convention tomorrow; everyone was like, “Chinajoy?”, which is apparently equivalent to the US’s E3, but with skimpier girls. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Ah well.

The convention I ended up going to was an international tournament for Magic the Gathering. Definitely the most intense I will ever get into this game, as there were teams flown in from around the world, wearing matching uniforms. Upwards of 800 people were gathered in one huge hall. I recognized some people from the local scene here, so I mostly talked to them. Unfortunately, I didn’t do very well (partly because after my first loss, I just wanted to get the rest of the games over with) so I didn’t move to the second day or in the money prize range. It was a good atmosphere though, even with some hired cosplayers (not bad…) but in the end, I think such an event is too intense for me; I won’t attend another one. I really just wanted the special artwork, which was guaranteed, now that I think about it. Regardless, that took about eight hours.

To make up for this bout of extreme nerdiness, the Sunday after I went out for dinner and bars with my foreign coworkers; one being German (his native girlfriend also joined us) and one being Canadian. We first went to Elements, which is a midrange Foreign-food staple and proceeded to make fun of the Canadian (he’s tall and is a black belt in karate) for ordering a salad because it was a good combination of quantity and price. The bar we went to on the edge of the bund was pretty nice, and apparently a favorite of the German expats there. Their wheat beer was quite good, and the scene was quite relaxing, watching the boats go by as the night set in and the lights turned on. We took the ferry across to go to another bar (which was a first for me), and ended up going to Captains again. I tried the drink Alex got previously, which was based on preserved plum, and it was quite decent. My… sense of humor totally showed up during this situation, so now they know. Hehe. Ah well.

English corner the next day only had seven people attend. I tried to hold a debate about the Olympics; funny story, one of the girls answered my first question with an irrelevant “ I hate japan!” Well, at least it was in english, sigh. It turns out half of them followed the Olympics (I tried to talk about the scandals) and half of them didn’t’ watch it at all. We ended up talking about Twilight and celebrity gossip. Not exactly my strong suits, but acting like fans is pretty universal across all fandoms.

The only event that occurred that weekend was spending most of afternoon/night with a coworker just walking around. We went to the biggest bookstore in Shanghai and separately read (me in the art/foreign imports section, naturally). There were a bunch of guys that day trading Japanese idol pictures in the foreign imports section, kinda creepy. Afterwards, we just randomly went into tiny shops and clothing stores. There is a pretty extensive Japanese figurine/model shop somewhere near NanJing Lu; maybe I’ll go there again sometime by myself and buy something cool. I’ve always wanted a fancy looking evangelion or something. Otherwise, I bought some portable chopsticks for lunch. Shopping for clothes was also kind of fun, even though salespeople in China are still quite suffocating. Apparently I have pretty strong opinions about girls fashion -__-;;. I ended up buying a pink polo at Uniqlo on a whim, because it was on sale. I still think Uniqlo is a pretty good deal in terms of quality and price, but I realized just how many people actually wear it, and how standard it seems. It’s okay, as long as I just buy basics there I’m sure people won’t notice/care.

There was a typhoon on Wednesday, apparently one of Shanghai’s largest in quite a while. The morning had pretty heavy rain; I really should have brought a change of clothing, as walking to work pretty much soaked the legs of my pants through. It got so bad during work that we were released at noon to try and get home before the worst of the storm hit. However, by that time, the wind was at snap-umbrella levels and rain had flooded some of the streets. When calling for a taxi from work failed, I got the bright idea of changing into my gym clothes and running back from the subway to home after taking the company shuttle from work to the subway. As I dashed home, the paper bag holding my work clothes began to dissolve, and I myself was totally soaked. The block between the subway and my home was flooded, so I ended up having to jog through half a foot of water; if I was in my business clothes, they definitely would have been ruined. It was kind of exhilarating, though. I haven’t experienced anything quite like it.

On Thursday I got back in touch with John’s friend Alisa and along with a friend of hers, we went to the molecular gastronomy cocktail bar The Alchemist. It’s a pretty flavorful place; the décor is nice, there weren’t many people for happy hour, and the drinks were unique, if a bit pricy. Lots of exotic ingredients and presentation styles. I ordered a bitter drink called Witchy Woman (kind of because the accompanying sketch was done pretty well). It was quite good, but my companion’s drinks were cooler looking, if not tastier. One relied on carbon dioxide ice-generated lavender mist poured onto the actual cocktail; the other had a unique looking type of ice and ingredients that worked really well together. The happy hour appetizers were also good, although I was the only person that liked olives. Combined with a burger, though, it was rather pricey, so I think I would only go for special occasions. Afterwards we went to a bar/club The Apartment. Alisa and her friend had a list of Ladies’ night bars; apparently there are about six worthy bars hosting Ladies’ night on a given night (free champagne). It was kind of nice, although a bit noisy. We ran back to catch the last subway and just barely made it.

English corner was a requested “Q+A” about my life and America in general. From the questions asked, they view America as having lots of guns, drugs, and sex. Which may or may not be accurate, but is definitely exaggerated. I also gave them an idea about college admissions in the U.S.

On Saturday, I got to tune in to a mashup party of my East Coast and West Coast friends, which looked like quite the blast. I got to have some fun times too though, as later in the day I went karaoke-ing with some coworkers. I’m not nearly as enthusiastic as some of them, and my singing voice is just too variable (tending toward bad). For some reason a lot of Rihanna songs were sung, as English songs go. I had the impression more people would come, but this apparently wasn’t the case. It was around seven girls and me; two of the girls seemed to dislike each other and almost all of them were interns or new workers. It was still alright though. We ate at a shanghai-style restaurant, and then five of us decided to go clubbing (my first time in Shanghai). It was a motley crew; two didn’t have any clubbing experience at all, and I was wearing sneakers, jeans and a pink polo; definitely a bit kiddy looking. The first place we went to had sharks in a tank, but didn’t exactly have a decent dance floor. Interestingly enough, there was also a line of what obviously were prostitutes just standing at the bar texting. We spent a lot of time on the other side of the bar, although we all just had one (overpriced) drink each, since the cheapest table costed about 1000 rmb worth in drinks to sit at. Everyone seemed to be energetic at the end though, even if I did dance quite funnily (maybe there is a tutorial online…).

Two left, and the remaining people talked in a park about random stuff, and visited the second club, which had a nicer atmosphere than the first. I just wish I remembered their names, haha. All in all though, I don’t think I’m a clubbing person. I’m definitely more of a bar-with-friends person, since I don’t really take advantage of the club to dance or to pick up people. Nice drinks and ambient atmosphere are always the highlight, and bars definitely trump clubs in this aspect.

Jeez, I haven’t updated in about three weeks, my bad. I feel as if this has become the boring, documentary style blog that I always feared/have a propensity to write in. Perhaps I need stronger opinions. Ah well, for remembering things, I guess this suits perfectly. 

The Internet Suddenly Gets Worse at 8:30 PM

   My default font for writing documents used to be Trebuchet MS. Now, it’s Garamond. Must be a nostalgia thing from the time I took graphic design (a.k.a typography).

   I ended up recovering from the cold in about a week; in the meantime, I had to prepare my business writing course for new grads. Apparently being fluent in English (and going to an Ivy, I guess) makes me qualified to teach business writing. Previously they hired an outside firm to do it (now they are… cost cutting? My instruction would definitely be cheaper), and thankfully they still had a few materials from those classes. I ended up making a powerpoint presentation and activity handout. HR definitely helped me out, but their idea of decorating my powerpoint involved placing Microsoft clip art that may or may not have been relevant to the subject of the slide… so I replaced them all with rage comic faces. The actual presentation went better than I expected, given that I still had trouble vocalizing; speaking in public isn’t too much of a problem for me and I had help running the activities from HR. I apparently have a habit of rolling my notes up while I lecture and smacking furniture to make a point. Once I was done, I was gifted… an official Merck cup set. This is actually good, because I only had two cups in my house. Someone also gave me rage face stickers in commemoration, which I put on my subway card and nameplate at work. Overall, I think giving orders with a little room for creativity is a much better tactic for dealing with Chinese students than trying to prompt a discussion, precept style.

   This was further emphasized by the failure (in my opinion) of the second English corner. It started out okay, as I whined to my fellow foreign interns about leading it again. But then, I asked those that assembled (around ten people, still almost all girls) what they wanted to do. As I presented each option, one of them said no to each one right after I said it. I chose one anyway (taboo) and we ended up playing, but it’s such a noninteractive game for the non-playing team that many looked bored. In addition, I ran out of cards. After, I tried to lead a discussion about current, but there was very little enthusiasm for it. It’s quite hard teaching a class without grade motivation or even knowledge about how your students were brought up. I proposed to send a list of options on what people want to do and have people rank them; I still have to get on that.

   Two new colleagues came last week. One is going to be the eventual lab manager, and one is an EE colleague. Discussions have become more animated and knowledgeable, even if more conversations than before are in Chinese. Last week I ate out all the time because I didn’t go grocery shopping due to illness, but this week I vowed that it would be spaghetti week. Over the weekend, I didn’t do anything of note except make enough spaghetti to last about five meals. It turns out the ingredients are quite expensive in China, but I was in desperate need of something not rice related. It’s pretty good… given that I’ve eaten it for the last six meals or so. Variation is so hard when you’re only cooking for one.

   On a sidenote, I nearly bought pig intestines instead of ground beef. Nearly.

   I still am really bad at inviting people to do activities and coming up with activities to do. When I tend to rehearse things in my head, or think about how things will turn out, I always view it as kind of creepy (although in some cases, I probably am, haha). I think I just have to remember that this is the case for a good number of people, and that I’m a bit of a natural cynic. In addition, it’s not about what you do, it’s the company. Sigh. Regardless, I kind of want to try barhopping to really nice places one Friday or Saturday night, and it would sound kind of pathetic if I just went by myself, haha.

   The weather these days is quite hot and sunny with blue sky, which is quite a contrast from all that flooding going on in Beijing. It’s quite nice if you aren’t outside wearing business oriented clothing. Playing Diablo 3 is not as fun as I think it is, but it’s not bad. I definitely wish it was easier to talk to people when you play multiplayer though. The auction house is also like shopping with fake money, which is a lot more fun than I’m probably comfortable admitting to. I think my drawing style has moved past the point where I try to put super deep shadows on everything in an effort to get texture. Whether this is good or bad, I can’t really say.

All I can do is CC.

   Chinese karaoke is much different from American karaoke, even amongst the Asian-Americans. When someone sings, it’s optional for the rest to pay attention, which is both good and bad at the same time. Good, because if your singing is subpar no one is really paying attention to you, but bad, because unless you like singing for the sake of singing, there’s less of a thrill. Regardless, I had fun on Saturday, where I went with some coworkers (some future students! Awkward.) to a Chinese karaoke place. It is so much cheaper than karaoke in America; each person only had to pay 35 kuai for a seven person room with beer and popcorn. Their selection of English songs was quite good, and since one of them kept choosing English songs (the rest couldn’t sing them) I sang quite a bit to accompany her on the second microphone. I also rapped and did a rendition of some of Lonely Island’s greatest hits, which was kind of embarrassing. I only sang one Chinese song though, as the ones I maybe could have sung only had traditional Chinese subtitles. Very unfortunate.

  Shanghai was the final destination for John as he wrapped up his teaching duties in Jishou (not Jiangsu province… heh heh), so he opted to stay with me for about two nights. He hasn’t really changed much over the past year; then again, neither have I around him. The first night I got introduced to his foreigner friend from Jishou, her parents, and his former Chinese teacher. It was fairly relaxing, although we ate dinner quite late. Unfortunately we really didn’t have time to do anything else. The second day, John explored the city with yet another friend from Jishou (lots of friends of the female persuasion, hehe), and I met up with them and their teacher at night for dinner. We spent quite a while looking for a place to eat, and decided finally on one of the first non-fast food places we found. The food we ate both nights was not any sort of specialty cuisine; nevertheless, they were still quite good. I’m not exactly the type to insist on a notable restaurant every time I go out.

   Afterwards, the Chinese teacher left and his previous friend joined us, and we walked along the bund much like I did with Kathy, and then went to the same bar that I discovered with Adrian. We drank a bit and played some verbal games (multiples/containing 7, rhyming, ect), and pretty much just chilled for a while. As usual, it had a good view, but it was more crowded than usual (although it allowed john’s foreigner friend to bum a cigarette, hehe). Overall, it was quite a nice, low key night meeting some pretty awesome people.

   John’s friend also slept over at my house that night; normally I really loathe agreeing to this before I get to know the person, but I guess him vouching for her was enough. Back in my apartment, there was just occasional banter and talking/gaming. In the morning he met me for lunch during work, and then they both bid adieu.

   Alex and Maxine came to Shanghai after their epic train from Russia. The first night, we had dinner with his mom surprisingly across the street from my apartment at a hotel she was familiar with; Traditional western style, with wine, with lots of catching up in between. We walked around the malls and the east side of the Bund after in lu jia zui, which is significantly inferior to the west side of the bund, in my opinion. I’m extremely surprised that we didn’t run into a PMT place somewhere on the way, where Maxine could get her fix, hehe. At night we watched a bit of Community and I played some League. The next day we had dinner at this greek restaurant; it has been so long since I had greek food, which was one of my favorite cuisines. I was quite appreciative, especially of the soup. I was less appreciative of the… distinctly “Japanese” style mousepad that they bought that day, but it was still quite amusing. We ended up doing the same thing as I did with John: the bund and then the same bar. I’m not very imaginative when it comes to visiting locations for friends, but is it really so bad to go with tried-and-true places? Regardless, we tried some cocktails that I’ve never had before (Depth charge, Chinglish), and made innuendoes without cracking up the entire time. I’m quite, quite out of practice. It’s also hard to make innuendoes to two people already going out.

   The next day’s English corner, however, was not nearly as fun. I showed a clip from Community, which apparently no one understood because it was too fast (of all reasons), and hence no one would participate in the discussions. Basically I overestimated everyone’s English abilities. I classify it as a near- total learning/entertainment failure (but at least I learned from it! Haha…). On a positive note, it was record attendance for English corner: 15-20 people… three guys. I expect much less attendance next time, if there is a next time, haha. Discouraging ><.

   It doesn’t help that around the time of English corner I felt the effects of Alex and Maxine’s Russian illness hit. I actually couldn’t get through a presentation review because I was so feverish, but I didn’t want to go home because using a sick day on half of half of a day seems like a waste. Saturday and Sunday I basically spent sleeping, making tea or some other type of drink, and gaming occasionally (but mostly sleeping). I tend not to take medicine unless I really need to, otherwise I just wait it out. I don’t know how safe that actually is. Quite unfortunate that being sick made me cancel weekend plans -__-. I’m better right now, I suppose. No fever anymore, but my throat is funny.

  There was totally going to be a more interesting part to this blog post, but I’m all out of ideas. I was also trying to finish a picture by now, but I’ve totally slacked off upon it. This has to be one of the more event-y posts here, but I think at this point there are so many that we might as well just consider it the norm. Oh well.