Concerts are Okay, I Guess

Cod is annoying to cook. Annoying annoying annoying. My mother meant to cook it before she left, but didn't manage to, so I was left pondering what to do with a huge cod steak block frozen in the  freezer. This pondering lasted for about a month, upon which I had no ideas, so I decided to sear it, then bake it. Then I noticed that my oven only goes up to 250°, which is definitely not enough. So there I am, with this 1 inch cod steak trying to fry/broil it in butter, and it's giving off that fatty omega-3 burnt fat smell mixed with the butter, which was kind of sickening. So I stopped after a bit, and marinated it in soy sauce, where it's still there now. Hopefully I can come up with something to do with it.

Yesterday I went to the MIDI music festival in Shanghai with some acquaintance/friends. There were rock bands primarily from Europe and China playing, and there were a fair amount of people. Unfortunately, it was pretty cold, and I didn't bring all that many layers. At the beginning, I thought, well, I guess I understand why people go see music live. After about 2 or 3 hours of cold and standing in the gradually muddying field, I remembered why I don't go see music live, haha. I think I had the most fun at the DJ stage, even though it was smaller. There was this pretty hot brazilian model dj, and her mixing was a bit smoother than the other DJs (who had tasteful backgrounds like naked men humping lawns). Plus, these willow-like trees in the park where it was were throwing fuzzies everywhere, making it look like warm snow. Overall, I think it was a positive experience, but next time I might enjoy a more... indoor venue.

The above paragraph was a bit more like a summary than I meant it to be. Oh well.

There are always things that I come across that I immediately think "Oh! I should write this down in my blog!" and then I forget. I have a notebook I have for this purpose, but unfortunately I'm too lazy to write everything down. Hopefully I'll get better at this.

That Time Where

I kind of see the appeal of the bar scene now, even if it's mad expensive here in shanghai. Adrian visited, and in that period of time we went two two bars. One had pretty good beer, decent pizza, and a great view of the bund; we forced ourselves to sit outside even if it was chilly and windy. The second was a small bar that probably couldn't hold more than three groups of eight loungers and a few stragglers at the bar. The bartenders were basically drinks and a show, in that they took time to meticulously make each drink. I saw about three different ice picks and more than ten different types of ice formations. The drinks were good too; got a Vodka Ricky and a City Coral. Wish I remembered to take pictures.

Other that that, there were other adventures to be had in the normal "touristy" parts of Shanghai, if you can call them that. We visited the local MTG scene here; although we didn't play, I find it hilarious that it's right next to a maid cafe (I thought I had to go to Japan to see those). I reaffirmed that street food didn't agree with me, but crab dumplings did, and collectively we walked far and wide to recommended food places around the city.

Work continues as usual. More things are not going to plan, but what can you expect when you're furnishing a new lab. Overall, things are still new.

I think I'm both getting thinner and getting sick of beef noodle soup. Too bad the area we always go to at lunch pretty much specializes in that in almost every restaurant. Either that or pizza hut, I guess. Met up with someone today and asked for good non-asian restaurants. Ended up going to Cali burger, an in-n-out ripoff. Apparently their menu was identical until they got sued. Ah well. It was pretty good except the fries were slightly worse and the milkshakes had bourbon in them (which makes them better, of course).

The One Called Shadow

The girl who fixed our lab equipment today was named Shadow. How do people even choose these types of names?

At least she was wearing an edgy shiny hoodie. Looked like it was made of bike reflectors.

Adrian has been here since Saturday. It's been fun. Found a maid cafe in China; I thought I had to go to Japan for those! Didn't go in though, just kind of... gawked. There was a table of about 8 people with various handhelds plugged into this one humungo power strip. Adrian has a picture. We also went to XinTianDi and Yu Yuan. I still get energy sapped in crowds. Also we went to a bar in China overlooking the Bund. Pretty cool.

I wonder if there's a few suppliers that supply all the trashy souvenirs in tourist shops. Maybe a novice seller will only be able to sell fake jade necklaces, and then move on to wood carvings and shoes and traditional-looking clothing. The highest level would definitely be those silk-screen poppy t-shirts. We were so disappointed when we found more than one store selling those things.

In the Spirit of Updating

As I shopped at Sam's club for this week's groceries (yes there is a sam's club in shanghai), I became aware that I had an internal monologue going. One that uses a lot of profanities.

"oh hey there's bacon. wait, this is the shitty type of bacon, the one that's like canadian ham instead. I'm not wasting money on this shittyass bacon. Well, at least I can go to the black pork section. Hm, well this is some fucking expensive pork. But ribs are kind of tasty... fuck it, i'll just buy the damn pork."

Minutes later, I switch it out for some cheaper meat.

That girl who works at the gym really needs to stop being so obvious/forceful. I'm trying to run on the treadmill, not hold a conversation where I don't know half the words to. And yes, I've resorted to making up people that I have to hang out with after working at the gym. Oh, you're leaving at the same time? Oh sure, which way are you going? Well, I'm going the other way, bye! Have fun uh... buying whatever you needed at the grocery store two blocks down.

Although she was probably right in the fact that my chinese makes me sound like a very, very simple person as she pointed out. Maybe if I act dumb enough she'll let off.

Maiden Post

   So, now that I have conveniently chosen a blogging site that can only be accessed in China using VPN, it's time to make the maiden post.
  Unfortunately, this makes it impractical for me to update this during work, which is where I would have hypothetically updated from all of this week. Fortunately, work is picking up, which means I'll have less time to bludgeon google news and reddit for amusement. I'm already starting to get much more indepth assignments/varied work types than at my previous job (note: make post so I don't forget what i did my previous job), so I feel as if it's an improvement in that regard. I might end up more of an electrical engineer than I bargained for though.
   Coworkers are interesting too. Too bad they're not in my age group. Most married, some have kids, one is... some german highschooler doing who knows what. The Chinese have passible english and no german skills; the Germans have pretty decent english, but bad chinese. Therefore everyone communicates in english! Not too shabby for me.
   Of course, during lunch everyone speaks chinese, unless they're explaining a menu item to me. I try to just be safe and order the beef noodle soup, or get the most popular dish that my coworkers also get. The entire group goes out every day if they're in office, which is nice.
   By myself though, so far I've just picked at a loaf of bread, noodle soups, and things involving egg. Cooking for yourself isn't that great of a motivator, and the less work there is the better. I don't have too many snacks here either. In fact, I don't really have much of anything. Aside from furniture, the walls and floors are bare (sans the color/pattern coordinated sheets from Ikea that I spent way too long deciding on). Maybe I'll pick up some knicknacks while I'm in china, but so impractical! Sigh.
   Korra is awesome. Minecraft hardcore mode is hard. Getting out of the house is also surprisingly hard too, especially since all you want to do after a 7 day workday is laze around (7 days because of the chinese holiday system... the weekends are bumped back next to the holiday). But, I managed to drag myself out to the local gym, where people are enthusiastic about getting you to come as often as possible (texts, every day ==), and go out to just walk around.
  I thought I was doing well with those topic transitions until that last paragraph. Oh well.