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.