Flatmate Bonding :)

The past two weeks have just flown by, work is very hectic as we are preparing for Halloween as well as getting new materials prepared for the spring semester (it's coming faster than you think), and on the weekends I have been spending lots of time with my 4 flatmates (yes, this number includes our puppy). **** BREAKING NEWS ABOUT THE PUPPY... We were just informed by a vet that he is in fact a pomeranian and the pet shop owner lied about what kind of dog Zephyr is.... lucky enough for him we have all fallen in love and find his small size to be rather convenient for the flat. **** Back to the main topic of the post.  Bonding time!!! Two weekends ago (Oct 17), the annual Shanghai International beer festival took place, and of course we decided to all go and celebrate (after I got off work at 5:30).  Luckily, two of my roommates are veterans and have been in Shanghai for a few years now, so they knew exactly where to go and what to do upon arrival.  It was in the "Bund" area which is the place where you will see most pictures of the Shanghai skyline are taken.  This is right on the Huangpu river and on a clear night, the view of the skyline is just breathtaking.  The event itself was highly catered to foreigners with beer from all over the world and many different kinds of food! My new favorite thing to eat is kebabs, which is famous in Turkey.  I must say the one I ate at the festival was absolutely fantastic!! I also was able to try many different kinds of beer, some free, and others very cheap! They had lots of live music and games going on for entertainment, and the funniest part were the people dressed up in all sorts of costumes. By the end of the night, my roommate had found himself in a costume as well...... The only complaint about the even was the bathroom situation.  As you can imagine, porta potties were necessary for the large number of people, let me tell you all about porta potties in China. Most people think porta potties in the U.S. are disgusting and only resort to using them in dire emergencies... MOM I'm looking at you.  In China, they are absolutely repulsive... at least 10 times more gross then in the States.  Paint this picture for yourself, they look the same however there is not toilet when you walk in but rather a hole in the ground... You must squat... there is no sanitary place to set your things because drunk people have peed all over the floor... the smell is worse than you can imagine AND there is no toilet paper.  OH and keep in mind this is a drinking event, where might I add, you find yourself needing to use the bathroom more often than not....... so yeah that part of the night was not pleasant, but hey it's China...

Chickenboobs, anyone????

Matthieu, my roommate.... ha, ha, ha

Federer to win Rolex Tennis Masters..... what a DJOK(e)

As if traveling to Hong Kong for less than 24 hours wasn't enough excitement, I attended the Shanghai Rolex Tennis Masters Tournament the next day (Tuesday, October 13).  This was something I had planned to do even before arriving in China and was a greatly anticipated event by many in Shanghai.  Little did I know, Federer is a beloved man here in Shanghai.... but I'll get into that a little more later. Getting to the tournament itself was quite the journey!! They were advertising shuttles from one of the metro stops near the Qizhong Tennis Center (where the tournament was held) on the website, however upon arrival to the metro stop there were very small signs that I almost missed pointing me in the direction of the bus station.  Here, I was lucky to find two foreigners (one who spoke Chinese as well as English) who were headed to the tennis tournament as well.  I had never ridden on a public bus in China, they are rather intimidating because the drivers speak only Chinese, there is no way of knowing where you are unless you have previously looked up the route of the bus, and the buses are labeled in Chinese.  The one foreigner that I met thankfully, was able to read Chinese characters and found the bus we were to get on.  It dropped us off right in front of the center and my god was center court huge!!!! It looked like a football arena from the road.  As we exited the bus, crowds of local Chinese men swarmed the doors trying to sell/buy tickets, which was quite the nuisance.  I made my way through quickly and walked through the entrance and security.  Finally, I had made it (an hour and a half after leaving my apartment).  I had never been to a professional tennis tournament and although this was not one of the slams, and there were only men playing, I was still overwhelmed with excitement.  There were many games occurring at once and at first my goal was to make it to a little bit of all of them... quickly I found out that just isn't possible if you want to actually enjoy a match, so I made my way to where Sock (the American) was playing.  Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to just walk right in while they were playing, we had to wait for a break in play and the security guards didn't quite have the right idea as to when that was.  Rather frustrated, I walked around the area and by coincidence bumped into a very tall body guard of DJOKOVICH!!! He wasn't playing that day but I caught him on the way to practice!  Naturally, swarms of people started to realize who he was and like a mob we followed him to his court just to get glimpses of him practicing.   After this, I went to a different court, which was not too crowded (granted it was during the first rounds, and this wasn't center court).  It just so happens that Gasquet and Muller were about to start and Gasquet being a French man, had quite a large crowd of fans (there are tons of French people in China, especially male engineers).  The match was extremely exciting, Gasquet was favored but Muller put up a great fight.  In the end Muller ran out of gas and Gasquet pulled away in the second set (they only played best of 3).  I walked around and enjoyed some sponsored games and food (PAPA JOHNS ;)  and then settled into center court for the "match of the night".  I am not kidding you there were groups of Chinese people that had Federer shirts, signs, hats, and banners.  I had no idea that they loved him so much.  The best part was the cheers the groups would do that were broken English or just plain Chinglish (poorly translated).  The chairman of the match was getting very frustrated during this match, because they tried to make it more of an entertainment show then a tennis match, and many people were breaking the rules of talking, standing, walking around, during playtime.  The players even complained several times.  Federer's match vs Ramos ended up going into 3 sets and was so exciting!!! I was obviously routing for Ramos out of pure satisfaction of pissing the extreme Federer fans off around me, but he honestly played the game of a lifetime.  In the end, Federer choked and Ramos won 7-6, 2-6, 6-3.  Would you believe that the fans of Federer literally started to cry at the end..... they did, and dramatically too.  I've never felt worse second-hand embarrassment.  I even took videos ha ha ha. There was another match to follow that Tsonga was playing in, but I was exhausted and left early.  He ended up winning easily, so I wasn't too bummed about it.  WHAT A WEEKEND IT WAS!!!! (sorry for the extremely long post) OH and Djokovich won the tournament!

Day Trip to Hong Kong

It's been a while since I've posted a blog, but that just means I've been very busy and have tons to update you all on!!!  Last Friday, I was informed that I would have to take a day trip to Hong Kong, because my tourist visa was almost expired and my work visa was not processed yet.  This means, I had to leave the country (no Hong Kong is not in China, despite what you've heard/thought, it's actually a British colony) and come back, because I only have 60 days as a tourist at at time.... can you believe it's already been 2 months??? Time is certainly flying.... anyway I found out on Friday that I would be leaving Monday at 7:50 am for Hong Kong!!! Not much planning time, but all of my colleagues who made the trip were able to give me tips and advice on what to do in a short period of time (my flight back was at 9:00 pm).  I started my day at 4:30 am with a wake up call from my taxi driver (he was 30 minutes early), so I quickly packed my backpack, triple checked that I had my passport, and ran out the door!  After getting through immigration and security, I had an hour to relax, drink some coffee (it was a nice treat, because I've been drinking instant coffee in my apartment), and wait for my flight.  We boarded at 7:45 am and naturally we waited on the plane for TWO HOURS before leaving... that means I had 2 precious hours in Hong Kong and that made me unhappy (as well as all of the other passengers who woke up extremely early for a flight that didn't leave until 9:45).  Finally, we arrived in Hong Kong around 12:30.  We were shuttle to the airport from the runway due to lots of traffic coming into the airport and luckily after waiting 30 minutes to get into the airport, customs went very quickly!! I was able to get on the fast train from the airport to Hong Kong at around 1:15 and I did not waste anytime! The train took only 3 stops, the final being in Hong Kong (my stop) and it only took about 20 minutes!! Upon arrival, I found myself in a massive shopping mall called IFC mall, which had so many brand name stores and lots of entertainment, including people dressed up as statues of famous people.  The occasionally moved and scared the crap out of people who were taking pictures with them! I knew I had no time to waste, so I quickly hailed a cab and asked to be taken to the Peak Tram, which is the tram that takes you up the mountain to Victoria Peak, where there is a beautiful view of the city skyline.  Little did I know the Tram station was right around the corner and would've been a 5 minute walk (oh well).  I bought my ticket and in no time was headed up the mountain on a tram that looked extremely old.  I was a little uneasy by the fact that we were almost at a 180 degree tilt on the way up, in this old tram, but we managed to get to the top in no time!  Here, I explored and took many pictures from different points.  There were tourist attractions at the top like restaurants and stores, but I didn't waste anytime with those.  At around 3:30 I started to get very hungry and wanted to move on to see one more thing before it was time to go.  I found another taxi to drive me down the mountain and asked him to take me to the Soho area (note:  I was able to do this in ENGLISH and it made me so very happy to be able to speak to others when asking for directions and any other questions I had.  I almost forgot what it was like to actually understand what people are saying around you and found myself accidentally ease dropping on others' conversations simply because I could!).  There was a traffic jam near the Soho area, so the taxi driver told me he would drop me off a short distance away.  I told him I had no idea how to get to Soho area and his response I will never forget... "All you need to do is walk straight down this road, when you get to Soho you will just feel it".  I thought he was crazy, but by god was he right.  The Soho area is an area full of shops, bars, restaurants, markets, tourists, and foreigners.  There's lots of hustle and bustle and my god are the streets steep!! It's a workout to walk up and down, because of how steep the streets are.  They even have escalators in some areas of the road to help you on your journey up! Here is where I found the most amazing ice cream place called, Emack & Bolio's.  The store caught my eye because instead of advertising their ice cream on the outside of the store, they advertised the cone... These cones were dipped with melted mashmallows around the opening and had miscellaneous cereals sticking to them (fruity pebbles, cocoa puffs, chocolate, rice krispies).  I opted for the rice krispie cone and the salted caramel chocolate covered pretzel ice cream and YES it was amazing!!!!! Next time I go back to Hong Kong... and yes there will definitely be a next time... I will 100% be going back!! Unfortunately 5:30 pm arrived quickly, and I found that it was actually only a 10 minute walk to the IFC mall where the airport train was... (another side note: I took two completely unnecessary taxis, because although the map looks like the area is large, you could literally walk around the island in a very short period of time.  I found this out after stumbling upon the map in my pictures below and walking around a little bit. *Natalie moment* because we all know how directionally coordinated I am ;)  Anyway in the mall, I found a Taiwanese dumpling place where I enjoyed a quick dinner and then boarded the express train back to the airport.  What a day!!!!! I can't begin to describe how awesome it was to travel to a place in Asia and not feel 100% lost all the time.... the fact that all of the residents spoke English was extremely helpful AND the air was not extremely smelly and polluted.  It was a much needed retreat and thankfully my flight home was on time! I made it back to my apartment at 1:30 am completely drained, and passed out right away.

 

New Roomate :)

WE HAVE A NEW ROOMMATE!!!! I know you're probably thinking, "why is she so excited?" or "where the heck is another person going to live in an apartment that is full" but fear not..... It is a puppy!!!!! My flatmate Sofia (russian girl) bought a 2 month old Samoyed puppy and he is the cutest, fluffiest, sweetest, and cuddliest puppy in the world.  Granted this dog is supposed to grow and be huge within the next 4-6 months, but right now it's a little fur ball and we love him!!! She named him Zephyr which is marshmallow in English, very fitting for our little white pal. I spent some quality time with him on my days off and he even took a little snooze in my bed :)  Below are some pictures of our little man....

Floating Down to Watertown

My weekends are Mondays and Tuesdays, because I work for a private English school, so our students come during the week after school, and then most come on the weekends.  So on my days off it is rather nice to go to touristy things, because since most people do that on Saturdays and Sundays, there are a LOT less people on Monday and Tuesday :)  This past "weekend" I ventured to the Zhujiajiao Watertown with two girls that I work with.  It was about an hour away from the city, but still considered to be in Shanghai.  Getting there was quite the journey, because we missed the tourist bus that we planned to take, but found a nice gentleman with a van who was willing to drive us there AND back for only 300 RMB, so that's 100 RMB each (only $15)!!! We were a little skeptical, but in the end it seemed to be the most convenient, since he agreed to drive us back afterwards.  It ended up being perfect, he was very friendly and although he spoke no English, we were able to have broken Chinese conversations with him and before long we had arrived at the Watertown! We we all starving, so as soon as we got there we went straight to a cute little restaurant that overlooked the water on the town.  Next, we took a boat tour around the town with a comedic guide who tried desperately to make us laugh, and was successful due to his poor English.  The tour only lasted about 20 minutes and then dropped us off on the other side of the town to explore.  We found lots of tourist traps with many stores repeated and all asking different prices for the same items (you have to be a great bargainer in China).  The town itself was very beautiful, and we even spent some time in the temple there.  At one point we decided to walk off the beaten tourist path to get a look at "authentic" China watertowns and we really did get to see the old beaten up houses and areas.  It was very eye opening.  After getting lost for a little, we finally found our way back and naturally I ended the trip by buying a whole bundle of colorful mooncakes :)  That evening a bunch of my coworkers and friends decided to go to "Fat Cow" for dinner.... yes the name says it all.  This burger joint has buy one get one burger deals on Monday, and it just so happened to be a Monday!! Safe to say that I am 100% not a vegetarian anymore as I ordered a burger with bacon!!!! IT WAS FANTASTIC!  After this outing, we decided we will be starting a "foodie group" that meets once a week at different restaurants to try different foods in Shanghai, because the diversity of food in this city is insane.  Stay tuned for weekly "foodie group" posts to come and prepare for a mouth watering picture at the bottom of this post.....