Meiguo Mondays and Brown Sugar Wednesdays

     Here in Shanghai, CIEE students are creating some great traditions for ourselves! Monday night, after a long day of classes, we decided to go to a restaurant called Malone's. It is well known in Shanghai for it's hamburgers, or as the Chinese say "hambaobao".  On Mondays, Malone's has a special where you can get any burger of your choice and a beer for only 50RMB!! Since normally the burgers alone are 90RMB, this is quite the deal. The burgers were huge and delicious and there were so many burger options to choose from. I opted for the Malone's House Burger, which was "loaded" with cheddar and sautéed onions and mushrooms. My mouth is watering just writing about it right now!! We decided to call it Meiguo (美国) Mondays because Malone's was filled with Americans and other ex-pats. I even saw another girl from Wake Forest who is studying here on a different program!! 

     Tuesday was more relaxing and I slept in, finally catching up on some sleep. I had an evening class and then a meeting for my program so we grabbed a late dinner and came straight back and did homework for the rest of the night. However, we would like for Tuesday to become "Turntable Tuesday", with turntable referring to the Lazy Susan style of eating. Basically, a big group of us will go out and order a lot of different dishes and share them all. It's a great way to eat because you can try lots of new things!

     Wednesday afternoon I went shopping with a friend and purchased my first knockoff bag!! It is a hot pink (duh) Longchamp that was 160RMB. Maybe I overpaid? Still cheaper than the US though I suppose. I also bought a really cute shirt to wear out for our Wednesday evening festivities!! Not the most successful shopping trip of my life, but we were short on time so we didn't just have time to wander a lot.

     For Wednesday night, we have decided to start attending Ladies Night at a bar called Brown Sugar. Brown Sugar is a really nice bar in Xintiandi. They have free champagne starting at 9:30 until they run out. A group of us went last night and it was so much fun!! We got there early and ordered some cocktails and appetizers, but we stood at the bar so when the free champagne started flowing we would be the first to get it! When they brought out the first dish, a Parma ham thing, we inhaled the food within about 30 seconds just grabbing the food with our fingers looking like your typical obese Americans. Right as soon as we finished a waiter appeared with some silverware, but that was clearly unnecessary.  We also got a cheese platter which was absolutely amazing since I love cheese almost more than any other food and it is not very common in China. Not too long after we finished, a jazz band started playing and the champagne started to be poured.  At first just the jazz band was playing, but then a man came and started singing and he was amazing!!! They sort of switched from jazz to R&B and Top 40 hits after he came out and we had a great time dancing along.

Sarah, Me, Lucy, and Laura with our cocktails

The awesome band and stage

        Today is my last day of class before I embark on my 10 day Golden Week trip!! Golden Week is a week in China when everyone takes off work and just travels around or stays home and rests. I am going with 3 other girls to Chengdu, Xi'an, and Sanya. Chengdu is known for having pandas and you can pay to hold a baby panda for the small price of $150 (US dollars that is). At first I asked myself if that was a bit much to pay to hold a baby panda, but then I realized that that was the most ridiculous question I have ever asked!!! How many times am I going to get the chance to hold a baby panda?! Not very many. There are also some nice scenic places to hike and a monastery that is supposed to be really pretty. In Xi'an we will see the Terracotta Soldiers. I am currently in the process of hatching a plan to steal a horse and soldier to send back to my daddy for lawn decorations. I think it shouldn't be too hard. Sanya is China's Hawaii, so we are going there last so we can just relax on a beach for the last few days and enjoy some fabulous weather and gorgeous scenery. We will be staying in hostels, which is really exciting because I have never stayed in a hostel before!! Also, we are going to take the train from Chengdu to Xi'an, which will be another first experience that should be pretty fun. 

     It is time for me to take a 休息 (shouxin, rest) before I get ready for my evening plans, big dinner and out to a club. I will try to update my blog again soon, but I will have limited internet access while I am on my trip so it could be a little while!

     And check out my first entry again because I added some pictures and things!!

Late Start! Here are my first 3 weeks in China!

     Okay so three very long seeming weeks ago, after much anticipation, I arrived in Shanghai (finally!!).  There was a bus that took a big group of us to East China Normal University (ECNU) and got the key to my dorm room. My room is super nice. Far nicer than any dorm room I've had in the US. My room mate and I both have full sized beds, big desks, and large wardrobes too. It is also really eco-friendly because the electricity will only work when a key card for the room is inserted into a slot. So when no one is there everything automatically shuts off. The first night here I went out to a bar with some of the people on the program. It was super small and we were the only people in there! I think we gave them as much business as they get in a year.

My Wardrobe

My bed!

     The first week here was all orientation. So it was just sitting in rooms being bored by lectures about safety and blah blah stuff. During orientation, CIEE treated us to a really nice welcome dinner at a restaurant where we got to see a Changing Mask dance. That may or may not be the official name of it, but it was really cool. Basically a man did a dance in this intricate outfit and switched masks like a bajillion times throughout the dance but he does it so sneakily that you don't even notice until he has a new face!!
     We also saw a Chinese acrobatic show that was really intense. They did all kinds of flips and stuff on ropes and balancing on lots of strange objects and even did plate twirling. Plate twirling is the art of balancing a spinning plate on top of a very long pole. And the girls had multiple poles. My favorite part though was a love dance to "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion, the couple would grab on to a rope and swing over our heads, we were in the front row, so it was thrilling. Also, it was just so Chinese of them to have a dance to that song. The last part was a Motorcyle ball!! Like at the circus when all of the motorcyles drive around in a big sphere. One of the drivers was even a girl and she was super bad-ass.
      That was my first night going out in Shanghai and we went to two clubs, Muse, which was all right that night, and Sky Bar, which was amazing!!! I actually saw Chinese Lil' Wayne!! No joke he looked just like him, with really long dreads in a ponytail and no shirt, standing on a stage rapping. We got invited to sit with some Chinese people at a table and I had my first taste of Chinese scotch and it was delicious!!! But I think it might be different from Scotch in the US because it was really sweet, as are most beverages in China.
     I also had time to explore some that week and went to Xintiandi, which was really cool. They also took us to the Expo one day. It was kind of rainy, so that was kind of a bummer, and the lines were really long so we only went into the large African exhibit, which was pretty cool. Also, we did an amazing race around China. I am pretty sure my team was last, but we had a lot of fun and got to see a lot of cool things, like the Bund.
     Classes started that next week. I am in a Globalization class, a Seminar on living and learning in Shanghai, Issues in Chinese Society, Cultural Currencies, and Intermediate II Chinese. Most of my classes meet 1 day a week for 3 hours, which is killer. I can never pay attention for more than 2, if I can even go for that long. My Chinese class meets 4 days a week (there are no classes on Fridays) for 2 hours a day. I really like my Chinese class and my professor is really cute and funny!! Also, my Issues in Chinese Society professor is hilarious!! His name is Wei Wei. He has a twin brother whose name is also Wei Wei!!! It's different in Chinese because of the tones, but in English it's the same, so it's pretty funny. Overall, I think my classes are going to be really interesting and I am going to learn a lot.
    That week we went on a boat cruise to see the Bund and it was amazing!! We did it at night so all of the buildings were lit up!! Everyone got really dressed up for it and had lots of fun and then after we went to dinner and then out to a club called Paramount. It was okay, they had a bird cage a la Spanish Galleon, but it was really smokey and a little too loud.

The boat we were on for the Cruise

On the boat, with Shanghai behind me!

      That weekend I had a class field trip to Xintiandi, it is the location of the first meeting of the Communist Party, and we toured the Communist Museum there. We also toured an old house there, which I really enjoyed. It was really pretty on the inside and the furniture and decorations were all really intricate and colorful.
     On Wednesday we had the Mid-Autumn Festival so we didn't have class. Tuesday night we went out to a club called Shelter which is an old bomb shelter that was converted into a club. I had some fun, but was absolutely disgustingly dirty when I left. The Chinese tradition for the Mid-Autumn Festival is to eat moon cakes and contemplate the moon. However, I don't like moon cakes (I'm not sure anyone does) and I don't really enjoy contemplating the moon, so I did neither. We had class Friday to make up for Wednesday, which kind of stank, but it was nice having a random day off in the middle of the week.
    Wednesday night I met up with some people from Wake that have graduated and are studying here now and went to the Expo for a party. First we went to Chile. They were having a deal for buy one bottle of wine, get one free. So we drank wine and met some Chileans. Then the Chileans came with us to a party at the Australia pavilion. The party is only supposed to be for people that work there but we managed to get in. It wasn't that great of a party and I was really tired so I left pretty early, but it was fun getting to know some Chileans and actually see the inside of some pavilions without waiting for 6 hours!!
       Friday night I went to this really high end bar called Mint. A girl on the program knew someone with a table there. It was on the 39th floor of a building so it had cool views. And a shark tank!! I didn't stay long and Lucy (my room mate who is with my on pretty much all of my adventures cause she is awesome!) and I didn't get any drinks because they are pretty expensive there.
       Yesterday I went on a day trip to Suzhou, which is known as the Venice of China. I would say calling it Venice is a little bit of a stretch, but it was really interesting. We went to the No. 1 Silk Factory, only the best for us, and toured it. We got to see the entire process they go through with the silkworms to make the silk. We were also treated to a fashion show while we were there of several of the silk designs they were selling. I didn't buy anything because it was all grossly overpriced and silk things are not in any shortage around China. Then we took a boat cruise down the canal, which is the longest canal in the world. It was definitely an interesting experience. We were a lot confused over how some of the houses hadn't fallen in the water yet, but it was still nice to look at. Then we had lunch on our own. I went with some friends to a place that was a little over priced and not that great. But we did get to sit on these really comfy couches, so I guess it was okay.

Down the Canal

      Last night we went to a club called G plus which was awesome and a lot of fun!! I can't wait to go back!! This is most of what I have done since I have been here, at least most of the major things!! Other than that I have just been eating lots of great Chinese food!!! And some not great... Like stinky tofu, which we ordered because our waiter recommended it. It smelled like rotting cat food and tasted like that too. Even though it was rude, I had to spit mine out. I physically couldn't swallow it because it was the most vile tasting and smelling thing on the planet. Other than that the food has been pretty fabulous though!! And I've only bought one dress so far, so some serious shopping is definitely in my near future.