Super Tiring Tour Around the Bund

August 28, 2014

So the activity for the day was touring around the bund and we learned about some of history of the hotels and banks, and all the other buildings that we went into. We had these French tour guides showing us around. Left my SD card in the apartment so had to take photos with my phone. Turned out I actually stashed an extra in my handbag -_-

 Some residential area in a back alley.

View from the Peace Hotel

Suzhou Creek

Walked to visit this former slaughter house for like cows. It's modernized to be a shopping center of some sort now. By then, we had already walked for like over two hours and I just couldn't wait to be done with the day because my feet were hurting from all the walking the past few days.

Finally at 1:00PM we went to Jujube Tree (枣子树/zao zi shu), a vegetarian restaurant for lunch.

Address: 258 Fengxian Rd, Cross street Jiangning Rd (Behind Westgate Mall or Meilongzhen Guangchang)

枣子树, 奉贤路258号,近江宁路, 在美龙镇广场的后面

 Guess I didn't take that many photos of the food :X Some of them were good, but then in the end all of them all started tasting the same because a lot of dishes were like tofu or bean curd based or something.

Walked around Nanjing Road because we had some free time before our destination. We found this place called Han City or Fake Market on Nanjing Road (W), so I tried buying a laptop case, but that didn't work out. 

Went to Propaganda Poster Art Museum, which belongs to a private collector and it's kind of a small room full of posters from the time of the World War through Cold War sort of era. There was also a gift shop that had like originals for sale, including posters, pins, and even the Little Red Book. 

Address: 868 Huashan Rd, room BOC 徐汇区 华山路,靠近复兴东路

Had about half an hour or so to walk around the Former French Concession Area. Got bitten by sooo many mosquitoes during this time.

Met up with the rest of the group at Baoluo, a pretty fancy looking restaurant. Maybe it was because we sat with the vegetarians, but most of the dishes were vegetables D: We only had two meat dishes.. but then again I thought we split the dishes all in half with the other table because we didn't want to have too much since there weren't that many of us and we were all still full from lunch.

Address: 271 Fumin Rd at Changle Rd 富民路271号, 近长乐路

Took the bus back and stayed in for the rest of the night. Some of the girls wanted to do face masks and wine, but I was superrr tired D: So wasn't sure what to do, but then in the end they canceled it because they were tired too :x

Anyways, until next time! I'm almost all caught up with stuffs I want to post :X

City God Temple, Yuyuan Garden, Shanghai World Financial Tower

August 27, 2014

Today the group met up to take the bus to the train station to take the subway for the first time here. We use this public transportation card for the bus, subway, taxi, etc.

We went to City God Temple first and apparently it's in the heart of Old City. People still go there nowadays to pray for anything basically.

Money

Wellbeing

Fertility

Got some incense for 5元

Had some free time to roam around the Tourist Mart, so I went to find some food.

My skewers were 60元, which is crazy expensive for food because I can buy like an entire meal for <20元 easily. It was also cold and greasy >:(

Next stop was Yuyuan Garden (豫园）which was like a place dedicated to this guy's father. It's like the houses that rich people lived in back in the days, as seen in Chinese dramas.

 Fed fishes and gave away the extra pellets to little kids

 The place is known for its rocks that has holes or something. This particular one was supposed to be super famous.

 At 1:00PM it was time for lunch at a restaurant called Lubolang (绿波廊)

Lotus root with sticky rice

Next we went to the Pudong area via subway to visit the Shanghai World Financial Tower, which is shaped like a bottle opener. I didn't actually take a photo of the place though, hmm... 

 Oriental Pearl TV Tower, which to me is like a landmark in Shanghai that's easily distinguishable in the skyline.

So inside the SWFC:

They had this cool model of Shanghai and played the background and adjusted the lighting as it fast forwards along the day, so in the pic that's the "view" of the city at 6:46PM.

We went on the 94th, 97th, and 100th floor. They were all more or less the same, just gives the city view a different angle. 

100th floor view

For dinner, we went to a Hunan cuisine restaurant called Guyi (古意湘味浓)

Lamb ribs

Some sort of fish that people didn't really have too much of... I was hesitant too because it seemed like a lot of work and somewhat big, but it was actually really good and fresh! 

 Sticky banana balls which burned my tongue.. you take a piece and dip it into water so that the caramel or whatever hardens.

Night view of the Oriental Pearl Tower

Four of us were going to take a cab back, but we were told after the rest of the group left that it'll be hard to hail a cab at this time because we're right downtown and it's rush hour, so we opted for taking the subway home. It was a bit odd because I ended up getting home before my roommates, who left before us to take the subway home, but they took the bus the wrong direction >_<

Ahhh, trying to keep up with all my entries to make them as concurrent as possible, but I'm usually out and about for the whole day and by the time I get back, I pass out. 

Well, until next time!

The First Real Day in Shanghai

Today was the first day of orientation, so going over some information, contact information, and whatnot. I only got like 3.5 hours of sleep so was kind of tired at some point randomly, but it wasn't because of jetlag. I stayed up cleaning up the room and unpacking even though I was ready to go to bed. 

After the orientation was a lunch at Fuxuan Hotel with everyone else, which the school provided for us. Then when that was over, I went to the phone store to get a data plan. A prepaid one is relatively expensive though (10RMB per 100MB) so I opted for the 50RMB/month for 1GB, which is a better deal for sure. But I asked around and apparently even with frequent usage, they use only 150-200MB a month, so I'm not even sure if I need so much data, but in the States I definitely do.

Went to Walmart at 五角场 afterwards to get some basic supplies and everything was pretty cheap. At first I only saw the first level so I was very unimpressed and weirded out that Walmart only had groceries but turned out they had a couple more floors.

Bought everything for 118RMB (~$20) but forgot toilet paper!! So apparently when you go out you need to bring little packs of tissues because public bathrooms do not have toilet paper. 

Got dinner with 7 others at a local restaurant so it was like a family styled thing. Total for dinner was 16RMB (~$2.50) not bad, not bad. 

Dunno if I'll end up spamming the blog if I do a day to day sort of thing, so let me know which you prefer? 

Anyways, tired now so going to sleep. Until next time!

Shanghai: The Flight There

I woke up around 4:30AM to get ready and finish up with last minute packing and headed out by 5:30AM. I got through security and everything before 7:00AM and my flight as at 9:15AM D: So I had so much time to spare. Going through security didn't take long or anything, just as if it was a domestic flight. So I had to switch at Detroit and before the plane even took off, I knocked out and didn't really wake up until after the plane had landed danggg. 

Then the second leg of the trip, I didn't spend too much of it sleeping. I ended up watching About Time, Taken 2, Despicable Me 2, and Meet the Millers. The plane has personal screens for everyone and had a good selection of movies, too. About two hours before it landed, I got a bit nauseous, so I tried sleeping it off, which helped a little. I think I might've just had to burp it off and also there was a bit of turbulence. 

They fed us well (1 light snack, 1 medium snack, 2 meals) plus came around a lot for water. At least once or twice between each meal + during the meals. 

Got off the plane around 2:30PM the next day and going through immigration was a breeze. I just had to fill out a slip of paper with basic information (name, address, signature, etc.) and I was done in like 2 minutes. There was a bit of a wait though since there were a lot of people at that time. My checked bag got really dirty though..like someone wiped yellow chalk all over it or something. 

Then I waited for the rest of the students to come in on the group flight, but they weren't getting in until 7ish...so it was a 5 hour wait. I ended up watching a few episodes of Glee and got really sleepy at some point so I just slept. But then there was like a 1.5 hour delay on their flight so more waiting D: and then had to wait for them to get off the plane, go through immigration, and get their baggage. 

So did not get to the apartment until 11:00PM...so not sure if it was even worth the wait. I decided to wait because I figured there wasn't much to do in the apartment anyways, aside maybe sleep. I assumed there was no internet there, too. So this way I could meet up with everyone + save money on the cab (and maybe getting scammed) since they provided a bus that took us there. 

Did a midnight run to the local convenience store. I think depending on what you buy the stuff is cheaper? I bought a celebratory drink, bottled milk tea, and 2 rolls of paper towels for 26¥ (~$4-5). 

Anyways, kinda excited to at least walk outside or something tomorrow so until next time!

Summer 2014 New York Trip

Was just about to type up this post when I realized that I didn't go on an annual New York trip at the end of July with friends as I normally did in the past 3 years(?). 

I went to New York on Sunday night (8/10), even though I was originally planning on going on Monday morning, but my mom wanted me to do earlier >_> Super stressed that day because I had no time to do anything and ended up flaking on one of my friends and luckily my aunt came over to drive me to the station and help me pack. Even as I was rushing out of the house, I ended up dropping a container of this herbal tea and it broke D: So I only had time to pick it up and throw it into the sink without cleaning up the mess. 

Primary reasons for this trip was helping my aunt get her visa and visiting friends from college. I got up in the morning to go to the consulate and within 5 minutes I was out the door because apparently you HAVE to have your flight and hotel booked before you can apply for your visa and my aunt had not done that, sooo it was such a waste of time going there! It was super sunny and far too. 

Not only that, but I wasn't supposed to meet up with my friend until 2:00-3:00PM but it wasn't even noon yet! I didn't have the keys to go home and by the time I did get back it'd be almost time to head out again, also waste of train fare.

So I ended up going to a Starbucks for like an hour or less. Apparently they charge for refills now too :O Whaat. Then decided to go to these bead stores on 6th Ave. I actually ended up walking in a huge circle because of that detour I took to go to Starbucks D: 

So spent maybe one hour in total in those stores as I waited for my friend to come. Ended up spending like $30 on a few things >< And I still feel like I don't have enough to make anything either.. didn't realize it was such an expensive hobby. I was kinda into crystal beads at some point and kind of got interested into more of the jewelry aspect of it, but nothing ever actually came out of that. 

After meeting up with my friend I went to Kambi and got their basic spicy ramen. It wasn't actually that spicy though, and I was super full halfway through, probs because I've cut down on the amount of food I've been eating lately, even though normally I'd probs have like two servings or something. 

Then went to Mango Mango for drinks and it was actually pretty good, though the crystal jelly was kind of weird. Then went home. My feet are so tired from walking all day :(

The next day considered of going to Joe's Shanghai and Cha Chan Tang for food. Then as nerdy as it sounds, we went to a PC cafe afterwards because we didn't know what to do. It was a lot cheaper than I expected ($2/hr) though the place was pretty hot.

It started pouring an hour before my bus though and I had to help my mom and aunt get pastries so that wasn't very fun. But yeah, that concludes the trip, so until next time!

Three More Weeks Until Shanghai!

A little less actually! I booked my flight a few weeks ago and I'm scheduled to fly off on the 24th. I'm still  waiting to get my visa back though, now that I think about it. I'm more or less set in terms of course selection as well. Hoping that the classes have enough people registered or I can't take it D: I was debating between taking a third year leveled Chinese language course or one that combines third and the subsequent semester, but opted for the former because the pace is a lot better. Even though it's twice the material, we have to learn it 4x faster o_O

The next two weeks are going to go by really quickly. I have my finals for my summer course in a few hours and I'm procrastinating with this entry instead lol.

Other things I have for the rest of the summer are seeing One Direction and Jesse McCartney =D And a wedding and some appointments. Sooo maybe it doesn't sound like too much but pretty sure it'll be over really quickly.

The excitement for Shanghai sort of died down after a while, but I'm sure in a week or so I'll be pretty excited or maybe even start missing home already lol. I started packing more the other day... and just putting in contact solution already took up so much space...wondering how I'm going to be able to pack everything. Ehhhh.

Anyways, until next time! Study time, maybe.

Tale of Two More Incidents

Written three weeks ago, but forgot to publish:

7/16/14

Just my luck lately, right?

I was driving and on a split to the freeway. I was on the wrong lane so I switched over to my left and the woman to my left (2 lanes from my original position) and behind me started honking like crazy. Then a minute afterwards she drove over into my lane right in front of me and decided to give me a brake test or something D: I'm so lucky that I was paying full attention at that time and stopped right in time or I would've hit her because she pulled up literally an inch in front of me. To make matters worse, right after she did that, she switched back into her lane on the left and sped off. Wtf who does that. If I had hit her and the person behind me wasn't paying attention, they would've hit me too. And worst of all, since I would've rear ended her, it would've been my fault, technically. -_- 

Other incident was kind of minor. So I slept sorta later than usual last night. I fell asleep at 11:45PM. My dad calls me at 11:50PM and 12:20AM, and I didn't pick up either because it was on silent and I was also asleep. 10 minutes later, he stands at my door, and starts calling out to me WTF. My room was dark, too. And of course I woke up and I couldn't sleep anymore because I was so mad he woke me up like that. So I went to scold him and he tells me, "I thought you were out and I wanted to see if you were home." Seriously? What kind of logic is yelling into a dark room? If I wasn't home then obviously I wouldn't answer and if I was, obviously I would be asleep. 

And on the topic, it does get annoying that he calls me often asking where I am. 90% of the time he's not even home, and I am, so it's just annoying. Like why are you checking up on me at 7PM? Maybe it's a parent thing, but I'm at the age where I find it annoying. 

Anyways, I'm so tired now :( been sleeping later than usual the past two days. I actually sleep like a normal person now lol.

Until next time!