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I am an utter failure.
So there's this really really good dumpling place near our campus. And I mean - pan-fried dumplings with soup inside them - so it's sort of like a fried xiaolongbao. Of course, it has MEAT.
And of COURSE, I ate it (hence the "failure" part...)
And to top it all off? IT'S ONLY BEEN ONE DAY - gracefully pointed out to me by Emily =D.
Other than that, I've been pretty good about food. The cheapest meals you can get are the basics without meat anyways. I'm happy with the basics. I also cooked me some tomato with scrambled eggs - the one that Ama would sometimes make. It's a popular dish here - called, fan qie dan or something? I could be mixing up the words, or making it up, but you get the idea...I got bubble tea from CoCo today though - NOT GOOD. Had red bean nai cha - with tapioca - and boy did I get a stomach ache. The bus ride home didn't help my stomach either - I almost wished for laduzi to ease the pain...(sorry if it's a little too graphic, but one thing you learn really quickly is that in China, the bathroom and all your business in it is NOT taboo).
Yesterday was rocking - and of course, I forget to take a picture of how awesome it was. NYU in Shanghai celebrated all the birthday children of February - with two MASSIVE cakes from this bakery called Christine's. (I'd take you there, Mom, but it's apparently pricey. So unless you wanna pay for it...). The cakes were really good. Each student got their own birthday card too - I'd imagine it was about 20+ people who we celebrated the birthdays of. I hope I get one in March too! I know two other March babies - Emily and Gloria. Maybe it's their way of making it up to us for having to celebrate away from home, family, and friends (unless their friends came along)...but that's being incredibly optimistic and naive. It really is just coming out of our tuitions... Which on one hand is awesome, because I am paying the same amount as I am in NY (plus dorming, but that's another thing), and yet I think we are all getting more benefits/freebies than we would in NY. We ARE a smaller group than the thousands in NYU, and the American dollar DOES go a longer way in China (although not too much since the conversion rate is slowly going up/down/whichever way round).
That was the best part of yesterday. Today...rainy. Horrible mess. But I definitely have my internship now! As in, I feel more secure and really do think I have this job. Why? Because I'm reporting to work tomorrow! As a script translator! Gosh it sounds horrible. I mean come on, my Chinese sucks - everyone in my room is on a higher level of Chinese than me! So I guess that means I have to bump up my game, yeah yeah I know. I will improve my Chinese, yada yada yada. But what I REALLY need work on is my spoken Chinese.
Ooh! So I signed up for the erhu and the gu zheng. The er hu is the one with the two strings, works like a violin. Mad hot. The gu zheng is like a Chinese harp that lays flat. So excited! Hope I can learn both!! I also got a calligrapher to write my Chinese name. It's so PRETTY!!! It's in simplified and traditional characters - weird how it all got mixed up, but I think it's also based on common usage nowadays. My name uses archaic characters!!! Aahhh!
Ok, I think I want to play ping pong right now. We have a ping pong table in the lobby, and lately, we've all been playing mini tournaments - fun stuff!
So I'm going to attempt to stop eating meat for Lent. Weird - first time celebrating Lent in a foreign country! See mom?! It'll be hard - but I'll try! It'll only be hard because everything in Shanghai is all about meat. Hehe...
So I celebrated my last couple of meals with meat! I've cooked a bok choy with ground beef, and tonight I made an attempt at lap chung with scrambled eggs, except I used a different tasting sausage that I got a while ago. So I used that up and now I will stick to a more vegetable and tofu based diet! Wooh! Operation Vegetarian in Shanghai begins now!
That also means I have to find a church - and it's tough because all the ones with an English service are all so far away! Yoohoo...taxi!...
Anyways - lots of homework, but I really wanted to post pictures. No real reason - just felt like it...
Go Slumdog Millionaire! While it may have been a shoo-in, I was holding my breath and keeping my fingers crossed, because I didn't want to be disappointed or have my hopes up too high. But YAY! Hence the change of my Facebook profile picture - of Dev Patel jumping on the shoulders of Madhur Mittal. It's such a gleeful, spontaneous moment, and Mittal's face is priceless. =D
Ooh - went to buy some baozi from this vendor around the corner of the apartments. I asked him, "You caide bao ma?" and he said yeah. So I said I wanted one, and also a "rou de bao" because all of us NYU kids can't read the characters, and we spread word about these 1 kuai baos by saying "Get the one with rou!" Of course, the man laughs at our Chinese. Whoopee! So when I said i wanted the rou baozi, he laughed at me too! And he asked me, in Chinese of course, "Is your father Chinese?"
Me: Yeah, but I'm an American born Chinese
Him: Oh, where are you studying now?
Me: I'm from NYU, but right now we're at ECNU.
Him: Oh...
Me: Thanks! Bye!
And I grabbed with me two SCRUMPTIOUSLY JUICY BAOS. By the way, the vegetable one is pretty good - with some choy, mushroom and tofu bits! So yummy - I prefer that to the meat (well, at least I'll have to for the next 40 days). But the meat one is good because it tastes sort of like a xiaolongbao (it's a little soupy inside) but with a bun exterior.
Ah - the only time I'll break my rule for Lent is if I am taken to xiaolongbao! Which I have yet to have eaten - very sorry guys. I can give up KFC (good chicken by the way), Korean food (I miss me some sulruntang! Back at Hanbat!), and whatever meat food they have here. But dumplings/xiaolongbao - NO! Must eat that once! And if the opportunity presents itself, I am totally eating it! And maybe Beijing-ya if we are taken to eat some in Beijing during our weekend excursion...maybe...
Oh I'm sad - I want to take cooking class, but I can't BECAUSE it just has to coincide with my internship hours. I hope erhu lessons won't interfere.
Busy day tomorrow, and hence, a busy night tonight! Enough "procrastination" for now...
On HBO right now: Dreamgirls (again)
Not a great movie - kind of glad it didn't really win that many awards, but Jennifer Hudson IS good.
The karaoke room...
Shout out to Drew for his birthday party last night!
I don't have many pictures to post up, which should warrant a longer entry. Sorry if my blog posts are random and short - I already "pour my heart" into my journal. =P So anyways - this will be my attempt to provide a more comprehensive review of the week. Yesterday/last night/this morning I went with a whole bunch of other people to celebrate Drew's birthday at a karaoke bar. It was crazy fun - I gotta admit, it was totally worth all my 100 kuai. And then I came home and fell asleep - knocked out. I got my care package, Mom! Thanks again! That also means, as of today, Sunday 12:45 pm, I finished all the biscotti. =D And thanks for the shirt - I needed another one... =P That's one of the "bad things" about packing light, or at least, packing more tank tops than long sleeved shirts. But the weather is warming up - really! If only my jacket didn't smell like smoke. Gosh, I really hate how everyone smokes everywhere - but it's part of the culture. As long as I don't develop second-hand smoke lung cancer from living in Shanghai for four months, I'm happy. But back to packing light... it has it's advantages too, because I limit how much stuff I have to bring/bring back.
I have to admit, Shanghai is really awesome. So much cleaner, technologically advanced, and more amazing than NY. As Russell says, we can never go back and look at New York the same way. New York subway stations SUCK. I can't argue about culture though. NY and SH culture are very different. SH has more history, more architectural beauties, and more advanced lifestyle than in NY, where the culture is more of a combination and a little messier, where one culture overlaps with another. NY's sights are much more accessible though, which is a plus in my book.
Not much else to say, other than I SHOULD START MY HOMEWORK NOW! And so, I shall leave you with a photo of my roommates (Gloria and Lara) napping...
It was priceless, I have to say - nothing beats having two people wake up UBER-pissed because SOMEONE rings our doorbell to return a ping pong set. =D
Went out today with Cindy, Russell and Wesley to check out People's Square. It's one of those tourist spots to see. Basically, it's a huge park/square with a large fountain and the Shanghai Art Museum. But it's beautiful and very peaceful, considering that the surroundings were all huge skyscrapers and malls.
Shanghai is a city of MALLS.
Coming out of the subway...
A park near the subway - it had some small theme park rides too.
Samsung building!
Some more skyscrapers...
That tall building on the right picture resembles the Sauron tower in Lord of the Rings...=)
And amidst all the modern, futuristic, sci-fi skyscrapers, there were these dinky little buildings...
Countdown to Expo Asia 2010 - the mascot is called Haibao
People's Square
This old shack was technologically advanced with its solar-power panels!
Russell and Cindy check their phones while a man tries to fly a squid-kite
Shanghai Art Museum
There was this random line that formed to cross the street (we think) and it didn't seem like a tour group, so Russell decides to join the line...
Birds flock around this lady feeding them. This is the first time we've seen pigeons, or doves for this matter. The lady was crazy - she managed to grab a few feathers off of a poor bird!
People's Park
A man drags a cart full of branches...
Barbarossa - a famous lounge...in the middle of the lake
We saw a lot of men fishing in these dark green lakes within the park.
There was also the MOCA - Museum of Contemporary Art - in this park. We visited it and checked out the exhibits, and we even sat in on a movie that they were showing as one of the art exhibits. It was the most excruciatingly hilarious experience we ever had - and if we had not left, we might have stayed for the duration of the entire movie - all 95 minutes of it.
Ok, so I'm a nerd and I'm posting about my first day of class - was so excited I stayed awake the whole time, completely interested in both the lecture and the films. But the films were funny. Of course, I didn't take any pictures of the class or whatever. I also cooked my first meal today - as in actually washed the vegetables, cut up the Chinese sausage (which tasted differently than those in NY), and steamed them in a wok. And I must say - I did a not too shabby job!
Of course, I forgot to take a picture of it. When I cook my next meal, I totally will take a picture...
And so, instead, I leave you with a picture of some really good Taiwanese noodles - my roommates and I ordered the original braised beef Taiwanese noodles from the cafe that's right outside our dorm apartments. And I mean - it was REALLY good.
