the first week

since blogspot is blocked in china, its going to be a little bit harder to update than i imagined. but here goes a quick recap of the past week:


saturday/the flight here: china eastern has really good food.. i had eel for lunch. beat that air china! however, i was freezing and their blankets are about as thick as a sheet of paper. basically china eastern tried to prepare me for the winter weather that was to greet me in shanghai. we arrived an hour early, and was able to hop onto the airport's wireless. this is the first, and so far, last wifi connection i've had in china.


sunday: although it was drizzly all day, that didn't deter me and tiff from getting our shopping on in changshu/常熟. i made a much too big dent in my funds. after shopping, hairstyling, and eating (they have a delicious bakery that puts jj to shame.. i think its called 85 degrees／85度C), i was whisked away to shanghai.
 
monday: when i ate my first bite of the crappy breakfast buffet at a nearby hotel, i remembered a little too late that my shunjianbao/生煎包 had pork in it. the rest of the morning was hectic: registration, class, and move-in. because i am an anomaly (high speaking skills, but low reading), i got shuffled from B to F to E class, (F is the most difficult). i discovered that there are a lot of korean students here, most are older and looking for jobs here in shanghai. apparently i look korean. my room here is nice, but the bathroom is shitty as hell (i spend as little time as possible there). i have to pay for hot water by swiping a card, and because i was a loner, i ended up falling asleep at 6pm and waking up at 4am the next day. not the best way to beat jetlag. oh, i forgot to mention, IT SNOWED! little itty bits of white fell down all day. however, wednesday would be colder temperature-wise, at delightful 0*C/32*F.


tuesday was a little bit better, i enjoyed my class. class is 4 hours long with 3 breaks in between. we have two teachers， one for each period. track E is a good fit, the lessons have been about shopping, ordering food, and buying clothes (all of which i feel are very useful vocab for me). there were also some funny folks who like to joke around/开玩笑 in the class, i also started talking to a few of the other students. in the afternoon, i walked around and visited some small shops on the street outside the school's gate on yan'an lu/延安路. going meatless today failed, as i ate a green onion bun with ham hidden inside. i knew it would be hard in china, but i didn't know it would be that hard. met up with tony for dinner at a yakitori restaurant on rainbow road/彩虹路.


wednesday would be much busier and much more fulfilling, making my prospects in china that much brighter. after class, the guy who was sitting next to me yesterday, huang ji-hyun asked if i wanted to eat lunch at the school cafeteria. as a result met tiep, who is thai, and two other koreans who had been here for months and were looking for jobs. apparently i'm the baby of the group. after lunch, the school had a field trip to yuyuan mall/‪豫园‬. i'd been here before with family, so it was nice to take the bus there with other students and figure out where in relation it was from me (east of the school).  not surprisingly, everything was under construction. i finally got to try candy on a stick, the fruits were surprisingly sweet since i would think pineapple and kiwi are out of season. sanzha in its natural form is delicious, unfortunately it has more seeds than i expected! met up with tony again for dinner, this time we went to cloud 9 mall/龙之梦购物中心 in zhongshan park/中山公园. it is HUGE, but according to uncle wu, it is actually one of the smaller malls in shanghai.

thursday was mysterious illness day, i woke up feeling nauseous, didn't eat breakfast, but as any good student would, went to class. i chugged a pepsi i bought at the vending machine during the first break, and right before the second break tossed my cookies. unfortunately i didn't quite make it to the bathroom, so let's just say last night's veggies hit the hallway floor. i promptly felt better, and ate a tangerine and some cheerios i had brought into class. after class ended at noon, i headed straight to my dorm to skype with dad. unfortunately during that time the orange made its way up into the toilet. i fell asleep around 2, had another visit to the porcelain god around 3, and then slept 'til 9pm. i knew this would screw up my sleeping schedule if i stayed up all night, so i forced myself to sleep, waking up every hour or two. i finally woke around 7am on friday, feeling much better.
 

friday was the first day i visited the school cafeteria by myself. they had tea eggs／茶叶蛋, soy milk／豆浆, mantou/馒头. lucky for me, they had a big bowl of zhou/皮蛋粥 for about 1 yuan. i have to say, zhou in china is SO much better than zhou back home. it is just more flavorful and you don't even need pork sung/肉松 to go with it. for lunch, alicky and uncle wu took me out to eat at a nearby taiwanese cafe, bellagio cafe/鹿港小镇. we had hainan chicken, egg rolls, fish, pork, basically way too much food. my favorite was the roubu paigu soup/??排骨汤 because my stomach was still not at its best. around 4pm, i met with about 20 other students, all korean, at a nearby korean restaurant for dinner and drinks. we had tofu soup, dukbokge, seafood pancake, and of course, lots of rice wine. i didn't eat too much, but it was fun talking with them. xiao bae actually bought some lotte candies afterwards, they are really good! i am going to buy some and bring them back to the states.
 

today is saturday, what will happen, i'm not sure yet. i've spent the past three hours sitting at my computer, trying to get my internet to work! i'll probably go out to buy some fruits, maybe some bread. there is a nearby bakery called lillian bakery, their dan ta/蛋挞 isn't half bad. uncle wu has been texting me chinese, but i have a very difficult time translating it. i will probably go out and explore the city a little. however, i need to take some time to study, as my hanyu recognition is still too low!

pictures to come in the next post!