Shanghai Weekend

I wanted to take some time to walk you through a "typical" weekend here in Shanghai. I put quotations around typical because every weekend is actually very unique, but that goes without saying in a city this large.

Our weekend actually started on Thursday with a trip to cheap and delicious Food Puzzle. The corn was cheap but not so delicious, so I made some art:

And then proceeded to take too many photos of everyone, with their permission or not:





Denis feeling guilty after scarfing down a plate of seafood pasta. The face really does say it all.

This is authentic laughter.

Friday: Arduous Meeting and Classical Concert

Friday night was the last performance for a renowned cellist/pianist duo. The concert was at the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, which was absolutely breathtaking. My pictures really do not do it justice. I whole-heatedly look forward to going to another show there.




We got 80 kuai tickets, and thought that we were going to be in some sad dark corner somewhere. But because it is a theatre in the round concept, we were behind the performers, which turned out to be an interesting vantage point. There was no English program, so we had a hard time knowning what exaclty was being layed, but we all agreed that the first piece in the second half was the best. I am sure you know exactly which piece of classical music I am referring to . . .

After the concert, because of some poor planning and directional confusion on my part (resulting, finally, in an inability to nourish out rain-soaked bodies with food), we were starving.

In times of hardship, it always seems to be KFC to the rescue.

Nicole spilt her egg tart on the poor Colonel's face. And I bet he never even knew what an egg tart was . . . poor guy.

I am sure you can think of your own description for this unfortunate accident.

Saturday: Big breakfast, 8k registration, Failed train tickets, aimless meandering, and a Chinese indie film.

Saturyday, we got an early start (10am) and headed out to have breakfast at Element Fresh and register for the 8k race coming up in April. After that, it was a long trek to the Shanghai Railway Station to attempt to get tickets for this weekend's travel to Nanjing.


We were excited to get seats . . .

But not excited when they wouldn't sell us tickets. Apparently, there is limited forward planning when it comes to ticket buying here in China, and we cannot buy tickets for Nanjing until three days before our departure. Lets just say, that is cutting it a little too close for comfort!

After that failed attempt, I had another failed attempt to find an art gallery, got a little hopped up on caffiene, met up with Jess and Devon to celebrate Jess' birthday with an hour foot massage, and then headed out again for some more aimless wandering . . .

The aimless wandering finally landed me in North Shanghai (the bane of Shanghai existence) for a random Chinese indie film sceening at the "diviest" bar I have been to in th city. The crowd was almost toally Chinese, and there was a suprisingly high proportion of women. I am hoping to write a more intellectual piece on the themes of the movie later this week. If its decent, I will post it here.

These are some of the scenes of the area around the bar:



A Shanghai pup that agreed to stop and pose . . .

The crowd:

The bar:

Sunday: Wake up, Nap, French Concession walk, GRE study

Today was a more or less lazy sunday that ended up becoming more productive as the day went on. I did not offically get up from a prone posiiton until 12pm. I hurridly got ready, headed to the office to do some prep and organization work for this week, and then headed out with Chris on a walk through the French concession with the end goal being cozying up in a cafe and doing some serious GRE study.

Mission accomplished.

Somewhere in there, we took the time to do a little photo shoot in front of one of the oddest statues in the city. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.




My GRE study is going really well. Everyday I learn a whole barrage of vocabulary words and learn a few more sections of the math. No matter how I end up doing, I know that the work I am going now will certianly result in a higher score. Thats all that matters, I suppose.

I am off to bed now. Early, I know. But, I wake up at 5:45 every morning to go run a couple miles on the track before work in preparation for the 8k.

Zaijian!