Observations and Thoughts

Time: 0945 AM SAT

Weather:  3°C with Fog - expected to get sunny

I've missed out on some blogging opportunities this week and would like to spend a little time here catching up.  I'd like to first touch on the language barrier.  It is very steep.  I was under the impression that many people in Shanghai are capable of speaking English.  This impression is sorely wrong.  The only people who really speak English with comprehension are employees of tourist areas.  The airport, hotel staff, a FEW store employees.  Communication is very difficult and requires a lot of guessing, weak chinese phrases, and pointing at pictures.  To order in most restaurants we tend to not say anything at all and just point.  Though, we also have a very rigorious chinese language schedule and are expected to know 120+ vocab words by Tuesday. In one of our classes we've been discussing how knowing what the language is will only get disjunct communication.  Knowing the culture behind the language can be a much more effective communication tool, as not to offend anyone.

On Thursday I wrote at lunch about the length of the chinese language course and said we might go to the river, that didn't happen.  Some people did go down there but I didn't join.  I decided I'd much rather attempt to find the french market, where I had been told is the place to find cheese and wine.  I was told there was a Carrefour in the region and looked it up online.  It is only 20-30 minutes away by foot.  I told some others and the group grew and grew and grew.  Soon enough there were 13 of us walking to a french grocery / supply store.  A few of the people walking wanted to test the open container policy so not far beyond the gates of the school we stopped at a local grocery and picked up some beers.  Those who were drinking popped 'em and we started again after short delay.  We did make it all the way there without being stopped by any of the officers we walked by, so thats cool enough.  We got to the store and found it had many of the promises that were made to me, I picked up a few blocks of cheese and some American singles (cheese, sadly).  We found the rum that has been missed by many rum and coke fans.  I was sad to find that even the french market didn't have such common day items as Cheez-Its, Ritz, or TownHouse.  The Ritz they do have tend to be infused with random flavors, orange, lemon, chocolate, etc.  The trip there and back lead us down very busy streets.  I actually captured video of what it is like to cross the street here, dangerous. There were many vendors selling coats in small stores and roadside "crap-on-a-stick" type of shops.

Friday after school I decided I wanted to go find a tailor I had seen in a video on Shanghai.  I did a little bit of research at lunch and found the address that seemed to match the video address plate.  A small group of us, 4 total, wanted to check out the prices and see if this guy was really as crazy as he seemed to be in the video.  We embarked on the journey and missed the street.  Went too far and rather than trying to figure it out on the way and potentially get VERY lost, we returned to the university and checked a map to see what had gone wrong.  The road we needed was under construction and didn't have a sign.  We found a new route and took that.  The map indicated the tailor would only be about 30 minutes walk, we left at 5pm.  We found our road and watched the address numbers start to fall.  The map indicated it was to the east, but the numbers kept getting smaller.  We weren't quite sure why this would be true, but we just stuck with it.  There were multiple parts to this street; west, middle, east.  We had hoped the numbers started again at any division west to middle or middle to east but had nothing other than wishful thinking.  We were on a snipe hunt.  Our journey lead us to the east.  Block after block and shop after shop, we never found the tailor we were looking for.  We did find quite a fancy shopping area.  At about 630 we figured it was time to give up and just find a place to eat.  We say a Pasta and Pizza shop and it was a clear winner.  Expensive by local standards, at about 9-12 usd a person it was a good meal.  We caught the subway home and more adventuring was arranged.  I have not given up on trying to find this tailor, he is known for "Western style suits and shirts."

Friday night, after returning from our snipe hunt, I heard there were some folks who wanted to go down and have a glass or two at the world's highest lounge.  Located on the 87th floor of downtown shanghai, it takes 3 elevators and a minimum purchase of 12 usd to stick around.  We had also heard rumors that the locals turn off all the city lights at 10 pm - a race against the clock began.  We left around 845.  A couple of subway rides later we made it downtown and the lights were awe-worthy.  The construction for the world expo makes it very difficult to get around and therefore we had to walk in the wrong direction to try and get to where we needed to be, but of course this wasn't until we had already walked in the right direction and saw the say indicating this was the wrong direction which then made the wrong direction initially into the right direction in finality (we turned left, but should have gone right).  We walked and eventually got near the base, as the clock struck 10.  We lost the race and the lights began to turn off on all of the buildings.  We continued to the building and went up the first 54 floors, then transfered elevators to get to 85, after the last transfer to get to the 87th floor, we spoke with the lounge and they said, "We're sorry, we don't have room for 11 guests."  I wasn't sure if they had turned us away because we were younger and not in suits, or if they were actually full.  As we were leaving, I asked the a women working in the grand hyatt lobby on 54 if there was a dress code or anything.  She said there is, but it was only no shorts or open-toed shoes.  She assured me that we were turned away because the lounge was busy.  We knew of another place that had decent drink specials and some of us were going to head there and more of us were heading elsewhere.  However, it was now 1030 and the subway closes at 11pm (which is just insane).  We raced back but the last train that was boarding for our transfer left at 1040 and we got there at 1045. Upset.  We returned to the street and - because the subway closes at 11pm - every cab gets 4 yuan more expensive and .... is taken.  It took another 25 minutes to catch a cab.  I returned home and went to sleep. The cost was 45 yuan total, by 3 people ends up being about 2usd for a 20 min cab ride.

I'll write another post later today,

JBiber

First Week of Classes

The last couple days have been quite nice.  The smog has seemed to be a bit less and the sun has been strong.  The temperature has been about 35 +/- 10 degrees.  Not many clouds and it's quite enjoyable.  I've been keeping busy in the last couple days focusing on school.  As i have mentioned before the course load for this semester is much higher than I was expecting.  There is a lot of reading to be done, Chinese words to study, and I haven't started to look at my purdue based mechanical engineering course yet.  I fear that the workload will be interfering with the opportunities to go and experience the Chinese culture.

The food in China seems to leave a lot of american students partially filled but not satisfied.  The cafeteria food is lacking a lot of the density found in american dishes.  It is also quite rare to eat a meal with a drink other than hot tea.  In the cafeteria to get a drink you must go to a separate area where I have yet to encounter a line -- something quite rare in China as you might imagine.  It's starting to catch on that it's a good idea to keep a bottle of water at all times within reach.

Last night was an alright time.  Due to the dictation in Chinese language this morning, many people decided to stay in and get some studying done.  For dinner, no on was quite happy with the dining hall experience at yesterday's lunch - so we figure dinner (same food) wouldn't be much better.  A group of about 10 of us went to a Japanese Noodle place across the street.  I had a large bowl of noodles with like roast beef and parmesan cheese on top - about 25 yuan ($4), pretty expensive.  After dinner we all went over to McD's and got some ice cream.  I also ordered an apple pie -- which they didn't have.  She pointed to the yellow stuff on the ice cream and I didn't understand.  She then held up a Pineapple Pie and I was thinking .. yeah okay.  It was pretty much the same as apple, just sweeter.  2 pies was 7 yuan and an ice cream was 2.5 yuan - About $1.40 total.  We split the pies and it was a good time.

Today has been a hard day so far.  Thursdays is a full day of Chinese from 930-12 and 1-415.  It's a lot of Chinese and a lot of time in the same room with the same teacher.  The first half of the day went by kinda slow.  Lunch was actually pretty good today in the dining court.  It was a meatball of something, with a side of rice, and a pile of corn / carrots / chicken / beans.  I also picked up a few chicken nugget type of things.  The nuggets were cold - but it didn't take away from how awesome my non-carb filled lunch was.  It was about 8 yuan for lunch, so not much more than 1 usd.

Theres a group of people tonight who are going to head to the Bund - the river front area.  It's currently under construction for the world expo - but I think I'll go anyways.  I need to get some reading done before I get to sleep tonight though!

Thats all for now

JBiber

School Begins

The last couple of days have been the official beginning of school for all of us Purdue folks.  Classes have started alright there are bright spots and things that aren't looking as good.  The course on chinese culture has a very nice teacher.  Th chinese language course will likely be very difficult.  I had a 1.5 hr session this morning and it was very defeating.  Difficult to learn, difficult to say, difficult to translate.  It has left me in a very sour mood.  Classes take place everyday from about 10 am to about 4 pm with 1 hr for lunch.  This is not a typical schedule for me as I would prefer to have my long class sessions in the morning.

To start the class year off right, we went out to a bar last night.  50 RMB ($7 about) open bar list.  Choose from a long list of mixed drinks and such, it wasn't far from campus but we took a taxi to make sure we got there since it was dark.  Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and it was a pretty good time.

It is very different that here there is no cheese really.  I was at the grocery store looking for cheez-its or any cheesy type of cracker and I was very sad to find out that ... it doesn't exist.  No cheddar, no mozzarella, no parmesan, no american, no havarti, no swiss, nothing.  No cheese flavored... anything really.  This is a problem.  I bought some crackers thinking they were cheese, I got home and someone looked at the package and wondered why I would have bought peach flavored crackers.  It was quite the surprise.  Since then, I've found 1 thing in the store that is cheese - "Cheesy Cheese" Pringles.  I have since bought and eaten them without satisfying the need.  I am going to Pizza Hut tonight, it WILL cost a LOT of money and I don't mind.  I am taking donations to support my cheesy habits.

I hope the rest of this week gets better.  My class load is much heavier than I was expecting.  Please send your greetings to my phone number.

JBiber

Day 3 - The nearby stuff

Weather: low 40s and raining

This morning a much smaller group of just 3 of us hung out.  We decided it'd be good to go catch some breakfast at a mall about 2 blocks away.   The walk was miserable.  It was a steady medium rain.  The path lead us down through the subway system to try and avoid the rain as much as possible.  We were aiming for one building and found another by accident.  One of the folks didn't bring along the power adapter for her laptop on accident so while in a very large electronics store we checked to see if they had the equipment.  The electronics store had a footprint of about the same size as a applebee's restaurant only 5 stories tall.

First floor of the store was computer dealers, dell, asus, leveno, sony, toshiba, etc.  Each floor was devoted to the individual product types; this is very common it seems.  The basement level was just cameras.  Other floors, music / portable electronics, diy computers... etc.  We found the proper cable for her laptop but wanted to be sure, so decided we'd come back after breakfast with the laptop to make sure it works.  For breakfast, we went to a local mall.  Unlike home, there isn't too much in the way of bread around these parts.  The carbs from the meal usually comes from rice.  We walked past a bakery called BreadTalk and knew it was perfect for us.  I got a ham/cheese sandwich, bacon salad (roll with bacon and lettuce), and a desert bread stick totaling 18 yuan (less than $3).  I grabbed a soda from Burger King in the dining court and was kinda ripped off for one cup of coke 7.50 yuan ($1.10).  Either way, it was awesome.  Someone else got a piece of bread with an over-hard eggs in the center baked over cheese and bacon then run through a horizontal toaster - amazing.

After breakfast we returned to the rooms to drop off the unfinished bread and grab the laptop.  We got back and purchased the proper power cord with a few chinese phrases and went to a nearby super market.  After covering every isle, the items that were chosen were different than from at home.  I got 4 USA red delicious apples 45 yuan ($6), a few bags of crackers 14 yuan, and 4 L of water 6 yuan, for a total of less than $10.  We returned in the rain to the room to consider resting a bit after a long 1.5 hrs in the grocery just looking at things.

Lunch came later in the afternoon because we watched a video I had on Shanghai, Paul Merton in China; Shanghai.  I referenced this video in the past but - I really enjoy sharing it with people so the three of us watched it again.  As the afternoon ticked by and rain continued to fall we decided that adventuring too far away would be less fun than staying nearby.  We went over to a very close by Japanese noodle place.  I got a beef and bamboo soup with noodles and it was pretty good for 28 yuan ($4) served with tea.  Satisfied with dinner, we continued on to get foot massages - I've never had a professional massage it seemed like a good something to do on a Sunday afternoon.  We went to the massage parlor off campus and for 88 yuan (12.85) we had the choice of a foot massage or full body message.  We nearly went for the full body but opted for a foot message because it was the first time in China and didn't wanna get in over our heads.

It was great.  

After dinner we returned with friends to the Japanese noodle house for dessert.  It wasn't good - had loads of funny tasting beans on it and such, but I split it two ways for for 15 yuan ($2) it wasn't the end of the world.  Unsatisfied, I ran over to McD and got an ice cream cone.  Despite the rain, it was good and the price was right 2.50 yuan ($0.37).

Now I've returned to my room for the evening to document the day and it's coming up on 8pm.  Classes start tomorrow at 10:30 am not far from the building we are staying in.  None of us are excited to have classes starting soon.

I don't intend on keeping the blog in this much detail, but I think that posting details now helps people relate to whats going on.  The last couple days have been fun and easy.  There are many things that are overpriced. It just depends on where the shopping happens.  When I know more Chinese it'll be a better time of getting lower prices.

Thanks for reading

JBiber

Shanghai - Day 2

Weather: upper 40s and smoggy (no shadows)

Today was an interesting day.  After grabbing a very non-american style breakfast, including noodles and dumplings, i exchanged money at the local bank.  I tried to do this yesterday, but it didn't work out because I didn't have my passport with me.  After that, a small group of us got together to go on an adventure.  We gathered and got a few more cellphones for folks in the group.  While some people were trying to get phones, someone else was buying food off the street vendors.  I got to eat something today -- i just have no desire to eat.  Apparently it was a well seasoned heart from a medium sized bird.. about the size of a large plum.  It wasn't very good. After we got the phones, we continued to the subway.

The idea behind today was to get to the river probably 2 miles way.  We went down to the subway and tried to get a metro card.  The man didn't speak much english so it wasn't very easy.  I went up and spoke with him and got nothing.  One of my friends came up and spoke with him in limited chinese - and after a small delay of 15-20 minutes total, we were on our way.  We rode a few stops up to People's Square.  An interesting place that was captured well in the Shanghai "Paul Merton" video I talked about in November, their were plenty of folks in the park all looking for potential mates for their children.  The typical ad listed the height, weight, occupation, some build information about their children.  It was all in chinese so I couldn't figure out too much of it.  We walked around the park a bit and then decided it was time to lunch.

Lunch was a few blocks from people's square.  As we walked down the street a young man asked if we'd like to go to his restaurant - so we went.  We had a large private dinning area and got many dishes of meats and vegetables.  It was a great way to taste a lot of things on the menu.  We ended our lunch with a bill 710 yuan, divided by 13 people.  It wasn't very expensive.

We then started on foot to head towards the river because it was mid-day and had not much else to do.  We walked through a few parks, saw theaters, and underground walkways.  A women tried to sell me a kite in the park, when she deployed her large fishy kite near my head - I grabbed my head and started saying " Fish! Fish! Fish!"  We left.

After seeing the Hong Kong Shopping Center located beneath the park we had just walked through, it seemed like something interesting to go see.  It was a very warm mall underground.  We continued east and saw many shops and other things.  Walking through a more touristy area, there were folks trying to sell knockoff goods.  They'd holler and try and get the attention of the group, we pursued one man out of interest.  We were then lead down an ally (not comforting) and then into some low level stores.  Of course the shop was full of Rolex watches and fancy purses - nothing authentic.  A few blocks down the road another chinese man, speaking clear English, said hello.  A small conversation pursue and we found out he was a teacher for a local art school and there was an art gallery he'd like to show us.  The gallery was small and full of fantastic art.  The man then offered to make some calligraphy of our names for free.  At the end of the hour or so we had spent with him he showed us some pieces his students had made that were for sale, some people bought - some didn't.

We continued on our foot journey to the river; and arrived by 530pm.  The had gone down and we were all pretty sick of walking.  On our way to find something to eat, a coffee like shop was offering buy one get one on all drinks - including alcohol.  We thought it'd be a good deal.  The prices were pretty steep.  The language barrier was very harsh.  There was someone in the restaurant who spoke chinese and tried to help us with our rather simple order.  We wanted to divide the bogo drinks between two people -- against the rules.  It turned into a 1+ hr fiasco.  Another customer came over and told the first "translator" he should be fired because he wasn't helping us at all.  If we wanted to split drinks we should be able to because we're money in an essentially dead restaurant.  After our order was in and the tension lowered in the room, I thanked the man for trying to help our cause.  He was a local, a writer who'd been here for 10 years.  He recommended a bar that would be more fitting for our age group; "I Love Shanghai Lounge"  He said that on Saturdays, alcohol was all you can drink for 100 yuan (~$14).

We grabbed a few cabs and ended up there.  Had dinner at the Singapore type food restaurant below it and then headed upstairs.  While we were a bit early - it was not very busy.  A few of our folks participated in the deal - many did not.  It had a very western feel to it and I would describe it as a dorm room feel.  Silly posters, beer, pool table, espn - very american college.  Very small place, smaller than a average american hotel suite.  A few hours later and it's midnight.  I'm heading to bed.

Fact: 

Most all drinks are served warm.  The water used to make the drinks needs to be sanitized and that is done by boiling, so most things are very warm when served.

No ice for drinks because it's not treated - one american bar had ice which is pretty awesome.

Large drinks don't accompany meals.

Cats roam like squirrels on campus.

Smog is very very thick.

One person got a coke from the freezer case, it was about lukewarm; but at least it wasn't hot.

JBiber