Wednesday, June 8, 2011

First Week in Shanghai

Alright…so I finally have a VPN (Virtual Private Network, allows me to access sites such as this blog and facebook that are otherwise blocked in China)! This means that I will be uploading my previous posts that I have constructed in the glorious Microsoft Word (2010- ballin’!)

So here we go!

After a short 30 hour accumulation of plane rides (no biggie) I landed in my much anticipated destination of Shanghai, CHINA!!!

I step out of the plane, find my bags, trot on over to the director who was picking us up and we head off down the highway…now you would think I would have at least 30 minutes before I would be smacked in the face by some blatant display of culture shock, right?

WRONG. That car ride, and every car ride since, has been a near death experience that I have no idea how I successfully am able to peel myself from the car seat, and roll out of the side door without hurling all over the ground. Dear goodness, China. It is like you all are linked to the same network, and are able to practically run head-on into each other but at the last moment swerve (only to swerve into another near death experience), and on and on until we reach our destination. I have no idea what kind of training drivers have to go through but I have to admit- to be able to drive so awfully, quickly, and successfully merits every taxi driver an award.

Thus- we landed at Shanghai University. Granted at this stage of the journey my legs are wobbling and I am woefully feeling the effects of jet lag (over 20 hours on planes in the middle seat merits the most wonderful of sleeping accommodations) but I won’t let that get me down! I’m in freakin’ Shanghai!

I put my bag in my room (a massive room might I add- two beds!) and go back downstairs to meet people who are going to take us out to lunch…

And here is where everything gets really hazy… a day passes, where I think I see my nearby surroundings…I recall angry honking noises…honestly, if you have ever been on those merry-go round thingies on playgrounds that make you spin so fast the trees blur together into some twisted abstract painting- that is what the next two days felt like.

BUT… One night I did end up in People’s Square. I honestly cannot tell you how I got there, or what happened when I was there, but I came out of the experience with pictures (that’s what matters- right?)


(People's Square)

(People's Square and the giant building that looks like a tazer (tazor?))

(One last hurrah for People's Square)

OH! I do remember eating dinner, or at least the dessert part of dinner. I didn’t order any dessert, but the guy next to me did. It was five different scoops of ice cream, and it ended up with us having to guess the flavors, and it went a little something like this: strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, green tea, pineapple, and purple.

Yup. Purple. To this day, I can still recall the taste, but have no idea what the heck it is. NO IDEA. Not anything that is actually purple, that much is for sure. And not anything that I think is a fruit, or a vegetable, or anything else that should ever be ingested. China- what are you doing? What. Are. You. Doing.

After scraping my tongue with a napkin to rid the aftertaste of Purple, we headed out. As we were exiting I noticed the most wonderful Restaurant Health Code rating system I have yet to see. Note the picture.


Why yes, that is China’s official smiley-face rating system.


Oh, well…why not change topics and talk about two other things that caused me to do a double-take. One: Strange food combinations. I have no idea what market research team realized that Blueberry Lay’s potato chips would be a raging success in China, but good job team! I took a photo of them and the next day the shelves were empty. Or…maybe China did a covert food-recall…who knows.



Thing number 2: My first Chinese lesson. The image displays but one of two pages of solid text, no pinyin support, and I didn’t know about a third of the characters (and they were the important ones that make the sentence make sense…shucks).



So…I'd chalk my first week in Shanghai up to being full of adrenalin, lost time, and crazy realizations. All in all- I’d call it a success.

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