FAQ before the new year

When are you coming home?
-Last week of april, haven't bought the ticket yet.

Where are you living now?
-In my second apt on Hami lu, with a roomie named chris from wisconsin

Are you still with that toy company?
-Yes. until Jan 15th

Then what will you do?
-I will continue the freelance work, study mandarin harder, and keeping options open for job opps.

You don't speak mandarin yet??
-no. I can get home and read pin yin, but still have about 2% comprehension(depending on who's talking)

What are you up to now?

I just got home from the mall with my friends; we got these shirts made for New Year's where we each have a word on our shirt(baby blue with white letters). I'm "year". Also talked about reflecting on this past year via reading journal entries, blogs, and how we've changed and such.

It's raining out, and it took a long time to get to my area from breakfast this morning. Two of us fell asleep in the cab, with the terrible traffic. I'm journaling some now, doing laundry, and still thinking of clever things to stick in my package home. In a few minutes Timon will call from hawaii to tell how wonderful life is... haha!

shen ma?

my co-worker: Kristina. How do you say? (motioning to scissors)
K: Scissors!
coworker: Scissors! ok. scissors.
K: How do you say in chinese?
coworker: what?
K: How do you say in chinese? zhe ge zen me shoa?(motioning to scissors)
coworker: bu dong, I dont' know english!

ok. I think we're about at the same level of understand each other, which is maybe 5%.

m y f i l m

I have about 15 minutes on my film!! I've been collecting small sequences 20 seconds or longer of random intriguing things. I've having a lot of fun seeing the year in review, as well as hearing everyone's little commentaries that get trapped in the camera. I'm using iMovie, (I've never done this before) and its all smooshy and disorganized, but I think once I add some chinesey music, it'll tie it together.

If you wish to see it, I'll have to burn you CD and ship it.

i've got clips of:

-riding home in a pedi-cab during a lightning storm and almost getting hit by a car
-olympics track finals
-a man sticking his hand in the fire to bake biscuts
-a newlywed couple going into their apt
-new year's fireworks

c h r i s t m a s

Christmas morning!!! Cole joined jess, chris, and myself for brunch. I made french toast and bacon, and jess made potatoes n eggs!!! it was delicious! Cole even bought us pokemon-kungfu-panda-transformers! ps, i stole this photo from cole, even tho chris took it.


I opened my presents via webcam with my mom and fam back home. This awesome triceratops was knitted by the one and only L-ray!


Our humble little christmas bush.



Gingerbread house chris and jess bought me : )



This is alicia. She's my christmas pal!!! we had dinner together, then baked sugar cookies! And she taught me a new song, "I'm gettin nuttin for christmas...." lol
(I've got it on video) and so then Chris and Jess busted in and he goes, "I want you to meet me new fiancée!!" woot! congrats! He proposed to her right outside our complex, where there's a gazebo covered in vines and decorated with christmas lights!! yay!!!

The new xanga?

Is blogger the new xanga?

I jt recently figured out how to "follow" my friend's blogs and be all connected and the likes. Right now I have everyone's blogs and my fav tech/design/art blogs on google reader, which, for some reason comes out in chinese at work(?) but having another avenue works well too! Usually I can't get in ANY blogs from china, but using google reader or this dealie works, PLUS I can see the photos people post too. rad!

Merry Christmas!

Cheers to learning new things!

more photos!

Timon is from Oregon. He grew up on a blueberry farm. (these aren't his, but we thought it was ironic)




This girl is wearing YELLOW PANTS. unbelievable! (because yellow is such a bright color, not b/c my boss said that yellow means something else in chinese..)


Pocket pants. These were really crazy cargo pants. You know how they make boxy corners on some exterior pockets, so its like a fabric paper bag-ish? well these were huge. And had all these latches and metal buttons and pockets.


Learning to write my name in chinese! Lee yeut ai. Sometimes my co-workers call me by my chinese name, and it takes me a while to figure out their saying my name....



I like this photo, taken at the expat show, this only something consulate building.

photos post!

Pattern. I love patterns- symmetrical, repeating, and so I've been capturing some. This one is from a temple thingy we saw in suzhou one weekend.it's tetrisy, even but not too grid-like.


This is one of the tops that I designed!!! I drew a little sketch(which i should've taken a photo of) and then picked out the colors. Its supposed to become a V-neck if you unbutton the top button, but they put white interfacing on the inside to keep the knit from stretching too weird. It fits perfect and I love it!



My cousin megan came to visit in Nov!!! it was SO much fun. Here we're gettin a snack before venturing into Qipu lu, the crazy shopping street.



And this last photo is of the church on Hengshan rd. Its quite beautiful, and huge, and surprisingly well heated in the winter. A congregation of about 2,000 folks form 60 nations.

Christmas eve

one day til christmas!

We've got our christmas bush, the lights don't work anymore : (
and I've got one package from my mom that i'm saving for christmas morning.

Saturday had a pre christmas day which included watching my beloved "rudolph" stop motion animated feature, which was cute and funny like always, "I'm a misfit... who would want a train and caboose with square wheels?" and Rudolph's nose beeping like a radar.

We handed out bananas with a "merry christmas!" in chinese, some oranges, and cookies to the drycleaners who mend all our clothes. The dry cleaning girl looked at the cookies and asked what they were. Timon said something to the extent of, "Its really sweet, and there's chocolate," in chinese.

and hit Twocities gallery in the evening, where i was disspointed we missed the caroling, not that I could even sing. My throat has been all sore and congested since I got my flu vacinne last saturday!

I have so many pictures i need to post... regarding fashion and the likes...

Planning a de-tox weekend over the lunar new year holiday.

Fashion

How to dress like a local:

a. Wear your pajamas out. I've even seen ladies with their heels + jammies on going to get the morning paper.


b. if your a girl, you have to wear really tight jeans with high heeled boots on the outside, and a semi baggy top that is one size fits all and goes over your hips, and a big chunky belt. If there's buttons anywhere, they are HUGE, and somtimes hot glued on. You have a stuffed animal for a cell phone charm, which is sometimes worn around your neck. You like bright colors and highlights, and sideways ponytails. Oh, and perms!

c. if your a guy, you wear tight jeans too, plus your girlfriend's huge plasticy handbag with matching stuffed animal keychain, and about 10 shopping bags.

d.You wear clothes depicting your trade. (i.e. I sat next to man with a construction helmet and power drill in hand) Or you come onto the train with buckets of things. Things.

The 11th

14 more days until christmas. My roommate and me bought lights for our "tree" today and have it up in our living room. It's a fake tree that came with the apt, with bunches of 1" fuzzy berries scattered throughout. Most of the ornaments here were pretty tacky, but ended up with one little gingerbread "cookie" ornament. When we're done, I'll post pictures. sigh. what a sad little tree! The leaves don't start until about my hip, so you see all this fake trunk mounted in its "pot" which is thin plastic....

And, our washing machine broke, so my clothes are sopping wet, and dripping everywhere.. I cranked up the heater but I'm still so mad at this machine! My hands are tired from trying to wring out the water.

A Christmas present you'll never forget.

My roomate(american) is sending his mom duck tongue for christmas(among other strange chinese snacks).

My heart goes out to her.

addendum:

One of my most memorable gifts was recieving the standard flimsy macy's box, and opening it to find a "Pagemaker 5.0" box inside, and my dad giggling, since it was him, of course, who wrapped my present. I was a little surprised, but not really. My dad is a sneaky man. (Inside the Pagemaker box was the gift(which I can't remember, but I can still picture the Pagemaker box in my mind)

Day 10

Its day of december, I have still yet to get any christmas decor. I have samples of fake grass on my desk at work, that are like patches of fur taken from a christmas tree.

The weather is bright and the breeze is small- perfect weather for a picnic(with a coat!) WE had picnic monday with our 5rmb fried chicken snadwiches we got off a hole in the wall shop, and sat in the nearby park where all the old people and babies hang out. The babies- oh! They bundle them up like the little boy from "A christmas story," so they can't barely move any of their body parts, even if they wanted to. haha, and all you cna see is their little face, and sometimes their behinds(through the squatty pants)

I won't be coming home for christmas, and who knows when I'll head back to the states... when my money runs out, I suppose!

Today is the ninth

Hit Loushanguan for dinner.... and found a new great resturant!

afforadable western food at L. Vannamei bbq and tapas. They had an impressive menu chock full of shrimp dishes, 12 rmb pastas, as well as a long drink menu including milkshakes, and huashan bingsha(peanut shaved ice).

We settled on Lasagna, butterfly fried shrimp, cajun fries, salad, and BONEless chicken in Chocolate sauce!!! it was great, with a peanut smoothie and blueberry for dessert.
Okay, the breaded fried shrimp were really good, but I'll admit the chocolate sauce chicken was... interesting.

The interior of the resturant was bright blue with colorful tiles, the wooden slatted window shutters, and balcony esque dividers.

and if your wondering about the name "L. Vannamei" which doesn't sound super mediterranian, it's the scientific name for white-leg shrimp.

We'll def be visiting vannamei again!

Besides that, I'm hoping to do some christmas decorating tonight. I dunno bout getting a tree- a real one. A wreath would be nice, at least we'd get the smell, but then it'd prolly dry up... well lights will be a lil cheery at least. I miss the moose dolls and prolific snowmen that invade our living room back in oakland. white christmas!

Lights combined.

The elevated highway[freeway] in the evening. lovely glowy. and no photoshopping whatsoever!!

Day 6: really now, toilet cleaner?

When I first moved into the Hami Rd Apt, the toilet had yellow rings in it, so I bought a bottle of toilet cleaner, you know with the squiggly goose neck spout on it. It worked instantly and great. a bit later, we hired an ai yi to come twice a month to do minimal dusting and cleaning. But she picked up another client during our hours, so we really only had her for 2 months. So we're thinking we can handle the minimal cleaning she did for 4 hrs a month. Yet, I can't find the toilet cleaner ANYWHERE!! ANd I don't want to think she's a theif... but well its a pretty empty apt, and I'm pretty Claudie didn't take it when she moved out to go to germany....

but really now. Toilet cleaner? we let her spend whatever needed to buy supplies and she just brought us the reciept. I really hope I find it somewhere.


Weather: COLD COLD COLD, but sunny : )

Day 3

Had dinner with Timon at the cantonese place at Metro town, and then had my mandarin lesson directly following.

When I got there, the waitress asked if I wanted to sit inside or outside. "Outside" is actually inside the mall, on the walkway connecting to the other shops, and overlooking, the lower 2 floors of shops. I pointed inside(thinking this was an obvious choice), and sat down, and then about 5 minutes later Timon shows up and before he even sits down says, "Hey, how about we eat outside today??" and then I rolled my eyes and said, "Fine, I guess. It smells like fried food.... and its not really outdoors..."

Well we ate there anyhow, and it was nice not to be up against all the other resturant goers. And we could see everyone who came up the escalator. We order squash with garlic and egg noodle with cha siu. Timon said, "order in chinese!" and so then I ordered in cantonese and she didn't understand me, haha. We got mango pudding for dessert, and then parted so I could fry my brian learning mandarin.

She talked to me straight in mandarin and had me meagerly attempt to figure out what she was saying. I kinda caught on, but I don't think I'll remember anything in a few days. (mostly b /c I'm an avid note taker, and she wouldn't let me take notes)

My memory is feeble. Taking notes is my crutch.

December Day 1

Monday:

The greatest thing: Dinner party
The worst thing: Sleeping through my snooze alarm.

Work was normal, a bit fuzzy, but beautiful day.

Timon and I hung out with some of our newly wed friends, one being his former roomate (T: "I lost John to...marriage,") we had a delicious homecooked meal of pasta with pumpkin sauce, salad with blue cheese, and bread from carre four that seemed to be a hit. And then we got on to talking about the best places to get what food for what price. What dinner parties are made of! hahaha

It was a great evening talking about mostly everything- from disciplining children, recent films you shouldn't watch, and how the earth is running out of water. . . and dessert was bananas carmelized over vanilla ice cream.... mm..

the 12 days of christmas?

For the month of december, I plan to blog everyday. Its not so much b/c I'm behind, but for advent season and to really sort my brain out.

On sunday, the fridge was still packed with thanksgiving goodies, and we spent most of the day indoors. Normally we do the go out for lunch-in-a-massive group deal, but all the local resturants had met their quota, and I suggested some homemade grilled cheese sandwiches for some soul food.

We listened to christmas tunes, watched Mariah Carey sing "All I want for christmas" on youtube(Gogo boots, and back up dancers!) lol and ate an eclectic yummy lunch together. Timon's roomie, Whit scratched together some delicious french toast, and Timon rippe dopen a some-odd 20 boxes of chocolate milk for hot chocolate. mmmm. We shared our christmas stories and traditions, all the cousins we miss, and how we all wish we were going to Hawaii like Timon. (for Christmas) It was cozy, and definitely a nice change from the hustle and bustle of looking up resturants, flagging a cab, and deliberating over what to order. The music certainly was half of it.

Later on, I tried out some christmas songs on the guitar. I need practice....

Me and Timon made a rule that if we want Dairy Queen Oreo cheesecake blizzards, we have to go running beforehand. So alas, we laced up our shoes and braved the evening breeze for a jog. Dodging cars, dark streets, and very very bad smells. I miss Joaquin Miller park, but it felt really good to get my legs moving! Office work makes me feel so restless sometimes!

FALL is finally here.

"Cool breezes, and a slight chill in the air. this is what my hometown is like everyday," I tell my co-workers. We had a bit of rain today, but the weather change has been refreshing!

I managed to catch a sore throat and had a slight fever, so been in bed all day today. Getting sick is def forces you to slow down and just think. I tried to do some reading, but ended up listening to my ipod. Timon brought over progresso soup and duck(but he thought it was chicken when he bought it) for dinner which was delicious! we watched Chariots of Fire, while my new roomie Chris cooked up something really onion/garlicky in the kitchen. He's really good at that. Our apt smells like a real home, I think, with the food smells.

Timon got me hooked on Pomelos.



I also found ANOTHER entrance to my apt complex.... which actually validates my written address. And thus discovered about 4 more penguin garbage cans.

And last weekend, He went to get a hair cut and I got a massage, and then the girl started to play with my hair, even tho I told I was going to sleep shortly.... and I ended up with a french braid around my head and a sideways ponytail. : )

And I will leave you with a cute video of kids rapping the upcoming election to T.I.'s "You can do whatever you like"- but their version is, "You can vote however you like"

cooking is deliciouso

This morning made german oven pancakes with my new used oven, that I brought home last night in the rain.

I made delicious oven pancakes(b/c I have lack of baking powder) and I am super obsessed with using the oven now. Cookies, pies, breads. . . mmm. even FROZEN pizza!

the possiblities go on.

Yesterday also made some guacamole and toffee!

T O F F E E

1 stick of butter
2 c. white sugar
1.5 chocolate bars
1 bag of almonds (200g?)

Cook on medium, constantly stirring until its begins to brown, to a coffee type shade.
crushed almonds and chocolate on a foil lined pan and on top of toffee. For some reason the butter began to separate a lil bit when I removed it from the stove, so I tossed in some finely chopped almonds to keep all the pieces from sticking.


G U A C A M O L E
2 avocados (that we got imported from efruit delivered to the door)
1 medium tomato
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 red onion
1 tsp salt
lil bit o pepper
red chili powder if your roomate has some

Add the tomatoes last.

Forest park fun!!!

me and timon headed to gongqing forest park.

what we expected was little trees and some kiddie rides.

What we found was little trees and awesome adult sized rides!

All the many different trees are all about 30 ft tall, and I imagine it will be really cool in 20+ years when they become more mature. For now, brides and grooms have over run the forest to take their romantic couple pictures amoungst the trees, traintracks, and greenery of the park. Activities included horse backriding, row boating, "angling", paint balling,and BBQ(!). All the rides had totally english translated names like "Acentric turntable" "bungy rope/flying bodies", "Boat in the torrents" etc. We were searching fro a bungy cord which was next to the ascentric turntable, but, after trotting back and forth, we realized it just might be the flying bodies chairs on ropes thing. but we rode the ascentric turntable, and being the only ones it was nice and private. Its like being strapped in a zoe-trope and spun around and at an angle, so the centripical force holds you in, even when your vertical and it looks like you should be falling down! That was actually a really peaceful , lulling ride.

Their roller coaster was pretty rad, witha few loopdy loops and twists going over the pond. I was screaming the whole time!

We rented tandem bikes and it was quickyl established that kristina should not drive the bike. At all. This was a great way to get to the farther corners of the park, where it was just around the lake, gazebos and foot paths and peacefulness- and nearly running over a frog!

It was a long metro ride out, bout an hr and a half from line 2 to the end of line 8, up north. Then we cabbed to the park, bought a kite, and look forward to coming here again! (I want to do the paintball)


Friday: hit the urban planning museum, and a french dinner in taicang lu with a friend. Finished off the day with george clooney in "Brother, where art thou?"

hoo I'm tired!

october national holiday

All of china gets about 5 days off for the national holiday, which yesterday was the 59th anniversary of the founding of the people's republic of china.

My company gave us 5 days off, but made us work saturday and sunday. It's been insane, managing a project that shipped monday, and finally glad to be over with it!

not to grumble or anything, but my manager took off for his motherland, without telling me about several other products I was in charge of shipping. Also we didn't have an appt person to ship our million packages, b/c they thot I was supposed to do it. And I was like, "1, I am a designer. 2, I don't speak or read chinese so I couldn't call DHL if I wanted to!" Yeah. that went over well... besides when the printer says they'll deliver at 5, they actually mean 7. Talk about chinese time! I managed to get home by 10pm, and slept very well.

Monday I spent talking to my folks back home, family and friends, tons of laundry, then caught pinapple pork for dinner with my friends and we headed out to the french apt for the evening. We were sitting around the coffee table eating chips and drinking. One my friends is an avid cyclist, and he took his visiting gf on a cycling expedition earlier that day... and anyhow she lost her voice entirely, and was forced to whisper all night. So she starts saying something, but the french music is going and we're like, "What? what? I can't hear you-" and she's attempting to yell, but only a whisp of air comes out. "the tv is on fire!" and we turn around and the tea light holder has all but gone up in flames, and we all try to put it out, and its burned right thru the plastic and in the inside is flaming and one guy poured his beer on it, yeah... It smelled terrible so we all decided it was time to leave.


Tuesday I had yet another wonderfully lesuirely morning and then went out with my friend Nicole to check out Qipu lu, a famous shopping street in Shanghai. Its the place where all the chinese go for deals, and big variety. Boy, it was a madhouse. ALL of shanghai was there, and you could barely move and it was huge and crazy!!!! All clothes, men's women's for every season, and many strange awkard things I would never bring myself to wear. we didn't buy anything and proceeded to go home.

Wednesday I went grocery shopping and made chicken pot pie- which was totally awesome smelling and I love the grocery store! I never get to cook during the week, so i was glad to do something rewardingly productive.

People operating motor vehicles poorly.

There is lots of traffic. In downtown SF, the 405 and the 238/580/880 interchange.

In the states, you have to follow rules- no running red lights, no weaving, no excessive speeding on the street, or else you get ticketed or fined. But here in china, the lights are there just for decoration, and there's pedestrians trottin in the middle of a 6 lane intersection. And bicycles too. They(we) are everywhere, zipping between traffic and in armies on the road.

And on the little pond in zhongshan park, there is tons of traffic. We rented a little electric powered boat on the pond and cruised thru the weeping willows listening to some cover band, and avoiding fishing lines. And there's little bridges to go under and such, and mind you its a complete loop. And people just CAN't get anywhere!!! They are all head to head inside a tunnel shaped for one boat, but 4 just keep on charging in. sigh. The little kids about 7 or 8 yrs old were the smart ones backing out and maneuvering backwards. props. after that it started to down pour and so we went swimming. We got our swim caps, required at the pool here, and hopped in only to find a bunch of lap swimmers!! The last time we came, it was chock full of kids, and unable to swim straight anywhere. Some people swim cross wise to the lanes and so there was a bunch of crashing going on there, but still a cool way to pass the time on autumn festival.

Visa update: I don't have to leave the country!

expat show-and more

Finally. A moment to sit down!

This is day six of my seven day work week. October holiday has creeped up on us, and we are required to work the weekend, to get 7 days off. Mandarin lessons, planning, apple pie baking, cell group, and family phone calls have kept me out n about every evening this week. So tonight I rest! I hope to finish The tipping point by Malcom Gladwell, respond to emails and of course update my blog here.

So last weekend was the expat show. It was a wide variety of vendors, from wine sampling to pre-schools, the million tree project and buying fruit online. A few friends had booths there, including Taisley Red interiors where I took a rest on a sweet sofa, Shokay, "luxury with a story, style with a touch of humanity" where i sampled yak cheese:

So between it all, we managed to find ourselves in the fruit online booth. I have a bad habit of getting sick from fruit here, so I was interested in the imported fruit, if it wasn't too expensive. Actually what really caught my eye was the avocados(aka alligator pears) they were selling. which reminds me of a logo i designed for an xP iron chef event:
3 for 39 rmb(75 cents) So of course they had a show deal, if you sign up you get x amount free, so we signed up for granny smith apples and avocados! And they came this week, and so we made an apple galette. (Actually my mom sent me her recipe, but she didn't tell me the oven temp, so I had look it up.) I made my own pie crust for the first time as well.

And I realized how I miss normal flavored chips. The chips here are chicken flavored, itailian redmeat, blueberry, and cucumber even! What ever happened to sour cream and onion?? The only cheetos they've got are both meat flavored. And not even anything close to chili cheese fritos. Well, I guess thats kinda ironic!

We also hit a birthday party at JWOW, and I had my hair curled at a local salon. . . and then in the humid wind filled cab ride there they all came out : ( The most inspiring part of the night was these two girls who came decked out in huge fluffy dresses (the theme was "glam") and you get closer to them and...their dresses were made of plastic bags!! like the big black ones, and white ones. It was pretty slick and majorly impressive. Wish Ida photo of it!

What else interesting things have I been up to?

Firsts

Had my first mandarin lesson today! It was great, a struggle, but good. My tongue is tied.

Had my first shrimp flavored waffle. It was a gross accident. I was ordering the plain egg puff... and it was spicy and shrimpy tasting...ick.

currently

Currently a little bit groggy, and drinking carrot juice for a pick-me-up. It's a grey morning here.


currently listening to... Yael Naim, israeli french singer made famous by benig featured in apple's commercial.

"accounting for change"

In any fast-paced workplace you are constantly confronted with change, from the whims of a client, new realizations, or sudden urgent deadline. And you have two choices: run with it or get left behind. So in the effort to account for change in during the 5k we run each day at work, we have our hands drawing from many resources to make sure we're on target, and to be able to flip the switch for hyper power when neccessary. So mostly when there's huge changes and no matter how dumbfounded or shocked I am, my only choice is to go, "Oh, ok. So what shall we do now to go forward with X plan?"

So about 3pm, my manager comes to tell me I'm leaving on the first flight out the next day to HK, to renew my visa (or ship back to the states...) and all I could say was, "Oh. oooooohhhhh. TOMARROW??"

My visa was expiring saturday, and we had planned to leave the country one day prior, so I was taking my time packing all my things. There was an extremely unexpected chance of obtaining a visa b/c of the Olympics and paraolympics. So we decided it best to just pack everything in case we couldn't get back into the country.

So now I'm freaking out because not only do I have to pack everything I own, but I also have to pack n bring over big heavy company stuff, and make sure I have the proper arrangements legally and itenerary for travel. AND it's with my colleague, who was out of the office that evening, which meant the whole trip basically was my responsibility.

The COO took good care and made sure to book us hotel and flight, and the proper stuff. and he also yelled, "DO YOU HAVE ANY SNACKS??" across the office because he needs to eat at 7:30pm everyday otherwise his body get mad, he says. And he's on the phone with our marketing agent, "Me and kristina here are eating these yummy pink snacks. She's coming to Hong Kong to help you out....."

After that shocker, and insanity and hauling giant rolls of stickers into cabs, it was about 8pm and I was starving and so like any hunger driven human I went to the corner store for juice and chips. They gave me an amount of money in cash for the trip, which i had in a clear plastic envelop with my travel docs, and I said to myself, "Don't put this down. It has lots of money in it." But I needed my wallet, and had my purse on my elbow and my goods in my other elbow. So I had to put it down. I mean, I put it right in front of me in my constant eye sight. So how could I forget it?

Well I walked to my apt eating my chips and when I get there the courier is there, right on time with my plane tickets. And the papers and cash are where? at the corner store. of course, kristina. I dropped my chips and ran.

That evening was a whirlwind, Karen who i had a dinner date with brought me crab she made, and Timon got me pink flowers, and my roomate stayed up with us eating chocolate and ice cream and trying not to worry.

fast forward through the joint office in Tsim sha Tsui, making new friends, and how its actually a showroom, so when there were clients we had to sit outside, one the chairs being behind the receptionist's desk (there was none) I sat there with my laptop, and forever people came in speaking to me in cantonese and i was like, "I dont' work here, sorry"

Met up with a classmate from CCA, ken, ate thai and walked around Mon kok. Ken was wearing purple, and his hair was growing out so it had a curl, like Elvis. But I didn't tell him that. it was pretty cool! we were amazed at the cluttering of stuff, lights, and stuff, and slept well.

There was much complication over flying dates times, tickets that were not changable, and hotels. I will not explain it. I stayed in 4 different places in 4 nights, and literally dragged my suitcase all over hong kong with me. and now my arm is stronger.

Then we hit disneyland!!!!! We took millions of pictures, rode only the best rides, and had fun! We're doing some disney products, if you must know.... I really love the costumes during the parade!!!! The jellyfish man had these tall extended hats on and tons of tentacles, and they were jump spinning and the tenctacles were going everywhere, and it was awesome and goofy. It was a pretty crazy parade. And i'm from san francisco. J/K. Hot pink bejewled T-shirts, and sunflowers on stilts; a cross eyed woody, and people with smiles plastered on their faces.



Later we visited Tarzan's treehouse, where we got in a argument whether the elephants were real or not. "Of course their real!!!!" I exclaimed. Well, they hadn't moved after 2 hours. I was wrong.


That night I met up with my cousin's cousin, Chris and we had mexican and frozen yogurt in the long escalator area. That was pretty rad. It gets a 9 outta 10 for cool places to be. Casual, social, colorful, and inspiring type of environment.



And on saturday, went biking from tai wai to shim ta about 3-4 hours with chris' friendy friends. met a lot of nice people, and saw a quieter more undeveloped beautiful side of Hong Kong. Thanks chris!

"I hella <3 oakland" photo

o l y m p i c s

Here's my olympics post.

I flew out thursday night to meet a cowboy in an American flag at the airport. j/k I met up with Timon, his sister from oregon, and our friends we had met on an earlier retreat and got all rallied up for the games. The next morning, we planning out our day strategically: Sell tickets that were conflicting times, and hopefully trade up to an event for that afternoon, then finish off our costumes for track finals later that night at the bird's nest.

It went something like this:

Ok. I can't even type it out becuase it was more charades than anything. "Synchronized swimming? wo men yao tickets?" and then we'd start paddling with our hands through the air, and pointing at the bubble cube building. And the guy would point at himself and his friend and make like they were swimming together. We didn't get tickets, but it was aiite, and we walked on.




Yes. That's it! Me and Jennica are sporting red tights, white shorts and all three of us have matching blue jerseys and headbands, and Timon got the blue tights with more manly white shorts(which later made us look french)




Then we were photographed endlessly by chinese olympic goers. So we had to keep moving. Over and over again. One little girl literally crossed our path as we were walking, and said sternly, "We are family. We must take photo!" adamantly turned around where her father was poised to snap a photo. (We were trying to get away from the people!!!) we wandered for a long time around the place, it was amazing. There was giant empty spaces around the bird's nest just filled with people. The bird's nest itself was a wonder. luxury and lots of red, and these cute cartoony symbols for the bathroom and such. It was fantasmic.

We watched the 4 x 100 world record get smashed by Jamaica, we saw Clay win and receive his medal for the men's decathalon for America(and sung the anthem) And the australian guy try over and over at the pole vault to finally meet the olympic record.

It was amazing.

After all that, we went out to Pyro's pizza parlor/bar and were watching tv, and this american guy comes up, and ask us where we're from. Oregon and Cali. And he starts laughing. "We've been having a debate for a while whether you guys were french or American." and we're like WHAT! FRENCH??? and it was because of the stripes on Timon's shorts!!! hahaahaha and then we started an 80s dance party. There was a guy with a flag painted on his face. It was hard to look at him with out laughing.



Saturday morning at 9am was the bronze medal match, US vs. Japan. And we were def. outnum,bered by Japanese fans, but luckily the Chinese were with us. "Mei guo ji-o!" we chanted with someother americans we met. The other half of the stands were chanting continuously 80% of the time. And you know baseball games are long. whew it was amazing! The game was pretty good, I hadn't been to a ball game in ages, and it was def more laid back than watching track, where there's 4 events going on at once.

There were no backs on the seats at the baseball stadium either! We ate cookies for breakfast, and then took naps before heading to ho hai for dinner. OH wait. Before going to ho hai, we went to the olympic village to see if we could catch atheltes for photos or autographs. And guess who we saw.... Bolt!!!!!!!!!!!!

facebook album

Credits: first two photos are jennica's i think

It was def an event of a lifetime- there was enormous energy in the stadium and not a single person who wasn't estatic to be there. Flashes went off like sparkles. And there was def pride in the air. It was the feeling you expect to get when you walk into the Roman coliseum- but this was times 10, at least. You don't even realize how big the bird's nest is until your inside and the crowd across from you is just a mere blur. Smaller than ants. Its just un fathomable. It hurts my brains to try to concieve a space that huge.

Takes my breath away.

The days are packed!

Hangzhou, Fabric market, and more!


Last weekend, warren planned a trip for 4 of us to hangzhou, 1 hr outside shanghai. We rose at 5 am to catch our 6:30 standing tickets, luckily were granted seats as the foreigners we are, got breakfast and hit Westlake, hiking, and laying the green grass and dozing under the fluffy cloud sky. It was magnificent! So magnificent that you couldn't open your eyes it was so bright and overwhelming.

Caught dinner with his teacher pals from Eng. first, in a an outdoor alleyway restaurant, and then slept. The next day I left early at 7am to get back to the city for a phone call and pick up things from the fabric market. (jeans and a dress) The jeans are AWEsome!!!! I brought in an old pair, and they measured me, and I had "510" stitched on the back pocket to rep the east bay, of course. The dress.... well, you'll see, I suppose! I'm not totally in love with it, but it looks decent on me. Decent meaning, not super flattering, but nice enough to be seen in public and not be totally ashamed of myself.

This week from then on was packed! Top ten list:

1. Shopping [and visualizing] for our "USA outfits" to wear to the olympics, with Jennica and Timon (hint: think 80's)
2. Dinner at Kathleen's 5 in people's square. [salad dressing]
3. The lighting/thunder storm, and being indoors
4. Adventures with claudia
5. Magnum bars + balconies. nuff said
6. Zero computer problems!
7. The olympics. Phelps last race, and the women's 400 IM
8. lunch for 6 rmb
9. Those taiwanese cold noodles we had by zhongshan park
10. strong friends.


woo. I'm pooped.

The last week of july has passed.

It's 10am on a wednesday, and my screen is already covered in stripes. The misaligned pixels stretch vertically across my layout, and as I zoom in and zoom out, they stretch and spread like a virus over my entire document, only revealing half-inch slices of my layout- not near enough for me to actually work on anything. It's going to be a long day. Maximize screen. Minimize screen. Quit. Restart. Typically my computer doesn't start this dance until after 3pm everyday, after I've eaten a full lunch and gotten into the groove of work.

H. from the customer service dept is testing out assembly instructions on the other side of the room, turning round and round a 80 x 80 cm wooden panel to see how it can become a play house. A cell phone goes off and is unanswered for about 2-3 minutes, sounding like a fake bird call. An engineer is filing down a joint on one product as his desk, a labored grinding noise, as clacking ladies heels walk away from the water cooler bearing a cup of hot tea. This is the office I work in.

Overview:

M: Video chatted with family
T: Dinner with a friend, got totally drenched in the rain
W: Dinner with a group to celebrate a couple getting married. Rained less.
R: Order-in dinner and Timon brought his laptop over to play battleship. j/k, we just worked. I'm designing a cover for a friend's book!
F: Cell group, Hagen daz ice cream, and half of "a series of unfortunate events". It was a beautiful california day!!!

This week shanghai was just getting over a typhoon. (K: what's a typhoon?) Think florida, water wars, and becoming a kite. Or at least that how I interpreted it! My umbrella was nothing but a nuisance! BUt hey, once your soaked, your soaked. I stood in the street 10pm at night and its just pouring- like the pressured stream on the massage setting on your showerhead. And you just watch the liquid floor be decimated by torrential bebes[gun] of water. wow. What power!

Another wonderous moment this week was when I was spray mounting some paper outside. I bent down and put my stack of papers, and my spray of spray mount, and proceeded to lay them out so there would be a large surface area to spray all at once. But alas, the wind had other plans, and great gust came and lifted my papers and blew away! Which ones should I be chasing?? ah. they fluttered away, semi-sticky never to be seen again.

The posted photo is an empty lot behind our office complex(which is land owned by a university). That heap of green and debris was once covered in snow. There has been some movement, but its still kinda of a trashed area. And in the distance you see more buildings popping up. This is our area, developing.

I have run out of oatmeal! bye

July update

Went to moganshan, roughly 2 hrs outside shanghai.

About 20 of us (friends and friends of friends of friends) all took the train from shanghai to hangzhou, then took a bus up to Moganshan, where we stayed at Naked Retreats . The purple ridge lodge was our home for 3 days and two nights- we cooked our own meals, ate together, talked and devised plans for hiking, which were then detoured by a saturday of night. The weekend was chock full of relaxation, rejuvenation, and refreshment. Clean air! tons of tall green trees! crazy caterpillars, and a water reservoir we couldn't swim in b/c it was their drinking water. The photo you see above is over a little lake next to the reservoir. It was beautiful at nighttime. We also BBQ'd (yesss) played with the 4 dogs that roamed the house, play'd board games, read, etc. The house was beautiful in a modern rustic way, decorated with wall hangings, curvy tree trunks, and loaded with ikea glassware and dishes. There was an antique barber chair, as well as a "pit" area outfitted with cushions, and pillows in front of a, you guessed it, flat screen TV and DVD player. (we watched Beijing bicycle)

Last weekend we hit the fabric/textile market, where I submitted a sketch in hopes of having a dress made. Its a casual dress for work and whatev, and we'll see if its turns out, when I go back to pick it up this saturday! The fabric market is typically where you get clothes custom made- but in style and fit. For a sweet price. We're talking $11 for custom men's dress shirt. My dress fully lined, will be roughly $25, i think.

Oh yeah, and we're also having a typhoon right now. I got caught in the rain yesterday and it was immensely - raining. Raining elephants and whales. Stupendously windy, and surprisingly not hot!

Can't remember anything else. Playing in cardboard boxes a lot. Peace!

photo update!

We JUST got the internet to work here, with the help of a pal. and internet is slow, so I reformatted my pics in groups because doing them individually would take more time than I wanna spend. (iphoto crashed twice already)




Montage 1: The new apt. This my new roomie Claudia, plus a metro station and seaweed. I don't know how the seaweed flakes all stick together, but it makes for a really interesting texture of organic shaped layers. Note the blue kitchen in our apt(an upgrade from the blue bathroom in the last one?), and colored lights in the ceiling.(there's even color changing LEDs in my bathroom.) There is also a ceramic vase in the glass tv case with a scorpian on it that is about the size of a lobster, and even tho its totally ceramic I can't stand to look at it!



Montage 2: Picnic!!!! We've been trying to get a picnic together for sometime now, before its gets too hot. This is about 6pm at zhongshan park, so the sun is nearly done. There's kite flying and some musicians. Prior, we stopped at a public pool where swim caps are required. (HA!) [I used to split mine a lot. I had sooo much hair it'd take forever trying to flip it on] Bottom left is Family United hospital's women's waiting room. It was filled with maternity and breastfeeding literature: I was a little scared that they had sent me to the wrong place... I had a swollen foot! but everythign turned out fine. The waiting room had a few albums out of thank you cards sent by expats who had their babies delivered there!! so cute and amazing! The reason I took this picture was that either side of the waiting room were these frosted glass walls that let in a lot of ambient light, and you could see the blur of people walking past, kinda like when your groggy in the morning. And there's Claudia eating cold noodles at zhongshan park.



Montage 3: Choir at SCF. Their second song was beautiful, but I didn't start video recording til the one after it, and regretted it. I love choirs. To the right: My new closet, with pants rack and really high hangers and little cubbies. I had my suitcase in front of the left side, and struggled hanging up all my clothes on the right side, could barely reach! Finally got myself organized. it smells very very woody, and I fear my clothes and me will start smelling woody- but in a varnishy way. In the red and white stripes is warren, from the UK, and we're all eating fried wonton at a dumpling place! yum! cheap eats. And the last bit is the view from tucker's apt in pudong, 31st floor.


We had a great week and weekend! details latez. peace.

new friends!

The skies have been REALLY blue. (and yes, it is quite hot here)

We recently got 3 newbies in at the office, one from UK, one from Germany, and one from Pennsylvania. Basically we've got a tidy crew now so its all more interesting- and I have more than 1 person to speak english with at the office.

Its been really cool hearing about everyone's different points of views, the rumors they've heard of China, expectations and experiences leading up to coming here. And alas- China itself.

Last weekend was great! Found out where there's a public pool to use, had a picnic until dark , then hung out and talked the rest of the night. On sunday I heard a beautiful choir, (I took vid, but i imagine it'll take an eternity to upload) but I hiave some cool pics of sightseeing with Claudia, my new roomie.

To get the ligihts to turn on in the apt building it is activated by stomping on the floor. So the minute we get into the hallway or out of the elevator we're jumping up and down trying to turn the lights on. (it totally works, but I wonder what everyone else does)

I've also managed to get about 20 bugbites this past weekend, my whole foot is swollen up b/c i'm allergic so i got some true Shanghainese bug repellent. it comes in a tall thin green glass bottle(looks like a sauce or booze bottle)

What day is it today?

This week went by mad quick. (in words of my NY roomie)

Besides biking around the 'hood and getting to know my new housemate better, I've hardly blinked and the week is gone. My campers have graduated from High school(!) and my friend are continually moving and dispersing themselves.

I find the biggest prob with miscommunication is lack of listening. Everyone wants to put their two cents in, but nobody wants to take two cents out. Nearly everyday in the office is the same argument, where two folks are talking about two different things AT each other. I just want to grab them both and say, "Stop talking!!! Listen to each other!" In a leadership training class, we had to practice 'active listening' aka, the ability to pay full attention to the opposing party rather than try to create your side of the argument while they are speaking. The topic was Ninja turtles, and you had to debate with a partner on who was the best ninja turtle and why. Of course I picked michaelangelo. My partner picked Donatello or someone and we ended up talking over each other more than anything. So listening is not one of my strong points, but at least I kno I need work on it.

I met with my mandarin 'tutor' yesterday for a few hours. She owns a jook resturant, and is soon to open a new one. Mostly we work on pronunciation, I've been reading on sentence structure on my own. She had a middle school level text book on reading comprehension that was pretty good, and hilarious! I started reading one of the chapters which was about eating in the states. "People who work normally don't have time to cook. So oftentimes, they will dine out at a resturant, or buy frozen food. Frozen food can be heated quickly and easily in a microwave oven. It was very popular." and then a few pages later I happened to read, "Some Canadians have pets as friends." (note: I didn't read the context of this statement, but found it funny anyhow) I need to make simpler flashcards, even tho the phrases help when I'm out at the market. Now its just practice, practice, practice!

Words of wisdom from my recently rootcanalled mother:
"be true to your teeth and they will not be false to you!"

I was also totally intrigued by this article on electronic eating ants

Learning at work

Theseyangmei are sold on the street everywhere, by vendors with the long shoulder sticks, and the fruit balanced in baskets in either side. Someone shipped a few boxes to our company, and they arrived in styrofoam coolers, with 2 mini grocery baskets of fruit and a frozen water bottle in the middle. It fit all compactly together. cute. Now my co-workers enjoy sharing their things with me, but I'm a little wary after the chewing tobacco they gave to Jeremiah. And before that was various kinds of snacks/or "candy" >> what actually was dried salted fish slivers (*eh*) and some other chewy semi digestible fruits. One of the coolest things tho was this seed you put into hot water for your throat. it expands like jelly until it fills your cup! its really really cool. Doesn't taste like a lot, but its cool to watch expand over the course of 1 hr, it'll just fill your cup.

The yangmei are a lil tart, but sweet and yummy. I asked my co-worker, "is it good?" and she said, "maybe you died," and I was like, "wha??" and she said, "just try. It very good." And I took one cautious bite, and next thing I know bright red juice is all over my hands. oOo.... like blood, I see. And then she laughed at me, "haha! see, you died!"

Ups n Downs:
-its beginning to be humid, raining often now
-3 more months on my visa
-new roomie from hangzhou/UK
-next wk another new female colleague from Germany will come
-Had a very peaceful monday sipping tea at taikang lu
-had a dinner party thursday night with friends: potato salad, ribs, corn, chicken!

New loves

One of my new loves is riding my bike at dusk.

Today i went a exploring again, nearly got myself lost, but had an energizing time looking at china. Ok, sounds a bit odd, but that's the best way I can put it. I strolled thru a little market, with arm length stalls on either side, and crates down the middle with produce. It reminded me a lot like the markets in mexico, with tarps stretched over, and families just sitting out playing cards. It was peaceful. Not like the fake market everyone's shouting and at least one person is angery. It was such a community atmosphere, with the culmination of diff family's shops. stereos, clothes, locks, veggies, shoes. And the street i was on, Maotai was tree lined. So it was something like yuppie neighborhood meets strip mall meets city. I'm not sure why multitudes of trees=yuppie neighborhood, but they were all mechanically there, fully green, and fully organized.

So i headed towards the water, and the sun was setting-ish. The sky is light grey, and becoming more dim. The neon lights, and yellow apt room lights begin to glow more prominently. The sky's natural light is calmly fading out as the aggressive man made glows of shops and cars overtake the scene before you know it. mmmm tall buildings, and the hustle and bustle slows to a trot.

goings on

Spring has spung, the weather is perfect!

I picked up my business cards this week from the printer, a tiny shop next door to a fake starbucks. They didn't speak a lick of english, but after a phone call and saying yes to everything, we got what we wanted. Business cards for networking and keeping in contact, with our email, website what have you- not to mention a large discussion on phone numbers. Do i give people access to reach me anytime anywhere? But then it IS the quickest way to reach those who don't check their email often enough(or maybe just don't respond)

I've been biking a lot in this great weather, in the evenings, and on the weekends. It's now my main mode of transport, and I love it! I went down the next main street perpendicular to the elevated highway, and found a street where they sell taiyaki(fish SHAPED waffles)(my roomate thot I meant fish flavored waffles, and was disgusted when I asked if he wanted one) shaved ice, and purple eggplant curry, plus a few bars. I saw a couple in a screaming match, and bought another purse, Tod's replica. I picked up a few books and caught up on my reading. . . kinda. My cousin tipped me off to google reader, which gathers all teh subscribtions to your blogs for you like a little personal newspaper(awesome!) the only problem is that I've neglected it and I have 1000+ posts to read. crap! Some included are Crave, the gadget blog, Design*sponge, and Inhabitat, which I've found myself pouring over multiple times this week! Liquid solar cells, furniture fairs, horse powered vehicles. . . etc. And have you heard of the cell phone novels in Japan?

I ate eggs and tomato dish three times this week. Last week I tried a green bean drink that was really unfavorable, and today had a strawberry one(pink is safe). yum! Except that it was hot.. . .

Sunday had dinner at a vietanmese spot, that had great interiors and decor (sitting cross legged on a big padded booth) but the food was... interesting. There was pungent smelling sauce that everyone but I could smell, and the dishes were aiite. I loved the softshell crab.

Anyhow, thats it for now. Or, as far as i can remember at least. happy trails

attack of the cute

Fing's ladybug doll

Made of wool. $45. And just adorable! 6cm tall, I think. . .




okay, that was the cute. Now onto the practical.



My roomate's friend from design school came to visit us this weekend. He's a shoe designer who comes to china to check out factory stuff in a small village above HK. Anyhow, it was first time in the shang and we took him to all our favorite spots- and the typical touristy ones too.

Fri: Tour of our office, C's
Sat: thai Dinner at Xintandi, french birthday party
Sun: Bund
Mon: Blue frog at xujiahui
Tues: Whisk, chocolate!!!!

Once again I was struck by bad cell phone luck and my Pantech charger died. Mike pulled out this doodad and he got for 5 RMB (60 cents USD) and touted it as his life saver. It holds a AA battery and charges your phone on the spot. Probably one of the few extremely useful cheap things you can buy off the street here in china. At of course we found a man selling them on a stairwell outside a metro stop for 20 RMB. He refused to sell it for 5, and so we left.

I ran around looking for a replacement charger all weekend and ended up with one offer for 480 RMB. no way!!

But I did finally make it over to the depths of Pudong to see my a family friend. I discovered a totally different place with a huge green park full of kites and rollerblades, and the fancy looking technology museum. I'll have to go back there one day, when I'm carrying less stuff.

How is work?

"Kristina. Can you look at this english?"
me: "The shadows are wrong."

Anyhow, it was cool having a visiting designer and soon our living room was covered in shoe prototypes!

And ending with: dragonfruit

Learning

Much of the english translations from chinese are wacky. This, we know.

Food items, as I've been told, are named somewhat like recipes. So yesterday, when my friend ordered "three cup chicken" which is a direct translation they told me first it comes in three cups (haha!) but really its one cup of vineagar, one cup of sugar, and one cup of something else. Basically the same idea as pound cake.

This week we also go to visit our company's factories- a carton factory, blow molding, metal bending, injectioni molding, assembly line, welding, basically the whole works from beginning to end.

A few more peeks

A watch jewelry shop. Each is indeed an individual little boxed compartment with curved clear window which surrounds you like a widescreen tv.


Inspired by stripes. Intersections 2D and 3D positive and negative space. I like how the lines kinda meet each other, but not really. Its like when your tuning your guitar strings and their nearly matching but not and it "pulses".


Construction workers working in the intersection where our cab driver got into a fight with another cab driver. Held up traffic in every direction for quite a while. The extended story is before the Carmen post. Anyhow, it was cool, because side streets are well lit, and within the confines of their construction barrier boxes, is this glow on faces and tools.


URBN hotel, first carbon neutral hotel in shanghai. This refs the earlier post on the Green design fair. Really wonderful modern landscaping here, with gravel, trees and bare wood.

photos.

On the way to work by bus.


Meal prepared by a colleague. yum! spicy food and fish head!


Work


A really yummy meal.

adventures with carmen!

woo hoo!

May "holiday" aka labor day allowed us three straight days of running around shanghai being absolute tourists. (except Carmen actually knows some manadarin which helped) Holiday is in quotes because they gave us the day off, but required us to work on sunday. Carmen is a fellow Oaklander, who also gets the pleasure of going to school across the bay in SF.

Back to the adventure. We saw every major stop in my tour book as well as a witness some rumors come alive.

7am. I met her at the railway station(8 hr ride from beijing, where she is studying) and we caught breakfast together. I ate a fried chinese donut with pork floss on it wrapped in rice, and she had a type of jook. I am not fond of pork floss. We begun our voyage at yuyuan garden, where the masses had also met, ate shur lum bao and coconut juice from a coconut. There weren't any tables, so we hit teh street to rest our food and coconut on a planter. Some girl heard us speaking english and immediatly begun pitching fake purses and watches to us off a 4 X 5 card. We ignored her, and she persisted(this is normal) and then this man spun around and grabbed her by the arm, yelling at her, and she tried to hide her product card from him when another guy grabbed her other arm and they dragged her off. I'm assuming it was plain clothes police... or something.

So then we walked some and somehow ended up at the bund, where the lighthouse is, aka Bund museum, or Atanu Bar by night. (It actually has a great patio and view!) the Bund was covered in chinese people, so we headed straight for the ferry. We waited behind the metal gate for the boat to come, and when it did, the flood gates opened, literally, and it was like the beginning of Bay to Breakers. And before I could comment, carmen grabbed my hand and we ran for our life onto the ferry. I mean, they had to be running for a good reason, right? we got good seats, I tell you.

On the pudong side of the Bund, we were welcomed by a variety of bicycle food stands. For a few blocks, you could get hot well seasoned snack(don't ask about the meat), cotton candy, play darts, and get get your name written in ENGLISH for all of 1 rmb. It was grand amusing, and we devoured candied strawberries on a stick which inconspicuously snapping photos of vendors with boxes strapped to their heads are visors. (carmen has the photos)

We got our pictures with the Jin mao and the pearl tower, marveled at the buildings, and kept on walkin. While we exited super brand mall, I noticed 5 or 6 girls (15-18 yrs) with babies strapped to them, ethnically a little diff from chinese, by clothes, as well as complexion. As we tried to get the whole of the Pearl tower in one photo(as well as carmen) I spotted the girls with babies again walking the opposite way, with their backs towards us. One of them pointed to a chinese guy who had his bag on his back, and the other girl slipped her hand in his back pocket. and then I yelled "Carmen!!! Their robbing him!!!' And we were staring them down and not quite sure what to do. And even tho they had babies on them, we were still outnumbered, so we kept our distance from them(but they did catch us staring at them)

yeah, It was quite an eventful day, and yet it still goes on. We relaxed at jing an park, listening to opera singers and their three pice band(two violins and an accordian) and sipped boba naicha. Then we also hear some latin music and found performers by a mall, where we hung out a big, then escaped to the nearby accessories market, which was the cheap place to bargain. We were there a short time, before we had to catch dinner with my collegue and his pals.

We hit marc's at about 7pm, and had dinner together. It was one girl's birthday so, we sang "happy birthday" to her naturally. In 5 different languages. It was very cute.

Friday, we hit Qibao, the water town which also was a hot spot, and we did a ton of walking there, then headed back to my friend's apt for the evening.

Saturday we were exhausted, but still wanted to make the best of our holiday. We went to People's square/park thing to the Modern Contemporary art museum(MoCa) to see a fabulous show on Itailian designer Ferragamo(mostly know for hollywood shoes) It covered recent work as well as how the shoes were made, and his patents and innovations. We wanted to see the bird market as well, but it ceased to exist. My tourist made is from 2005, and it had led us to a very nicely landscaped park with a "no tresspassing" fence around it. so we just watched little kids chase pigeons while our feet rested, and then went back to jing an for a bargaining frenzy. Or rather learning to! I"m rather terrified of bargaining. Carmen was saying that you have to be "sweeter" here in shanghai than in beijing.

We ate hot pot for dinner and then went home and rested.

The end.

Last weekend

So my genius collegues(the boys) left my camera at work, but I have to tell about my wonderous weekend without visual aid.

Beautiful saturday sunshine welcomed me to work to do a photoshoot for work! More because I speak english than anything, I aided my supervisor communicate with little kiddies (babies-2 yrs) on new products and prototypes. It was a lot of fun, tho a bit chaotic! I got to chat with the parents as well, and found out that both our moms were chinese born and raised in chicago! The kid were absolutely a-d-o-r-a-b-l-e!!!! They fought a bit, but they were in a wonderland of toys. trikes, swings, ball pits, slides.... the list goes on. After a certain point, no one wanted to go in the ball pit, so then I kinda got in it and was like, "OH I'm having SO much fun!" and then the photographer took a picture of me and so my co-workers all got a good laugh out of it.

After that, my roomie J and I hopped down to the URBN hotel to en Eco design fair- which was about 20 vendors selling mostly bamboo-ey consumer products. The URBN hotel touts being the first carbon neutral hotel in shanghai. One of the highlights was the BBQ- like a real american grill with sausages and hamburgers- with ketchup and mustard! yumm! mine managed to get wasabi in it too, and the frank was a little reminicent of bratwurst. It tough to get hot dogs in buns here. Anyhow, bamboo clothes, toys, you name it- and we ended up in a conversation with a man about water filters, and he knew from my accent that I was from cali. He was from San Jose, and actually organizes expat mixers here in shanghai! he talked a lot, and my roomate was like, "Gah. You californians never stop talking!"

So then we enjoyed the weather and walked towards the main street by Jing An, and hear all this American Rap and a huge crowd of people. They were just standing there looking at these two open trailers with clothes (some kinda promo) and there's this DJ spinning american rap which was really kinda funny/odd/entertaining and we walked on to a shady tree area which actually was a park, with a pond, and we ran into our boss and his fie and tiny baby!!!!! the park had a resturant on the pond, so people could dine on the docks, and there was also a small enclosed area with dudes exercising on bars. One had a paddle with ball, another old man was doing kung fu (J was trainging in that for a bit) and two other teens were trying to kung fu, but he kicked so high he fell on his back. ouch! I felt ashamed for him and opted to walked away.

Sunday I took out my friend the purple bike and we ventured out to hong mei lu but I got lost anyhow and found a shoe store where I bought a dress(and tried it out w/o a mirror so then I was taking pictures of myself but since my arm isn't so long, all you see is the big flower print or my nose) I really love biking now, its so much faster than walking! AND i get a cool breeze thru my hair, a bit of exercise, and the excitement of getting hit by a car. Just kidding. I found hong mei lu by accident and had to call J to figure out how to get home and he got mad at me for being so unsafe(or bad directional sense) and reminded me we were getting a visit to fix our apt, so i ran home.

following church in the afternoon, we ate on the rooftop seeing a magnificent view of shanghai, and talking about plans for the holiday, food, inspirational stories, and just fun stuff. I kicked myself for not having my camera that evening, cuz the space was great. open, private, modern but still comfy.

some inspiration

Many hours were spent in school looking for the proper images to photoshop with our computer modelled products, and the best source was flickr.

Heath and the BLT boys has a flickr collection of her Favorite rooms: kids rooms, living rooms, craft rooms-mostly homes and all very very cool. I love perusing thru the photos for their wide variety of color, mood, texture, lighting, and some very very clever ideas for decoration and use of space! She picks them from magazines, off the web and gives ref/credit to where they came from in case you want to look into it more.





and i can't link the images. so sorry. Whats cool above: [1] the tree in the second photo [2] the Bottom row left mid- the one piece for the bunk bed and ladder [3] to the right of it are Tube bunk beds!! how fun! As well as the dotty room. . . or in the words of my HS art teacher, "Circles make people happy!"

But the other thing I've been working on is my business card. And there was a great argument whether or not to put a phone number on it, or just put a fake one. hahaha just kidding!

Anyways, I've been saving up some really good stories of my weekend- to come once I upload my photos!

This coming thurs> is may holiday and my friend Carmen is coming to visit me from beijing! hooray!!

my first terrible cab ride // wonderful desserts!

this morning we took a cab to work. Work is only about 15 minutes from our apt, straight down xianxia and then right on fuchan. Quite simple, and simple enough for a simpleton like myself to direct on mandarin. So our driver says, doesn't understand the cross street, and we're like," fine. just go down fuchan, and we'll tell you. " and then he hangs right prematurely and pulls over 1 block later and whips out a map. And we're all waving our arms saying "go straight!" in mandarin. pointing is universal. And so I call my boss to tell him where to go, if he is lost- but he refuses the phone. Two blocks later he refers back to the map, and we're all telling him where to go. This is our hood, ya kno? Anyways. we're going the opposite direction, the meter is running, my roomate is irate, my boss is asking me questions, and I'm trying to figure out the best thing to do. My boss says not to pay him, I'm thinking maybe just jump out. But since i"M with my roomie it has to be synchronized jumping out.

arrghh. we finally get to the office and my boss is outside ready to tell this guy off. I didn't want to talk about it any longer.

that was the morning. the flipside is the evening, when our cell group went out for dessert together. There's quite a variety of us: singaporean, korean, australia, african, malaysian, canadian, american. . . . and we got 4 pieces of delicious cake and shared them! Carrot cake, lemon meruingue(sp?), flourless chocolate, and coconut cream!!! yum! From City Diner on tongren lu.

Here's my review:

1. Coconut cream: my favorite of the 4, was perfectly sweet, light and fluffy.
2. Carrot cake: moist, good texture, but some parts of the cake were a bit dry
3. Lemon meruingue: Very tangy and quite overpowering, but good thick shortbread crust, nice n flaky.
4. Flourless chocolate: looks like fudge- the top frosting layer was terrific: Melts-in-your-mouthness, but the body was not sweet enough( I ate this before the lemon meruingue)

tunes, tex-mex, and a computer for cooking

For my birthday, my parents sent me an ipod with mandarin and cantonese lessons and some music. This one of the CDs they put on was Vienna Tang//Warm strangers, which is really growing on me. After working a 12 hrs day, I was getting sick hearing british english teaching me mandarin so I started listening to her soft woozy dainty music.

Me and my roomate had tex-mex for dinner in hong mei lu - craving mexican so badly!!!! Its nearly impossible to find sour cream here, among other things. I had shredded beef tacos, and J had enchiladas, even tho he ordered a burrito. It was a pretty cute resturant, styled like a crayola-made house. Super quaint front balcony, bright inviting colors, ENGLISH signs, and was basically like entering someone's kitchen. The front room we ate in was the "family" room. In the corner was a sectioned off play area with toys for kids, plus a kid sized sink next to it. All the tables had brightly woven table clothes, and all the dishware was super colorful! AND they serve rootbeer- amoung a long list of breakfast items, sandwiches, and tex-mex grub. We will definetly be going back there!

We decided to head out for a hair cut as well, and it was the 2nd time in my life that I've ever had my hair cut at a salon. so we got the shampoo/massage/cut package for 50 kwai which is about $7 USD. It was awesome except I didn't know how to communicate what I wanted. . . but it all turned out well in the end.

And check out this interesting article on China's transformation and christianity From Global China center, and I found it pretty intriguing how it compares china today to the states in 1900, as of big industrial boom. I see it everyday-the construction is astoundingly quick. That, and my post office just got demolished and levelled this past week. So.... I'll have to find another one. (They have a pot of paste on their counters and a brush for adhereing stamps)

and one other must-see item: The Honeywell H316, aka Kitchen computer