ordering food and meeting the neighbors

Moving to shanghai is like being a tourist forever. Constantly lost, constantly struggling, and constantly learning. And I'm enjoying everybit of it. I made it home last night by only saying the street names ONCE!

So what interesting things happened this week, you ask. We had dinner at a HK style restrant with boats you eat inside and some trad dimsum on the menu. I picked my favorites, gin doy, cha siu so, and sliced pork in fried fun, and my roomie pointed at a photo and also bok choi. well. They photo he pointed, which looked like spare ribs was actually a chicken head. sliced into fourths!!! It was so in-discernable that I could hardly tell that it was a chicken head!!!! and then i remembered our boss's words. "I try never to order the same food twice" and I said to my roomie, "You ordered it! you have to try it!" (that and i have guilt if i waste food, thanks to mom and dad) so my absolutely grossed out roomie watched in horror as I picked up a piece and turned it over and over with my chopsticks trying to find the meatiest part to sink my teeth into. and then when I finally made contact, he was like, "THATS THE BRAIN!!!" all i tasted was soy sauce. he didn't believe me. "What! you scared??" and he said, "no. I just don't eat chicken heads." eventually he gave in- but luckily there was hardly any meat on it. just bone and beak.

And then we went home, and then the doorbell starts ringing. its maybe 9 or 10 pm. And we have no friends who actually know where we live. I was like, "let's ignore it." Then we thot it might be the landlord!!!! So we started hiding our dirty socks and the food we left out!!!! panic! Then they rung again, so I made him answer it. He opened the door and tried to peer down the stairs, and buzzed them in. Why?, I don't know. I said, "close the door. maybe they'll go to different apt..." and then they rang out apt doorbell, and we mustered up strength and opened the door. (fyi, our landlord is crazy clean freak) ok, so we opened the door, and guess who's standing there? the cops!!!! and we were like wha???? And she turns around and points to her jacket that says, POLICE. My roomie says, "Are you here for me??" and she's all talking and waving her clipboard at us, and we are so clueless. So i give her my residency paper, which proves that I live here. My roomate can't find his. And this whole time I'm trying to get one of my shanghainese co-workers on the phone to help us out, but its a no-go, but then finally my boss picks up and she talks to the cop for something like 15 minutes. When the cop hands my phone back, my boss says, "She just needs the phone number of the apt owner," I don't know why it took 15 minutes to get that message across. It always seems to be the case everywhere. At lunch we all point to the meals we want. When we go with co-workers, they talk to the waitress for 15 minutes to order. Maybe its just easier not talking!

Tommarow tucker is gonna show us the fabric market- where you can have custom clothes made!!!

later!