Shanghai Knights

So we decided to head to Shanghai for a couple nights just to do something different. It's only an hour and twenty minute train ride and we had a nice place to stay at for free, so me, Pat and Dean headed up. Had a pretty good time exploring the city and the weather couldn't have been nicer for middle of January. It got up to around 65 degrees in the sun. We took motorcycle taxi's at one point which was an experience to say the least. These guys were total maniacs, just flying around with little regard for anyone else on the streets, whipping through sidewalks and through tunnels. We had such a good time we thought we'd continue it by getting a few drinks and hanging out on the balcony of a restaurant on the top of a building overlooking the Shanghai skyline and river. After that there were drink and dinner specials at a pretty cool pub not far from where we were. It was good to get out of Hangzhou and do something different, should happen more often.

Back in Hangzhou not a whole lot new going on. Wednesday night started out as usual, then a friend suggested we go to a Chinese club for the hell of it. It was a pretty good time, there's almost always a group of people that will approach foreigners and want to drink with them. One of them was a bit over-friendly, and I realized this after he nearly tackled me onto a table that people were dancing on. Pat ran over and pulled him away, turns out his friend told Pat that he was gay. It was incredibly weird and awkward, and we discontinued drinking with them.

After weeks of putting it off, we finally planned a trip for the Chinese New Year. Originally we had planned on going to Bangkok and Phuket, but the flights continued to be ridiculously expensive, so we booked a flight to Seoul, South Korea. 9 days to check out the country, haven't figured out much of an itinerary yet but I'm looking into it. I'm gonna see how close to the 38th Parallel I can get, maybe throw some rocks over. Somebody get in touch with Bill Clinton

Back in China

So I made it back without any real issues, being home was a nice break but it's good to be here. I did weigh myself when I got home but forgot to on the way out, but was kindly told by several of the Chinese teachers at my school that I looked like I had gained weight. They're very subtle. I was up for about 30 straight hours and just crashed when I made it to my apartment, so the jet lag hasn't really been effecting me all that much. Construction in our building is still going strong which is miserable at times, but I'm not letting it get to me. It's been pretty rainy for the most part, which gives me the opportunity to whip out my blue pancho when I'm riding my scooter around to really blend in with the locals. Other than that nothing new to report.

Transferring trains and making the commute from the Shanghai airport back to Hangzhou was a real pain. Having to carry two 50 pound bags around doing it really didn't make it easy. At one point while I was cramming into a train in Shanghai it reminded me of a youtube video that I had seen a while ago. If I wasn't holding onto my bags tightly they would absolutely be gone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz_lRBpk76Q&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh+div-1r-2-HM

Great Honor

I had the great honor to name a child today. In China, people have Chinese names that are given to them by family, but when asked what your name is by a foreign person, they will simply say that they do not have an English name. I had a new student in one of my classes, and was told that I would be able to name him, for the rest of his given life in the English language. I thought long and hard about it, and came up with a name that I believe speaks great deals about this young man. His name is Nitro. For the rest of his life, while spoken in the English language, this boy will be known as Nitro.

I also had the great honor of being this year's Santa Claus for the Bear American school's Christmas party. To make a long story short, I dressed as Santa Claus and had 80 young Chinese kids yelling and screaming at me for 2 hours as I passed out candy to them from a stocking. It was a Christmas celebration that I will absolutely not soon forget

Christmas in China

So Christmas time has finally come, and it's quite different from back home. Religion in China is not very prevalent, so there's not much care for it, but it is still definitely celebrated. Most places have decorations set up, and I've heard some pretty interesting techno remixes to Christmas music in certain stores

We had a Christmas miracle occur when Pat was trying to get his passport to go home just the other day. To make a long story short and not offend certain parties involved, Pat was told he wouldn't get his passport until about 2 hours before his flight, which just wouldn't work and an expensive ticket would be wasted. He was able to talk to a few people and go down to the police department where it was held, and somehow it was given back to him in time to take an expensive 3 hour taxi to Shanghai, not ideal but atleast he made it. I was feeling a bit worried myself, but was able to get mine yesterday as I was told, and am looking forward to a break at home. I think I'm going to weigh myself the day I get home and the day I leave, because I'm planning on eating as much Buff Joe's and Chipotle as possible. It's kind of sad how much I miss certain foods, and going to McDonald's to get something western out here is just not really cutting it for me. Anyways, can't wait for the break, but not exactly excited about having the same conversation about six hundred times about living in China.

Other remarks on China:
I was pulling up to my apartment the other day on my scooter, on the right side of the bike lane next to the sidewalk. A man came flying in from the sidewalk on a bike and clipped my right handlebar, sending him careening out of control and falling to the ground. I sat there a moment speechless, with a bag of McDonald's in one hand and my mouth wide open, not sure of what to do. It was one hundred percent his fault but I obviously felt bad, so I pushed forward to see if he was alright. He didn't really say anything as he got up, got back on his bike, and just rode away. It was weird

Chinese people place a great deal of emphasis on not spreading swine flu. I think the bird flu was a big scare for them, so there are many reminders of how to stay healthy and not spread disease. Lots of people wear masks, which I think look absolutely ridiculous and are completely impractical. One thing that I think might help, but is absolutely never acknowledged, is that people should stop coughing and sneezing on each other. Seriously, it's pretty amazing to see how much people just let loose on one another with no regard, in restaurants, in stores, on the streets; and the amount of times I've seen people retching their bodies to cough up snot and spit wherever whenever is pretty gross.

Thanksgiving

So going into it I really did not know what to expect out of a Thanksgiving in China. The few Americans that I know were all kind of split, and it looked like a few of us were planning on going to the Hyatt for a Thanksgiving dinner. It was ridiculously expensive, but we figured we'd all splurge just for the sake of us being in China and not wanting to eat rice and noodles on one of my favorite days of the year. Well at the last minute, a friend decided to have a dinner at his house, everyone threw in a nominal fee, and he prepared a feast, including a deep fried turkey that took forever to finally be served. After running around the city for hours looking for a pot big enough to deep fry a turkey, we nearly had a propane related disaster that seriously looked like it got out of hand. I've got to say it was the most unique Thanksgiving that I have ever had. There were about 10 different countries represented, a lot of people were excited and very pleased with their first Thanksgiving experiences. There were people from Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, China, basically every continent, as well as a former and a future first round NBA draft pick. Rodney White, #9 overall pick out of UNC Asheville in the 2001 NBA draft, at 6'9 inches tall, and his friend JP, from Puerto Rico, who is 7'4 inches tall. Easily the two tallest people I've ever seen.

Got to say it was interesting, and a Thanksgiving that I will not forget, and this is the PG version of the whole story, so there's that

Breaking News

So we've finally had a couple nice days after a miserable stretch in terms of weather. It's definitely nice change from freezing rain and 30 degrees. Just got back from playing basketball, had some decent competition actually which was nice. I will say that I am in the absolute worst shape of my life. I didn't think I could get much worse than my last year at Miami, but it's really a shame how hard it is for me to run and how quickly I am out of breath.

The other day I picked up a copy of Hangzhou Weekly, the English newspaper in the city and on the second page I found an article that made me laugh out loud. The headline being "Caught on camera: naked love rival flees furious husband." The story is about a 25 year old man who has been given "the cold shoulder" by his community after fleeing from the apartment of the women he was sleeping with, when her husband came home and found them. There is literally a picture in this newspaper that is taken from the street outside of the apartment of this guy standing, COMPLETELY NAKED, on an air conditioning unit, covering his junk, and from the window is a man yelling and flailing his arms wildly. The article goes on and explains how the guy feels bad about it but has been getting harassed by people in his neighborhood. He's very embarrassed about the whole thing, and there is even a quote from him saying, "People are even laughing at how I look naked - but I have to point out it was a very cold day." I am completely serious about this whole thing, and I'm saving this article to bring home because I think it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

I talked to my family the other day, heard from the younger sister who is home from school for Thanksgiving. It was nice to catch up, I'm definitely jealous for that though, I think I'm going to be celebrating my Thanksgiving at the Hyatt, I guess they have a really good holiday buffet. Something that stood out in the conversation with my sister though was when she asked me "If I have been to or seen any sweatshops," as if it was a common occurrence, like heading to the grocery store. Are you kidding me Glenna?

Playing basketball with Chinese people

So I've found the best way for me to make sure my heart still works is to play basketball. The Chinese love basketball, there are courts everywhere and pretty consistently there are games going on. Having a basketball court 200 yards from our apartment is great so I try to go out as often as I can. I also bought a very nice basketball from the athletic store across the street from my apartment for like $10. Immediately upon walking onto the court every person notices, and I really just have to stand there until there's a break in the game and they'll ask me to play with them. They'll tell me the teams by pointing and usually the next tallest person on the court will always guard me. What I've come to realize by growing up in the United States is that basketball is ingrained in our lives from the time we are young children. There is nothing like house league basketball, or even school teams at any age really. I've never considered myself very good at basketball, but it really does feel great to be the tallest person on the court and also be able to dribble with my left hand. Honestly for most of them it might as well be a club. Anyways, it's always a good time and the Chinese always love to let me join in with them.

So that's nice, but what isn't is that we've finally gotten some real fall weather and it's started raining a bit. It's actually pretty cold, and I definitely didn't pack well. There was a pretty incredible storm this past monday, in the middle of a bright day it suddenly turned pitch black and started pouring, then in the middle of that the sky turned bright yellow and it stopped for about 5 minutes. It then immediately blacked out again and rained for another hour, then it cleared up and was a bright day again. Very weird, and unfortunately I was viewing this from my bed as I became terribly sick that morning, my first time since being in Hangzhou. It was only for about half a day, and I'm doing just fine now, but it definitely was a very weird day, and I won't forget it for a while.