Cold.

Today marks the start of a couple of cold days in Shanghai. The temperature for today was -1 degrees to 4 degrees, and apparently tomorrow will be from -4 degrees to 0 degree, and it would probably snow on Wednesday and Thursday.

Work today was OK, but then again if I were to say that I enjoyed it I’d probably be lying. Oh well, working in China is a totally different ball game. I guess you need to be constantly on your toe to prevent something happening to you.

Ditched the rest of the guys to go on dinner on my own, and after a cheap meal, I spent a grand total of 16.80 RMB on my three meals today. That makes it about 3.50 SGD. I would probably spend that amount for one meal alone in Singapore. But I realised I can’t constantly do comparisons like that because I have to take into consideration that I don’t really earn that much here in China.

Work tomorrow as usual. I still got a portal to churn out. But somehow I enjoy myself doing this one than the other one that I was working on a couple of weeks ago. Well, at least I don’t have to lose a friend doing this portal, which is more comforting.

Still in a moody mood. I think I’ll go sleep early.

And yah, after being here for so long, I think I should let you guys see my home here in Shanghai:

My room – see the mattress on the floor? That’s where I sleep. Lee Tong and Edwin have the luxury of the bed.

The living room.

The dining room is adjacent to the living room, but has been converted to become a temporary workplace for us.

The kitchen – nicely furnished, though the most heavy of cooking we’ve ever done is boiling a pot of water.

The view from one of the balconies of the house. This kind of buildings honestly would not have been possible in China 20 years ago. A symbol of capitalism, apparently.

Moody.

After so many days of fun and enjoyment here in Shanghai, I think I finally landed myself on a day in which I didn’t enjoy myself. Somehow I think I was thinking a bit too much, or perhaps I’m beginning to miss a few people back home. I guess it’s days like these when you don’t feel too good about certain things then your mind would start to drift back home, and you’ll start missing them, and then you’ll feel miserable that you are so far away from them, and from then on nothing would seem to go well, and the cycle goes on and on.

But don’t worry about me, I’ll sleep over it and by tomorrow everything would be better. I hope.

Wind.

Didn’t update on Friday because I was out for the whole day. Woke up very early in the morning to go to Fudan University for the NUS Enterprise Day. It’s not as if the Enterprise Day was held there, but because they were having some live webcast debate between the NOC students from Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Bio Valley and Singapore. In the end SV won (even though some of us had pretty different opinions about the final results – we still think our Shanghai team was the best), but I guess it was an interesting event for us here in Shanghai anyway – at least the lot of us from NCS3 and NCS2 managed to have a nice time interacting.

Inside the Fudan University campus – this is what an ideal university campus should look like.

With lots of space, and few tall buildings.

With such a serene environment, it is definitely a place to study in.

Went back to office for work after the debates, and went to some restaurant in the evening for the official NCS2/NCS3 dinner hosted by Gabriel. I think the meal was pretty good, and thank God we weren’t paying for it cos I think it would cost us a couple of bombs. After dinner some of us went for a walkaround from Shimen No.1 Road to People’s Square, where we then go for a night out in a karaoke. The thing about Shanghaiese karaoke is that it costs horribly cheap after midnight. I think our total bill was about 400 RMB for 12 people, which worked out to roughly about 35 RMB per person – and that’s 7 SGD! And another fascinating thing is that the songs are so updated it brings places like Party World and K-Box in Singapore to shame! We all had a great time there and if not for the fact that we woke up too early in the morning, I think I really could have stayed until 4.30.

Taken at Mei Long Zhen Restaurant 梅龙镇酒家 – it seems that this restaurant is awarded some youth commendation from the Chinese Communist Party. In China, it perhaps is one of the best commendations you can get.

Went to office in the morning to copy out some stuffs before going to get my hair done. My soft spot against salespersons came back to haunt me again as I somehow agreed to do a treatment and apply for the membership card, which cost me 500 RMB. Well, the good thing is the card is transferrable, so whoever wants to get his or her hair done in Shanghai at this chain of hairdressers call Wenfeng please give me a call at the usual number!

Had a walkabout in Qipu Road and Xiangyang Market and some of them went for a bargaining hunt. They spent quite a lot of time doing the bargaining and while obviously it worked (they managed to bring the price of a scarf from 120 RMB to 20 RMB), I reckon it was slightly too time-consuming. I bought myself a bag in double quick time and with bargain as well! Here’s what happened:

Me: How much is this bag?
Shopkeeper: 70 RMB.
Me: That’s horribly expensive.
Shopkeeper: I reduce it to 60 RMB for you. It’s quite cheap already.
Me: 60 RMB? No way. 30 RMB.
Shopkeeper: 50 RMB.
Me: 30.
Shopkeeper: 45 RMB. I can’t lower it further.
Me: 30.
Shopkeeper: 40.
Me: 30. (beginning to walk away)
Shopekeeper: OK, OK. 30 RMB then.

The whole process took less than a minute and I got what I want with bargain. That was effectiveness.

One of the banners hung at Xiangyang Market 襄阳市场 – it roughly means that those illegal sellers (ie counterfeit product sellers) must be stamped out. The strange thing (or maybe it wasn’t so strange after all) was that I think everyone was selling counterfeit goods there. Oh well.

Went to Xin Tian Di after dinner for another walkabout. Xin Tian Di is this place in which there are a lot of nice pubs with some live performances by singers and bands. The closest you can have in Singapore would probably be Clarke Quay, but I don’t think it even comes close to comparing with Xin Tian Di.

The sad thing about today was that it was incredibly windy, and with it blowing the wind from the north, it just made for a very cold and unbearable night.

Xin Tian Di 新天地 – A very nicely furnished place.

Here’s some of the pics that I didn’t maanged to put up that night regarding the restaurant in which the waiters and waitresses sing while serving:

Nicely dressed waitress.

Dumplings in different colours, but they all tasted great.

Maybe my camera wasn’t good, but this fish was on fire when it was served.

This waiter sang us all a song after he served us the fish that was on fire.

Beginning to realise a couple of things after these couple of days in Shanghai. I figure sometimes it’s not a nice thing to fight with someone over something, even though you may want it very much. Learning to accept and to let go may be a good idea sometimes.

Blackout.

My second day at work and it’s another new experience – blackout! When me and Lee Tong arrived at the office, everywhere was completely dark. Apparently they were having some power shutdown for the whole day and nobody at the office was notified about it. So what happened was that we were allowed to go back home and work. So me, Lee Tong and Daphne came back home after being at the office for about 10 minutes. I spent the whole day working on the portal and when electricity came back at about 3.30, we went back to office and carried on working from there.

Dinner was at this place called 东北人 and it was a very interesting place. The staffs there were horribly friendly, and they sing all the time. The best part was when they serve their famous fish dish, one of the staffs sang right next to our table. Apparently the staffs will all sing this song when this particular dish is served. Will post pics later.

NUS Enterprise Day tomorrow – not exactly looking forward to it, but I guess it might be a good experience.

Work.

My first day of work was decent, I guess. Spent the morning sorting things out on the desktop in the office, and then the afternoon sorting out whatever I need to be doing. Came face to face with the Chinese corporate relationships in the afternoon and as far as I’m concerned it’s an eye-opener. Everyone in office seems very nice to me and Lee Tong and I’m sure it would stay that way for the remaining of the year.

Went to Jingan Temple for dinner with Qingyuan and initially when he brought us to the restaurant we went to, we had a shock because it looked like a horribly posh restaurant. But after all the eating, the bill came and it was only about 160 RMB! That’s why I still think eating in China is about the best past-time you can ever have because the food is nice and cheap. Of course you can always have something that’s expensive, but the variety is so wide that you can really choose how expensive or how cheap you want. That said, the most expensive meal that I have to pay so far is still about 35 RMB, which is about 7 SGD. Considering whatever I ate, 35 RMB is way worth it.

Took the Metro back from Jingan Temple to Zhongshan Park and noticed the following:

An empty Metro station! You don’t see that often here in Shanghai, I can tell you!

Work tomorrow. Don’t know if I’m looking forward to it or not. Not if it’s going to rain tomorrow again.

Dumbstruck.

Splashed my first fortune on a pair of shoes today. The pair that I wore to Shanghai has given way to all the rainwater the city has to offer for the past couple of days and I can’t continue wearing that pair of junk anymore. So I went to buy a new pair of shoes at about 650 RMB. It sucks to be splashing out so much for a pair of shoes, but the pair that I bought seemed pretty decent, so I guess it should be able to see me through this horrible Shanghai weather.

In any case me and Lee Tong went to our office and met our boss, Virginia, and she was again reminding us about how horrible things can be like here in Shanghai. Just as we thought everything’s better than what we expect, Virginia pulls us all back into reality. But I guess what she said is true – you can never be trusting to everyone around you. Also, the only way to prevent getting bullied is to make yourself look big so that others will think again before trying to bully you. I’ll heed that piece of advice.

After going to the office, we went over to Pudong to meet Shallene and Fionna, after which we had a walkabout in Lujiazui area and saw the Oriental Pearl Tower and Jinmao Tower. One of them is that tower that you will always see in any Shanghai postcard depicting the night scenery, while the other one is the tallest building in Shanghai. Both look pretty majestic and nothing back home can compare to them, really.

Oriental Pearl Tower 东方明珠塔 – The tower by day.

The tower by night.

Wanjing, one of our NOC seniors brought the few of us to Nanjing Road Pedestrian Zone and the only word I have for the place is “Wow” because the place is so beautiful. The neon lights, the people, the buildings… everything is just so Shanghai and I really have never seen anything like that before in my life.

Nanjing Road Pedestrian Zone 南京路步行街 – The biggest commercial zone in Shanghai IMHO.

One of the many 老上海 buildings in Nanjing Road.

Another view of Nanjing Road.

Yet another view of Nanjing Road.

And yet another view of Nanjing Road.

And yet another view of Nanjing Road.

Then what struck me even more was The Bund. I’ve seen The Bund on TV and on pictures and I already thought that was impressive enough, but I think the gradeur of The Bund has to be appreciated in person. The whole scenery there is simply brilliant – in fact I think it is the second most beautiful night scenery in the world (the first being Hong Kong Victoria Peak). It was 3 degrees Celcius on the street, but with a scenery like that, I don’t really care how cold it was. Talk about enjoying the scenery.

The Bund from the Puxi riverside.

The Huangpujiang 黄浦江 from the ferry we took from Puxi to Pudong.

Another view of Huangpujiang.

A fun thing we saw at Nanjing Road East:

All in all, today has been a great sightseeing day and it sets me in the perfect mood for work tomorrow. I don’t know what to expect at work tomorrow, but I hope it would be fun.

Discovery of the day: If you want to see the whole of Shanghai City from the top of somewhere, you have an option of Jinmao Tower or the Oriental Pearl Tower, it’s either 50 RMB for Jinmao, or 80 RMB for lower levels of Oriental Pearl Tower, or 100RMB++ for somewhere higher. Your call (Our call was neither cos at that kind of price it really feels like a rip-off).

Rain. (Again.)

Got one of the most important admin stuff done today – I opened my bank account in China!

After opening the bank account, we went for lunch and today I managed to try one of the Shanghaiese speciality called 盖浇饭. I had some braised beef and at 5 RMB it was yet another basement bargain. And with it tasting so great it just made that 5 RMB even more worth it.

Wanted to explore Shanghai with the other 3 guys in the afternoon, but rain started to fall (again) so we went back home as we didn’t have umbrellas with us. Didn’t stay at home for too long as Fionna and Shallene called us out to meet them at the Shanghai Railway Station as they wanted to buy train tickets to go somewhere in China during the Chinese New Year holidays. We had a chat at the McDonald’s near the station before bringing them to our place.

The Shanghai Railway Station 上海火车站 – If you were at the station just now you would have been shocked by the sheer number of people there. But then again, we are in China.

Somehow managed to drop my SIM card outside the house when we were about to go for dinner. Obviously I wasn’t too happy about that, so I think I kinda sulk a bit, but I guess it’s just not me to sulk for too long. Went to 乐购 for more grocery shopping after dinner and I think the staffs there are going to recognise us very soon – we’ve been here for 4 days and we’ve been there 4 times!

In any case somehow Yvonne managed to find my SIM card after she opened the umbrella and left it on the balcony to dry – apparently my SIM card was inside the umbrella all along and I guess it was lucky that I didn’t open the umbrella up just now on the road. I think I’m lucky.

Would be going to office tomorrow to say hi to everyone before officially starting work on Wednesday. I think I would enjoy myself there.

Discovery of the day: Shanghaiese sounds a bit like Hokkien, but more elegant.

And those who are on Blogspot – I can’t see your blogs…

Anyone care to introduce me to Shanghaiese Pop, if any?

The old Shanghai picture I took yesterday.

The old Shanghai picture that I modified to try to re-create the old Shanghai feel.

Push.

Woke up at 10.30 – it just feels so good to be sleeping in the winter. And with yesterday being such a cold day, it’s definitely a much better sleep that I have the previous day.

Went to Xujiahui at about lunchtime and basically had a walkabout round the area. Basically Xujiahui is one of the many shopping areas in Shanghai, and it’s really bustling with people. We had a nice time walking around and to be honest, I’m really impressed with the place.

Xujiahui 徐家汇 – One of the main shopping areas.

After Xujiahui, we went to Cheng Huang Miao/Yu Yuan. Last semester while I was studying History of Modern China, one of my lectures covered the topic of Shanghai in the Modern era, and the lecturer mentioned that Yu Yuan was one of those rich man’s gardens that were built for the benefits of the public, and judging from what I saw today, that place was really impressive. Of course what they are selling nowadays are modern stuffs such as food, beverages and souvenirs, but using my bit of imagination, I’m sure the place was bustling with people even in the old days.

Yu Yuan 豫园 – The authentic Shanghai garden full of commercial activities.

Another pic of Yu Yuan.

After Yu Yuan, we took a bus to Renmin Guangchang and man, what an experience we had with the bus! After 2 stops, people were beginning to crowd onto the bus, and the alighting was about the hardest I have ever tried in my life. It’s like, people were all crowding at the entrance, and no one was able to alight, neither could they board the bus. You’ll scractch your head and wonder why the people don’t make way for others to get off first, but apparently they are so scared of not being able to board the bus that they must rush their way in. So what ensued was a pile of human beings at the entrance, with each and everyone jostling for place. What I did to get off the bus was to push my way through. I think I even managed to push a guy off the steps. I guess that’s where my big size come into good use.

And I thought I can get away from Raffles after I left Singapore.

Did a bit more shopping in the evening after going back to Zhongshan Park. Bought a book, and a set of mahjong for everyone’s enjoyment. I think I’ve kinda spent a lot of money today – it’s time to start saving up. Anyway I called my Aunt in Shijiazhuang just now and she is so wishing for me to go visit her during the Chinese New Year holidays. I think I shall go check out the prices tomorrow at the train station. To be honest, while I too want to go visit them, somehow I want to stay in Shanghai during that period as well because I really want to check the place out. Oh choices, choices, choices!

Discovery of the day: As mentioned earlier, you sometimes really need to push people away to get onto or off a train or bus, but nobody seems to mind you doing that. Apparently every Shanghaiese has accepted that it’s part and parcel of their daily routine. I think I have to perfect this skill here in Shanghai. Though I wonder if I’ll find it too hard to part with such a skill when I go back to Singapore. Haha.

The old Shanghai. Honestly speaking, this is what I came Shanghai for. I mean sure I’m here for the internship and learn all those business stuffs, but as far as looking at Shanghai is concerned, this is what I want to see.

Rain.

Day 2 in Shanghai wasn’t good – it rained the whole day! Rain and coldness hardly make for the best combination and it was definitely the case today. I think the temperature dropped to below zero degrees for long period of the day because it was just so cold. It certainly didn’t help when the rain water got into my shoes, making the walking all the more uncomfortable.

Went to 大娘水饺 for lunch and the dumplings there were simply out of this world! I ate so much that I probably have lost count. After that we went to Ikea and bought some other items for home. Dinner was with a couple of the NOC seniors and it was at this Hong Kong-style restaurant. The food there was good, and it wasn’t expensive either. Went to 乐购 the supermarket to do a bit more shopping and applied for their membership card. Now I’m on a mission to chalk up as many membership points as possible!

On a whole today was a lot of walking around and travelling around. Still haven’t get to see the best sights of Shanghai yet, but honestly speaking, I’m not that worried yet. After all, I’ve got a year here to sort that out.

Couldn’t post the pics up at the SOC server cos I can’t seem to be able to connect to it, and it didn’t help that my bluetooth receiver on my laptop is not catching the signals from the phone. Strange.

Discovery of the day: The barbecued lamb meat stick (something that looks like satay) was brilliantly barbecued, but the best thing is that it managed to keep me warm for quite a while!

Shanghai.

So yup, I’m sitting here in my living room in Shanghai. After about 9 hours of tiring flights from Singapore via Bangkok to Shanghai, we finally touched down at the Pudong International Airport. What greeted us was a gale that is blowing into the airport from outside (OK so maybe it wasn’t a gale to the native Shanghaiese, but to us coming from somewhere so hot, even the slightest breeze here feels like a gale). Took a bus from the airport to Jingan Temple, where we were then picked up by Yvonne and Min Chuan (or more affectionately known as 彭彭). We initially wanted to take a cab from Jingan Temple back to wherever we are supposed to be staying, but apparently we arrived at the rush hour (certainly can tell considering that it took us an hour and a half to get from the airport to Jingan Temple) so there was no cab in sight – we decided to take the Metro back to Zhongshan Park, where our flat is located.

Honestly speaking the flights yesterday were boring. No disrespect to anyone at Thai Airways, but as far as I’m concerned, I can certainly make do with air stewards and stewardesses who are younger and prettier. But then again, I spent most of my time reading on the plane (finished the whole copy of the Chinese Asiaweek!) so it didn’t matter to me how they really look. Besides, I got my wine testing session onboard so I’m not really complaining.

In any case, after reaching the place that we are staying (still finding a bit hard to call it home, but I guess I’ll get used to it fairly quickly), we went out for dinner and man, the big bowl of noodles that I had was simply outstanding. It was big, tasty, and most importantly, cheap! At 7.50 RMB it is a much better catch compared to anything that is available back in Singapore. Did a bit of shopping and bought some bedding items, before going back home to unpack. Slept at about 1 and surprisingly, I managed to sleep all the way through. Seems like my plan of not sleeping until coming to Shanghai helped. Apparently I’m the only one out of all those who came yesterday who manageed to sleep all the way through.

Today will be another day out – and the best thing is it’s been raining in Shanghai since 5.30 pm yesterday. And it doesn’t seem to be stopping any moment soon. Even if it does, the peddles of water along the road are quite a difficult part. But then again, as what SQ said to me before, everyday will be a new experience.

The crazy thing though is that while everyone feels horribly cold, I seem to be the only one who is able to take the coldness that has bestowed upon me.

Discovery of the day: Chinese drivers horn for thrill. They really do – I think I’ve lost count of how many times the I’ve heard horns.

Welcome to Shanghai.

The bus to Jingan Temple