Jin tian hen leng

Today was the coldest day I’ve experienced in Shanghai making the streets unendurable for me. I spent a good two hours warming up in Coffee Bean at Xin Tian Di with my Tito and Eribelle but it was just a little too cold for us.
Yesterday, we visited the Shanghai Museum and I think I expected more in terms of architecture and content. The establishment was structured, organized and offered mediocre use of technology – there were four floors with two-three exhibitions per level (not all were open) and visitors can opt for the audio tour, wherein a bulky radio-like piece is given to you and every time you stop in front of a piece, this device will play-back a pre-recorded English message about that piece, explaining what it is, what it exemplifies, etc. Pieces of ancient Chinese seals, paintings, bronzes, ceramics, furniture and sculpture were simply glassed up and on display, which was quite bland for my taste. Walking around made me feel like I was skimming through my Great Asia History textbook from 10th grade; nothing I saw was new, contextualized, or at least placed in a historically artificial environment to make me appreciate it or feel as though the creative process behind the pieces are relevant to Ancient Chinese history. Nevertheless, this is what the museum looks like, and a favourite Chinese sculpture Buddha and its followers.Next stop, we visited the Oriental Pearl Tower, 3rd tallest Radio TV tower in the world. Not that spectacular especially if you’ve visited taller towers.After lunch, we decided to scout for cheap finds and first visited the popular Yu Yuan Bazaar. The place is aesthetically pleasing, the environment really touristy thus walking around really invokes feelings of being in a completely different world.Bargaining is a little more difficult in this area because it is a place for foreigners. But, I did get free stuff because I lied and said it was “my birthday”. LOL. There are a lot of things to do apart from shopping, like watch locals make arts and crafts, eat, and watch this heterosexual male Shanghainese do someone’s hair. Seriously. It’s actually pretty funny watching all these girls line up to get their hair done in beautiful buns that end up looking like a lotus flower or a four-leaf clover.

However, the place is overrated and cheaper, more interesting goods can be found in Qi Pu Lu. It’s this chaotic place surrounded by what looks like a war zone area because of the demolished houses, filled with stalls and stalls of clothing, goods, food, etc. It’s unsafe and local merchants are on the constant look out for foreigners, like myself, and every turn you make, a group of guys will mob you and offer you everything from Chinese vegetables, pirated dvds and rolex watches. And, it’s not like they stop when you ignore them or tell them to go away, they will follow you around and keep nagging you, making the experience of discovering something cheap and beautiful, disappointing and unbearable. In fact, I was stalked. In attempt to get away from this seemingly nice man who initially led me to his store, I ended up spending 20 minutes in distress, brisk walking and turning into random corners to get to our van. It actually is very scary, especially if you’re convinced he has lost sight of you and then next thing you know, he is standing a couple of feet away from you screaming he loves you and wants you to marry him. It's probably my karma because I lied and said it was my birthday. :(

Come evening, we had a pleasant dinner at Chinoise Story restaurant. Being in cold weather, tendency is to eat more, so that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. No regrets. Yet.Then we watched the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe and I could not get my bee-hind to sit still. Seeing these young boys and girls who are probably at least 10 years old, jump from poles, contort their bodies, lift each other with their foot, upside-down, with one hand will make keep you on the edge of your seat. No kidding. I had like a cycle of only 4 repetitive reactions: (1) “Oooooooh!” – with mouth and eyes in a perfect circle (2) “Wowwww!” – looks at any person next to, behind or in front of me, in a are-you-fucking-me-did-you-see-that-is-that-shit-real???? sort of way. (3) “Aaaaahhh!” – with one hand covering my mouth, other hand tightly grasping the arm rest, eyes unblinking. (4) “OMG” – shakes head from left to right in disbelief. Too bad my camera died.

After dinner, my friend Dennis picked me up from the hotel to do some catching up.He took me to this “elite” club called Muse 2 or M2 at Henlong where the DJ spun trance and people danced with firesticks (I actually don’t know what its called, but they look like fallen fireworks) instead of glowsticks. It looked pretty dangerous, but I guess people were just used to dancing around with it and it didn’t last very long anyway. I tried timing the life of a lit firestick and it lasts for less than 2 minutes. Such a waste of money. After a martini and brief attempts to speak over the music, we decided coffee was the way to go as we updated each other on whatever things.

Listless in Shanghai

With the heater in our hotel, the nights become more tolerable out here. But since I was up the entire night, I managed to get a good shot of the foggy morning from the 6th floor of where we’ve been staying. The garden on the foyer is actually very beautiful in the evenings when the lampposts are gently lit and the light falls on leaves, which sort of glistens as the chilly wind pushes it from side to side making it look like you’re gazing at the stars in the galaxy. I tried to capture this picture to help bring this image to life, but I totally failed. I guess some experiences really just can’t be shared, and better felt when experienced firsthand.

It was an idle day today and my sisters and I went sightseeing through the “boyfriend-weather”. It was drizzling at 11 degrees Celsius, making it quite hard to walk around. Trying to catch a cab in the rain was just horrible because of the language barrier. Even with a little knowledge of Mandarin Chinese, cab drivers prefer to read the Chinese characters of the place to understand where it is you really want to go. We came across five cabs who left in a jiff once I started talking, leaving Eribelle drenched because she was too stubborn to wear her coat with a hood on. Regardless of this frustrating period of time, we managed to get around, film my transportation video, and take some great photos of the city. And that’s “great” to my personal expectations – photos I used to take become sort of morphed and ugly but I’ve improved.Temperature increased to 9 degrees Celsius and I’m calling it an early night. I am getting accustomed to this type of weather but it does get a little depressing especially if you are listening to the news in the background, watching scenes from the Pakistan attack. RIP Benazir Bhutto.

I heart Shanghai

Today was Papa’s 49th birthday and he wanted to spend it in Shanghai.

Instead, he spent the entire day with his mobile phone glued onto his ear as we drove around the city with Linda, the best tour guide ever! And our driver, who’s good at kung fu and chose not to be photographed lol. Wonder if he’s some Chink commie, or some unknown stuntman whose flying kicks and super high jumps we have unknowingly seen in whatever Chinese film. So like I said, Papa got the best tour guide ever. Apparently, she is the “VIP” tour guide and took famous people around, like the Warner Brothers President Bruce Rosenblum, Tommy Hilfiger, Morgan Freeman, and many more including, check this out: some Filipino-Chinese sidekick of PGMA who traveled with a blonde Russian woman and told her he had just received a gift from the husband of PGMA and that he was famous in the Philippines. I wanted to puke.

She took us to these obscure places around Shanghai and because of her, we were indeed treated like noble figures in this foreign land. She first took us to the Jade Buddha Temple where I witnessed devout Buddhists pray on this lucky day (well 26th of December but I've been up since then). The entire place smelled of incense, which was quite pungent to the nostrils and resonated with chants led by the monks. The temple was absolutely gorgeous, but perhaps I am biased because of my undisclosed beliefs to this ideology and the fact that this temple was mainly for the female Buddha called the Goddess of Mercy – girl power!Next stop, we watched a fat oyster get knifed up yielding over 20 pearls, which we got to keep for free. It wasn’t even a factory or a tourist stop, but cause we seemed like a great bunch, they said we could keep not just one or two pieces, but every single pearl found in the oyster my mom chose. To warm up our chilly bods the Chinese way, (well, I just realized its not really Chinese but more British because they were China’s colonizers) Linda took us to an authentic tea house called, A Place for Tea Art. Here, we witnessed how tea should be prepared and served, and partook in a mock tea ceremony led by a Tea Doctor (basically an artsy fartsy name for being an expert in teas). Pics below were taken outside the tea house with my lovely sisters.Then we went to the Confucius school which was actually closed but since our tour guide was all hooked up and shiznit, we were allowed in. After that tour with a student volunteer, we went to the silk factory where we watched how silk was collected from silkworm cocoons and made into pillows, blankets/quilts, clothes, and embroidery. The lady who was explaining how silk was drawn from cocoons started picking out the silkworms and there was a point when I thought she would actually just pop it into her mouth like a fucking peanut. But she didn’t.

Finally, we had dinner at the Jin Jiang Tower revolving restaurant where I maximized input to appease my orally fixated self. Idk why but I just realized my parentals love revolving restaurants. It’s so odd.

I know I'm missing on a helluvalot of details but here's a mind map of the things I did today. Believe it or not, I understand every squiggle on that sheet of paper.Oh and I'm mad pissed cause I can't view my blog. I can write new posts and add pics but I can't view it because of the Great Firewall of China. Boo.

Christmas Day

Jesus was apparently born today according to the Sacred Scripture, tradition, the Magisterium and whatnot; so today is like a big day for many peoples around the world. This year, instead of spending today sprawled out on my bed watching one DVD after another, I'm spending it with strangers in 3 different airports. Right now I'm at the HK international airport waiting for my next flight at 1130AM, amongst the many exhausted-looking peeps passed out on the benches. It's just like any other day around here, at least where I'm seated, and it makes it a little eerie. There is a Christmas tune playing in the background, but it can faintly be heard against the constant English and Chinese announcements. I feel the warmth of the Christmas season die as the years pass; Christmas has become another overrated annual event that makes overspending legit and offers a good excuse to get drunk, stuff your face and make amends. So to all those who cling onto this holiday event to fill your empty souls and make yourself feel a little better about things, cheers. Be merry while it lasts. I really don't like airplane food.

Christmas Eve

Yesterday we were in red Tonight we were in green This is just half my family. We're really a barangay. Tag team 2. Everyone's baby. Tag team 3. The bullies Tag team A. Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year :)

Holidays

It's the season when everyone unites and collectively sets their asses for some elongated sessions of nonstop alcohol, nicotine and other rated R stuff until no one knows what day it is anymore, or how long its been since they've been wearing the same shirt. Even at such a foggy state of mind, when kangaroos are no longer marsupials but rodents, and when laptop keyboards spark, we can still talk about a black hole in the universe sucking up everything causing the universe to fucking collapse and cave in as we permute the remaining energy into matter. Scary stuff...
I smell like. Grass. boo.