I've been slacking on my blog...too busy having fun!! :)
Friday, July 31:
I think I've actually found some food that I dislike! I tried a Szechuan restaurant and the food there was absolutely terrible!!! Everything was soaked in oil and hot peppers. Apparently, that's the style of Szechuan food...it's very hot and spicy cooked with lots of hot oil. We ordered a beef dish that came out in this huge bowl and the top was just a thick layer of oil. I could barely eat it...and it also had this spice called huajiao, meaning 'flower pepper' (Szechuan peppercorn). I didn't realize what it was and ate one by accident...and my tongue felt so weird...it apparently numbs your tongue if you eat it!! The numbness only lasted for a little while, but I think that contributed to the rest of the food tasting so badly or maybe it was just bad!! Ugh..I don't remember Szechuan food being like this in the US....
Tom's wife, Tracy, took me to the garment district since I was interested in getting a qipao (Chinese dress). There were tons of little shops that will make custom clothes (even western style clothing) and we found some that also make the qipaos. I found a style that I really liked (it's not as traditional as the regular qipao, but still retains some similarities). I tried on the sample they had and it fit me perfectly except they needed to pull in the waist. With alterations, it would still take one day, so I decided to have them make a new one for me in a fabric that I liked better. I'm picking it up on Monday...very excited to see the final product. I also had a little handbag made in the same fabric...now I just need to find matching shoes and jewelry!!! :)
My bargaining skills are getting much better now. I've gotten some things for pretty good prices and even went so low on this one item that the poor girl had to call her father to get the OK to sell it to me at that price. :)
Saturday, Aug 1:
Tom's marketing manager, Lillian, took me out around the city today. Lillian speaks English very well...she is Shanghainese (sp?), but studied in New Zealand for 6 years before returning to Shanghai 2 years ago. Tom thought we would get along really well since we are both around the same age. She took me to Yuyuan Garden, which use to be the backyard of a chinese official. Wow, with a backyard like that, I'd never leave the house!!! It was beautiful, with imported stones and chinese architecture. I wished I had my nikon with me. Surrounding the garden are little shops for all the tourists and we went to a great dumpling place for lunch. This place has really good dumplings...the line was really long just to get seated!!!
Lillian had her friends pick us up after we were done at the garden and we went to Pudong to hang around by Huangpu River. The river divides the city into 2 regions: Pudong (east) and Puxi (west). It was raining, so we didn't get to walk around too much. During dinner, we had a great view of the river and city...at night, it's really beautiful with all the lights. That's the great thing about big cities...it always looks really nice at night. I especially like the lights on the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. The tower is the world's third tallest TV and radio tower...we didn't go in...just saw it from the outside. It has a restaurant that spins around...just like the Sundial in Atlanta!!
After dinner, we all went home to change. Lillian had a friend who was having a grand opening for an Irish pub...so this was my first night out and I was very excited. I didn't bring any going out clothes, but luckily, I'd purchase a few items that I was able to put together into an outfit. I was so happy to be able to dress up after being raggety for 4 weeks...it felt good!!! The bar is called Paddy Wang's Irish Pub. We met up with some of Lillian's other friends and most of them did not speak English (or they chose not to speak English at first). To get around the language barrier, we played some drinking games and since I don't drink, I drank alot of orange juice. At one point, I ran out of orange juice, so they had me drink a little bit of beer. UGH!!! It was so nasty...I only took a sip. Most of them were drinking so much that by the end of the night, a few of them started speaking English to me...it was funny. I kept encouraging them to drink so they would speak English more. I had a great time with them...they were a crazy bunch!!! :)
