LoveJY

“I can tell you are a good person from your kind eyes. I hope we meet again someday!”

I was Yonghe Gong Lama Temple, and this lady came up to me. She wanted me to take a picture of her, first asking if there was a fee. When I told her no, she kept saying that she could tell I was a good person. She thanked me profusely after I took this photo, and then repeated that first line while holding my hand. I was a little wary that she might be trying to con me into something, but after a few more emphatic repetitions, she just smiled and walked away.

I had a wonderful first afternoon in Beijing- after the visa office, I took the subway to Gulou Street, where I spontaneously rented a bike from a random hostel. I rode around by myself for about two hours and happed upon the old drum and bell towers. I decided to go up the bell tower, and ended up getting shadowed by two little girls who were afraid of heights and the dark (the stairwells are steep and can be almost pitch black even in the daytime). When we got up to the top, there was an old man all by himself, reading about how the bell tower was constructed in 1272.

Well, since that day one week ago, I’ve had food poisoning and sinusitis via bad pollution + dry air, so I haven’t been able to go out in the gloriously beautiful weather. But today, finally, today I can go outside and not feel dizzy or achy or feverish.

Not too sure where I should visit today, since I saw a lot my first time around when Crystal was here. Perhaps I’ll go see Mao.

Today is my 270th day in Shanghai. My slowness in updating has been partly due to my indecisiveness on what to blog about. At first this was a place for me to write about my feelings and my revelations, then a place for fun pictures, then a place for dreams and goals, and things I’ve learned. I guess it could be a place for all of the above, but for now, I’m going back to posting visual tidbits. Let’s just say there’s a ton on my mind, but until I can put all those thoughts together, I’m going to go back to my secret project while listening to old school Norah Jones along with the cracking thunder and pouring rain.

caught in a summer storm on bike, second time. first time we didn’t have umbrellas and got completely soaked riding home. this time i had my very small umbrella from japan, and we still got soaked. we heard a couple people laugh when we rode past them.

these little buggers are the background choralists for summer’s soundtrack here. it doesn’t feel right on the hot days without hearing the constant buzzing of the cicadas.

random cute baby.

i brought my underwater camera to the gym, and we used it in the pool. yes, cap and goggles are mandatory for all the pools here.

no, just one pack will be fine, thanks.

took the wrong bus to a beach that should’ve been only an hour away, but it took us two hours. two hours. to a beach with hot water, imported sand, no waves, and jay chou on the loudspeakers. alas, we were had at “beach” and couldn’t resist.

this was about half an hour ago, when it was pouring.

this is now, as the french say, “il pleut comme la vache pisser”. storm on!

1. You can feed certain human medicines, both western and Chinese, to a kitten – like tylenol, de-wormer, and huang lian su.

2. It’s possible to be a succesful artist and own a thriving unique/cozy/ coffee shop, without having gone to school related to either.

3. As of tomorrow, “yellow mold season” in Shanghai will be over and although not as humid, it will start to be VERY HOT.

4. Cheesepuff is the best cat ever. He likes attention but isn’t clingy or naggy, he’s really clean, and he’s super quirky.

5. You can type “7456!” when chatting in Chinese to say “气死我了” about something annoying or frustrating  (lit. makes me angry to death!)

6. Most older people regret not traveling more while they were young.

a random collection of some of the more memorable moments in may…

i thought about just leaving all of these little pictures without any explanation, but i thought it’d be more fun if you actually knew what was going on in all of these. maybe next time, i’ll just leave a slew of photos for your viewing and guessing pleasure, hehe.

for the may 1st holiday, ricky and i went to visit my parents in chengdu. it appears that in preparation of the expo, pudong airport suddenly became the popular place for strange silver people. we also saw a couple sitting in some of the waiting area seats with their silver laptops.

in chengdu, we visited the excavation site of the jinsha ancient civilation (discovered in 2001), which is estimated to have existed about 3000 years with a sudden disappearance, comparable to the inca’s. 

there ricky found an interactive touch-screen which wasn’t running the proper informational software. he managed to find his way to ‘paint’ and proceeded to create his own version of …   what should’ve looked something like this:   .

engrish in chengdu. 

we also visited my parents’ new apartment on the 33rd floor! this is the view looking down from their laundry room.

back in shanghai, i usually cross the suzhou river  on the way to work, and from the bridge i saw a group of migrant workers playing cards and laughing in the early morning. 

this was actually one of the first nice weather days we had, so you can guess how much we miss sunshine, if this is considered a nice day.   

we went to the expo, and this was on the way to one of the entrances. (almost) completely empty. 

there were tons of people once we got in though, and we heard that to get into the chinese pavilion, you have to wait at 6 in the morning for a reservation ticket that gets passed out at 9. we settled for a picture on the outside, except it wouldn’t fit in the picture even though we kept backing up, because it was just too darn huge. our estimation was that it was about 40-50 stories high. 

didn’t get inside too many other pavilions, but we made it into spain, which was cool for the most part until we got to the end where a giant baby god-robot stared down upon us all.  

really cool concept for the uk pavilion, but being as it was very small and not informative about the uk at all, it makes us wonder if england is just good for having 60,000 seeds (which were actually provided by the kunming institute of botany) 

i also permed my hair the day before. tada, uk pavilion from the back, on gray astro-turf. 

we had dinner one night at a xinjiang restaurant where at about 9pm a few studly xinjiang men came upstairs to sing and make us dance with them. quite the unexpected exciting night.  

on a rainy night, ricky and i randomly stopped at an outdoor cafe outside jing’an park. see previous post. 

mouse at work! apparently it ate a poison pill and so it was slowly dying my coworker tried to sweep it onto a dustpan but it had a second wind and started scampering away. the girls screamed and i chased it down with a trashcan. the janitor later came to take it away. 

maybe i should bring my kitty to work. all the fruit shops here have cats to keep away the mice and other pests. my kitty is a weirdo; i found him chilling on the side of my bed with half of his body hanging off the edge.

i woke up one morning at 5 because i had to pee, walked into the living room and got blinded by the rising sun. while i was taking this picture, i had a feeling my aptmate was going to come home, as he often does at crazy hours. strangely enough, as soon i clicked the button, i heard his key in the door. 

ricky and i got an electric scooter! well i’m planning to take this one so ricky can get a bigger and faster one. i rode it home for the first time tonight, and it was really fun but scary maneuvering through people and odd obstacles, not to mention other scooterists on the sidewalk. yes, we all ride on the sidewalk. 

Since my last post.

I seriously cannot believe how time flies. The days go by so much quicker when you have a job. And even though there are so many more things I want to post about, the longer I wait, the longer I postpone, and then I end up forgetting what I wanted to post in the first place.

Starting to think maybe I should go back to posting more photos, especially since even though I’ve been learning about and improving my studio shooting, I really miss shooting outdoors.

With that, here’s to Chengdu, a beautifully comfortable place to live, also known as home of the pandas.

So… I was watching Clash of the Titans at Ricky’s but I came home early because I have to get up early for work tomorrow. So far it’s been like Power Rangers meets Twilight meets Harry Potter meets Starship Troopers.

Anyway, I came home to find that there’s a crazy event going on across the street at the stadium. I was very disappointed that I wasn’t going get enough sleep, but then I recognized a couple songs and looked through the little binoculars I had brought to Shanghai. Yup, it was Wang Leehom.

Oh, thank goodness they just finished. It was totally Sungod status but China style, with crazy lights and uber loud speakers.

Ah, Shanghai.

Just looked up Stadium events and apparently Jay Chou will be here June 25th. Free concert from my balcony, anyone?

Before I forget, I need to post this photo that I shot in the Beijing Aquarium. Most tanks were fairly normal, but I guess they thought it wouldn’t be uniquely Chinese sans at least one tank complete with the rainbow lights.

Also, on my way to the airport, my taxi driver picked up two 1rmb coins from the change bin when we were stopped at a light, and he started pinching at his chin. I couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing because there’s a clear plastic separater between him and all the passenger seats, but it wasn’t long before I realized he was tweezing his beard hairs. When the light turned green, he tossed the coins back in the change bin, started driving again, and everything proceeded as normal.

If you didn’t know already, T.I.C. means THIS IS CHINA. Not everything goes the way you’d expect or even imagine, but hey, life only gets richer from here on out.

I’ve been in Beijing for the last 6 days, waiting for my visa extension to go through. In the meantime, Crystal’s taken me and another friend around the huge city, to amazing historical sites that are just incredible. We went to the Great Wall first, on an extremely cold day, as you can see it had just snowed (in March!). We only hiked past 4 towers, but it felt like we went so far because of all the climbing up and down in the biting wind. It’s hard to imagine how tough it was to build such an immense structure, totalling about 8000km in length, all along the highest points of the mountain; and on top of that, how soldiers had to navigate it with 20kg+ worth of armor and weaponry! That afternoon we also went to the Houhai Lake area, where we saw old men jumping into the half-frozen lake in their speedos!

The next day we went to Tiananmen, where Mao’s portrait famously hangs facing the Great Hall of the People. We wanted to see the Chairman, but the mausoleum was closed to the public for the week-long annual Party meeting. Out of 52 weeks, it had to be this one… But then we also went to the Forbidden City–where we walked through door after door after door– and the Temple of Heaven, the unique circular temple symbolizing heaven (heaven as round, earth as square).

I thought Shanghai was big and amazing–which it is– but Beijing definitely has more cultural significance and historical sites, all of which are just mindblowing. 不可思议: inconceivable, unfathomable.

Tomorrow, Summer Palace  and Beijing Zoo+Aquarium!

Addendum. Met a new group of cousins tonight, all super nice. I really wish I had grown up with more extended family around. I can only imagine how wonderful it would’ve been to have so many close  哥哥姐姐’s (in Chinese culture we call older cousins older brother, older sister, and since I’m the youngest on this side of the family, hurrah!). Growing up with my one older brother was awesome, so having 10 more would’ve been crazy! Since my dad was one of the younger ones in his generation, most of my cousins on my this side of the family are already middle-aged and married with kids, so it felt a little weird in the beginning calling them 哥哥姐姐when normally I would call people their age 叔叔阿姨 (uncle, auntie). Anyway, to put it simply, it was nice.  I like being in China.

one of many overpass networks. this is near a huge column that has dragon carvings all over it. according to rumors, it was done because the construction workers couldn’t drill through the ground for the foundation, so superstition called upon the power of the dragon. story doesn’t end there. supposedly it was to be kept a secret otherwise the power would disappear; legend says the guy who let the cat out of the bag died within a few days. or something like that.

randomly wandered into an underground boutique area where we found a booth with a few guys who had started their own line of guitars and had just opened shop.

dust dust everywhere. i really hope i don’t contract a respiratory disease. all the plants outside have a thick layer of dust on their leaves. ricky’s cousin said she can’t recall ever seeing a plant in shanghai without this kind of dusty layer.

passed by a table with bowls of turtles. this one’s furry! hehe

pepper, not really. hippo, definitely.

a glimpse at the expo. the building for china looks like a certain library.

unsettling name for an elementary school.

with a smile on his face

hyper little bugger, but he can sit still for a long watching the bubbles pop after i finish washing the dishes.