Jurassic Weather

So.

While watching a brief weather report on CCTV 7 about the typhoon hitting South-Eastern China, I noticed that the introductory and background music of the show happened to be the theme music from Jurassic Park!

How crazy is that?

I've always said that if I was to have a constant music feed playing during the background of my life, it would be that song. China stole it from me!

Good song though.

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My apologies, the next post will actually hold some sort of deep cultural value. I just had to note that one down!

Discovering Shanghai - A walk to the Bund

After waking up pretty late today, I decided that I was tired of sitting around looking for work all the time, and that I needed to get out and get a feel for Shanghai. Besides, it was a beautiful day today...sunny and warm. What better day to walk about and lose myself amongst all of the buildings and people that Shanghai has to offer?

I took a small guidebook with me and read the majority of that while grabbing a cup of English breakfast tea at a cafe prior to hitting the streets for real.

I learned a bit of interesting Shanghai history from that little book, but it was obviously just a small taste, for this city is ripe with history in terms of foreign trade and Japanese takeover. At some point I will find someone who knows more about the history of Shanghai to give me a lesson, but for now I will just stick to getting lost.

Speaking of which, it was fun to just set out for the Huangpu river with no landmarks except for the enormous towers of Pudong (on the opposite side of the river) towering above the skyline. I would walk through little markets and side streets, not caring where I ended up, knowing that I could look up through any clearing and get my bearings based on the buildings within sight.

I eventually reached the Bund, which is the iconic stretch of waterfront running alongside of the Huangpu river, and spent a good hour just standing there wandering about, looking at buildings, and people-watching. Being out in the sun amongst so many people (granted, they were mostly tourists and faux-watch sellers) made me feel alive and well, and helped relieve the stress of constantly looking for work.

As I stood there leaning against the railing over the edge of the Huangpu river, a Chinese man approached me and started asking me all sorts of questions in Chinese about why I was in Shanghai, what I was doing here, why I liked it etc. I, having already been surrounded by watch, bag, and kite sellers, was convinced at first that the man was going to ask me to follow him to his alley-shop at any moment. Instead, he took a position adjacent to me leaning against the rail and just stared out towards Pudong just as I had been doing.

It turns out that he is from Tianjin, a large coastal city about thirty minutes ride from Beijing. He is in Shanghai traveling for a few days and working as a translator for a Tianjin export company. After a few minutes of talking, I got his name, Mr. Feng.

We had a nice conversation for perhaps twenty minutes to half and hour, speaking about the differences between Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, as well as the United States. Mr. Feng has never been to the US, but he has plans to go in the future if he can save the money.

We shook hands and parted ways, but not until after he gave me his phone number, telling me that if I ever happen to make it to Tianjin, or if I ever encounter a problem in China, I should give him a call. Nice guy, that Mr. Feng.

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I left the Bund and set out for food, eventually settling on an Ajisen Noodle place on the Seventh floor of a large building in the shopping district of Nanjing Lu. After that I grabbed a 珍珠奶茶 Pearl Milk Tea/Bubble Tea from a vendor, and then took of for home, passing through the People's Square along the way and dodging what seemed like hundreds of faux-watch dealers along the way.

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Shanghai is a big place. A massive place. It is clearly not as governmentally layed out as the ring roads of Beijing, and much more initmidating buildings loom over you at all times. But honestly, I think that is why I am attracted to it. I said in an earlier entry that Shanghai feels more alive; like a living, breathing city that is flourishing due to people's determination to succeed, not just because of government pressure for growth.

This is just a surface statement, by the way, for I am extremely new to Shanghai. It will be interesting to see how my views transform as I spend more and more time here.....

Expedition Evan: So exciting I can't sleep tonight!!!!

Hey! It's 4:25am, and I am leaving for the airport in an hour! Can't sleep, and I'm afraid that if I do right now I will sleep right through my alarm!

Anyway, I just wanted to post a quick entry to let everyone know that they should check out Evan Kubitschek's blog at www.expeditionevan.com

I am going to put links to both my blog and his blog on www.quicksloth.com , once I find time to learn more about how webpages work, etc.

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I'll write again soon from Shanghai, hopefully with some pictures for once because I have been slack about those.

Over and out!

Shanghai, here I come! On the move again.....

Well, it's official. I am moving from Beijing to Shanghai! I'm definitely excited, but I must say it feels a little strange to be leaving Beijing already. I never really got a chance to settle down after the Olympic stint, but I think that makes it a bit easier for me to leave for Shanghai now since my Beijing roots have not grown too deep.

I will be leaving a few really great friends, but that's the great thing about friends... they will always be there.

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Today was a ton of fun because it was perhaps the first day in a long, long time that I've not stressed out like crazy about applying to jobs and all of that.

I woke up late to Scot asking me "did you book a plane ticket?" because the ticket delivery dude was at the front door an hour and a half earlier than scheduled. I payed the man, and then it hit me: "wow... I'm really leaving." I thought to myself, prior to laying back down again for a bit.

After slightly more sleep, Scot invited me to go slacklining with him and a friend in a nearby park. Having never slacklined before, I was quite interested to give it a shot, and I took off for the park prior to eating breakfast or anything like that.

Slacklining was awesome! I am definitely a novice, having only done it this one time, but I was pretty proud of my performance.... I got 4 or 5 steps forward one time without falling. Scot and Mark, the other guy with us, were both really good at it and a lot of fun to watch.

Perhaps the most humorous part of the event was the ever-changing crowd of Chinese people who stopped for a few minutes to look at the crazy Laowai park antics. We actually got one girl to try out the line, which was cool. She was actually really good for only giving it such a quick shot!

Anyway, I was about to go climbing today as well, but my forearms are still killing me from the other day, so I think I'll hit it up either tomorrow, or as soon as I get to Shanghai.

That's the deal for now....back on the move again.

Hopefully this will be the last time for a while!

Quick Sloth

Alright everyone, prepare yourselves! www.quicksloth.com is now up and running!

Of course, it's in it's basic form just to make sure it worked.... but it does!

Yeah I know, I haven't written anything in a while. Forgive me, life has been.... interesting.

New post coming soon!

www.quicksloth.com

Riding Forever

The last few days have been fantastic, mainly due to the fact that I am finally getting a chance to take a breather and just get focused on what is important to me. All of the train-hopping, apartment-moving, hostel-staying of the last two weeks really sapped a good bit of my energy there for a while, so staying in one place for over two days has been a dream come true.





Scot's apartment is quite nice, equipped with a western-esque bathroom, big kitchen, sitting room, and beds that beat hostel beds anyday.





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One of the main perks of staying with Scot has been the extra bicycle that he has: a blue woman's bike with the word "Forever" written across its body in big purple letters.





(Don't mean to sound sexist by saying "woman's bike", but the fact of the matter is it's designed for girls...)





Yeah, I know you're jealous..... few people have what it takes to handle such a beast, but I manage to keep 'er under control.





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Anyway, the last few days have consisted of me and Scot biking around town a bit, which is much cheaper and faster than any other means of transportation around here.





Biking on the streets of Beijing is new to me. I won't lie, it's a little scary due to the fact that I never have any idea what anyone is going to do at any moment. Sometimes people seem to be giving you the right of way, waiting until you are just about to pass in front of them.... and then they decide to start going, thus nearly eliminating you.





Other times, which is actually the majority of the time, as I am riding straight towards someone coming the opposite direction, we both begin to do the "don't know which direction to go" stutter, and end up almost colliding head on, before finally branching away from each other in the end.





And so far I'm just talking about other people riding bikes, by the way.





Cars are a whole different story, one that I will touch on some other time.





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Yesterday Scot and I biked down Dongzhimen Outer Street 东直门外大街 to an art exhibition going on at the Beijing National Agricultural Center.





The exhibited artwork was mostly of the modern variety, and mostly all Chinese as well, though there were some westerner's there displaying their works.





One piece that I saw that I really loved was titled "Green Dog". I'll try to post a picture of it into this entry....

There... added it to the beginning of the entry. That is actually a different piece than what I saw, but it is in the same series. The one at the exhibition was a bit more "out there"...you might say.

Anyway, it's hard to beat a good art show.

Metallica

Maybe I am just behind the times, caught up in everything going on over here.... but I just found out that Metallica's newest album is coming out on September 12th!

I can't wait!!!!!!!

Hopefully it will be better than Saint Anger.....

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday Daddio! Love you!

I'll be calling once it's not 5:45am over there ;)

Recycling Issues

This is just a quick side-note:

Yesterday, in my delirious state of moving things around and online-testing, I somehow managed to send my desktop recycling bin....to the recycling bin.

Now, that may not seem funny at the moment, but at the time I almost died laughing at myself.

Who does that? I meant to click the "empty recycling bin" button, but instead I told the recycling bin to send itself to the recycling bin, thus making it dissappear completely.

That's my college education at work! ;)

Another move

Last night I went out to meet my friend Scott, who I met through the OMEGA deal, for a drink or two around Sanlitunr. To be honest, a drink sounded like the best thing in the world at the time, because yesterday was one of the longest days of my life. I will first write about the crazyness of yesterday-day, then follow later with a fun tale about the chubby British guy who turned a night of "a quick drink" into a night of sillyness.

Yesterday morning I finally slept in without setting an alarm or anything. I've only done that one other time since coming to China.... it's nice to get away from those beeps for once! I got up, went out to the street, found some Baozi 包子 for breakfast, and then took off for the climbing wall to get some excercise in. However, by the time I reached the wall, I had only about half an hour to climb around because I had to be back at a computer to take an online editing test for a position with Edelman PR here in Beijing.

Anyway, I grabbed a cup of coffee at the Traveler's Cafe inside the hostel, and then took the test. It was quite interesting and actually a lot of fun!

I then immediately jumped on the subway to trek across town back to Gilbert's apartment to retrieve my belongings, including almost all of my money and clothing, and bring all of that back to my homebase in the hostel.

I hung out with Gilbert for a while at his place. We drank a few cups of tea while I helped him look over some of his past translations of economist articles. Seriously, the amount of time and dedication he puts into his translations astounds me!

After translating for a while, I packed up my things and said goodbye to him for now. It's not like I was leaving forever, but the other side of town seems kind of far sometimes!

I returned to the hostel, through my bags in the room, took a two-minute cold shower, and then went to meet Scott.

---------------------- Will post a seperate entry about last night---------------------------

Scott, being the nice guy that he is, invited me to stay in his place for a while until I figure out where I will be living and the job situation. Staying with him is much more convenient than the hostel, as far as I am concerned.... and definitely more comfortable (though I seriously do love the hostel atmosphere..... it's just hard to think clearly in such a random place).

So yeah. That's what's going on today.... I just dropped my things at Scott's place, and now we are both busy doing the same thing: hunting jobs.

In a bit I will make an entry about last night, but first I need a bit of time to compile my thoughts.

Over.

Surreal

Picked a hostel this evening, and now I'm just going with it.

The next few days will involve lots of pondering, researching, and investigation as to where I want to live, where it's possible for me to live, and where I am going from here.

It's surreal really....not knowing what's just around the bend...

But yeah...at this point I just have to go with it.

Goodnight.

Hostel Time

I'm safely back in Beijing, and now commencing to make my life extremely complicated haha.

I just cancelled the deal with my Landlady, though I think I may have to pay a small fee for that. I'm going to spend the next few days in a hostel while figuring out job stuff, because I don't want to pay for three months of housing and then find out I'm going to be in Shanghai....

It's worth it just to hostel it up for a while. Besides, there's no better way to meet people!

Anyway, the best news is that I finally secured www.quicksloth.com after emailing its German owner a bunch of times, and a tip from Jake (he noticed that it had been released). Get prepared for its awesomeness! I don't know when I will find the time to build a site...but sometime.....

Tomorrow I have an online editing test with Edelman PR, and if I do ok on that I will probably get an interview for a job. That should be interesting, to say the least.

Tonight will involve me both moving into the hostel and bargaining with Coco, the landlady, about trying to get my downpayment back. That should be interesting!

Right now I'm sitting in a cafe just outside of Beijing Waiguo Yu Da Xue 北京外国语大学 (Beijing Foreign Language University), waiting on Gilbert's roommate to get back home from work because all of my belongings that I did not take to Shanghai are locked in his room!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Life is SO crazy right now!

Anyway, I bought a new Business Chinese studies book in Shanghai, so I suppose I will delve into that for a few hours now until I can get to my belongings.

Enough rambling....time to study!

Peace