Currently, Elliott and I are being those guys at a café on our laptops, blogging the Sunday away, but I think we may have found what I think the only bagel place in Shanghai. Of course, owned and operated by a dude from Jersey. I don’t think ex-pats from the tri-state area can get over a hangover without a bagel with schmear or a sausage egg and cheese on an everything, even in China. I’m getting crazy and going for the surf and turf for the morning splitting a lox and cream cheese and a chorizo scramble with my friend Henrik. A gamble that I think might pay off.
This week was kind of weird one, but fun nonetheless. We had a day off on Wednesday for the Mid-Autumn festival, a time in China to eat moon cakes, but I think that’s it. Kevin has since become a VIP at the Belgian beer bar Kaiba, only costing him about $50 USD for the semester, so we went to their 2 nd birthday party on Tuesday night. Our waitress from the last time Mia, being the true angel that she is, got us all in as VIPs and really just hooked it up for us all night. It was an all you can drink Veddette Extra White and Duvell courtyard party, a Labor Day BBQ at its finest. The rest of the night is kind of a haze, but we ended up back at the Jazz and Blues bar and danced the night away to Mike Null and the Soulcasters…and I’ll leave it at that.
The rest of the week until Friday kind of sucked, as my roommate ended up getting me sick. Actually, at least 10 kids in the group have been sick this week so, I can’t totally blame him. You gotta love living in dorm style rooms again. I stayed in on Thursday and Friday, which was real lame, but we’re going to Tibet on Wednesday so I was not trying to be unhealthy for that trip.
Saturday morning I felt a lot better and we took a daytrip to Suzhou, a city of about 6 million people that’s an hour and a half away from Shanghai. Our program advertised it to us as “the Venice of China”, so group morale was pretty high going into the city. Little did we know that it was more like the Milwaukee of China. Not that I have anything against the great city of Milwaukee, I really dig it’s vibes, but Suzhou was a huge disappointment. It was Shanghai’s ugly step-sister, kind of like what Milwaukee is to beautiful Chicago. Sorry I’m not sorry. The trip took us to 3 places in the city: a silk factory, a boat cruise, and a garden.
The factory was a huge waste of time, just an uninteresting tourist trap. Elliott and I were able to get a few pairs of silk boxers/shorts (not really sure if I know what they are yet) on clearance, which we then wore for the rest of the day. Same went for the boat cruise, as they packed us onto a tiny boat and road around for an hour or two not really seeing all that much. Not even close to as much fun as the booze cruise we went on in Milwaukee last spring (Milwaukee still has it’s redeeming qualities). The park was really beautiful, tucked away as a sleepy getaway in a bustling city. It was just a shame that it was packed in with hundreds of tourists, including our fifty-person group. Had I been the only person there I think I would have really gotten a chance to truly appreciate it, but it was just kind of hard with so many people around.
The disappointment of this day trip resulted in a mass desire to have a crazy night, and it really didn’t disappoint. It started off at an all you can eat AND DRINK sushi spot. I kid you not, if we were in the states, the group of seven of us went thru about $2000 worth of sushi, sake, plum wine and beer. That’s not even counting the 15 other guys who were on the floor above us doing the exact same thing. This tiny sushi spot had no idea what had hit em. Two and a half hours of non-stop eating and sake for college students is never a good thing for a restaurant.
Guys from the upstairs were going to the bathroom so frequently that we had to turn it into a drinking game. In order to catch up to them, as they were there a half hour before us, we had a draft of the guys from upstairs for who would go to the bathroom the most. When your guy makes it past the table, you have to drink a craft of sake. Confusing, I know, but at the time it made a lot of sense and since I franchise so much in Madden and NBA 2k10, I can never turn down a draft. This easily caught us up and put us on track for a great night.
When we left the restaurant, at about 11ish, it was like a bomb went of across the street from the sake place. Everyone had their big arse bottles of beer, that the restaurant let us take out, probably a mistake on their part. Right when we got across the street, in about a span of 15 seconds Flans threw up, someone dropped their beer, which exploded on the ground and then our friend Colin threw up. Some people just can’t handle all you can eat sushi. The night continued at a club in the nice part of town Xaintiandi, called G+, where we owned the dance floor. Shenanigans ensued, but Elliott covers the night in more detail at his blog www.gyratingeastward.blogspot.com , so ya’ll should check it out I think he'll have it up soon. It was a real solid night out after our crappy day in China’s Milwaukee.
We go to Tibet and Mount Everest this upcoming Wednesday for an 11 day train adventure. We still haven’t paid in full, gotten tickets or really have a set itinerary from our travel agent yet, but we’re just going with the flow. Flans came up with an idea to start a Grournal (Group Journal) to document our daily feelings and sights in Tibet, so I’ll try to get that posted on the blog when I can. It should be one hell of a trip at 18,000 feet above sea level so ill take as many pictures as I can while we’re there. Hopefully altitude sickness doesn’t incapacitate me either, but that’s still to be seen. Great Badgers win against Austin Peay, I hope the first gameday at the house was a blast, and I praying Jay Cutler continues his solid play against the Pack on Tuesday morning (Monday night in the US).
Peace from Shanghai,
Drew
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