A Full November Weekend

So Friday not much happened. It's Monday and I can't remember what the heck I did three days ago. I'm guessing it was my normal "housework/craftiness/laziness" triple threat which involves me alternating puttering around cleaning and watching movies while knitting.

Saturday I went to brunch at a place called Arch in Puxi. I still get a sense of satisfaction when I find a new place for the first time without any problems. I ordered the "American Breakfast" which included steak, sunny side up eggs, roasted herb potatoes, a fruit cup, sauteed mushrooms and onions and a....German sausage. K? It was tasty, though I am a carb queen and would have liked some toast or something. I got there at 11:30 and stayed until about 3 just laughing and talking and meeting new people. It was some of the same people from the wine tasting, plus a bunch more. I met a friend of Ron's who was visiting from Beijing.

After brunch I went with Isabelle to the craft market. She was the most excited about the idea of starting a knitting group so I invited her to go with me to get supplies. I figured I would get a whole bunch of yarn and needles and sell them to people who came to the first meeting. It would be cheaper for everyone if I bought in bulk. She and I had some trouble though. First it took us about a half and hour to get a taxi. When we finally saw an empty one, she gallantly ran across the street through traffic and waved him down. Then when we got to the craft market, I ended up in the wrong one. There are a few handicraft markets in the Yuyuan garden area and only one sells yarn (that I know of). They all look alike so it gets confusing. When we stopped looking for the market and started looking for a place to get coffee instead, we found it by accident! We were walking towards a KFC sign (KFC sells coffee here) and it was just an advertisement. Right across the street from the sign was the right craft market. Yay!

After that we walked to the subway and parted ways, but with plans to meet up later at Shanghai Studio (a bar/club) that night. I went back to Pudong and met up with Ron and his friend from Beijing who were doing some sight seeing. We stopped at my place to rest for a minute and so I could drop off my giant bag of yarn and stuff, then went to dinner.

We couldn't decide for the longest time where to go for dinner. We had considered going to the Super Brand Mall, but then decided to go to some place in JinQiao near me. But then we couldn't decide where. Finally we ended up in the foot court area underneath the Carrefour. Ron suggested we each get something we wanted and meet up to eat. I am so glad we did! The food was AWESOME and pretty cheap. I got a bowl of this delicious broth with noodles, pork and seafood dumplings. It was sooo good. I kid you not, my stomach just growled thinking about it. Ha! I am definitely going back there.

After that we headed back to Fudan where Ron is studying. We went to his dorm room so he could change for the club. It was weird and cool to be back in a dorm room. His dorm was pretty cool. His room was not very big but not too small. It even had a balcony! Down the hall there was a kitchen with a bunch of burners and every student gets a cabinet that can lock so you can store your food there. Cool! Ron also made me a tasty drink he invented made with instant coffee, chocolate milk mix, and amaretto. Delicious.

His friend from Beijing (whose real name was Alex but I decided to call Daniel) was exhausted so he ended up going back to where he was staying and get some rest. Another friend of Ron's who I think was named Christina met up with us to go to the bar. I had SO MUCH FUN. Hanging out with Ron and his friend was very cool. A lot of the people at the club were the same people from the wine tasting and brunch and pub crawl! It was nice to see familiar faces, even if I still don't know everyone that well. And everyone is so nice. First we sat and talked and had some drinks and then we went dancing! The dance floor was a little small but not totally packed like some clubs I've been too. I had a complete stranger come up to me at one point and say "GIRL! You were OWNING the dance floor!" which I took as a very high compliment. :-)

The only downside of the evening, as per usual, was the hike back to Pudong. The taxi driver didn't even know where he was going so I had to show him on a map where I lived. I got to bed around 4am. My throat was killing me from yelling and singing at the top of my lungs. I couldn't help it. They played good music.

Sunday morning I got up and had a shower. Then I FINALLY went to the post office and sent out Cori and Dave's packages. Sadly they are going to take two months to get to them. AUGH. At least sending them was relatively painless so I can get there to send more. Plus I learned the post office IS open on Sundays so my window of opportunity is wider.

As I was biking to the post office, my left pedal felt weird. Once again, the bolt came off. Luckily the bike repair people are in the same direction as the post office so I only had to bike a little further. I probably looked ridiculous as I would pedal two or three times and then swiftly kick sideways to push the pedal back on. I nearly knocked myself off a few times. The guy I went to last time wasn't there but there was another fellow just a few feet further down the road. He fixed it up super quick and I was on my way again.

Other than that I didn't do much on Sunday. Laundry and craftiness. I had a video chat with Alicia and Ciara randomly, which was nice. I had a internet phone chat with my parents. No webcam since mom's computer is off in the twilight zone and when I tried to use my webcam my sound came through bad.

At 6 I met up with a student of mine, Carter, about the medieval projects his class has been working on. Then he asked me to read a letter he was sending as part of an application. We worked together for about an hour fixing it up. Fixing grammar and spelling but mostly working on making sure it flowed. Sometimes having a native speaker is very helpful. Like knowing that propaganda has a negative connotation. Stuff like that.

Anyway, that's really it and now it's monday and I need to get to class. The days seem to go by so quickly here. I am going to Ron's birthday dinner tonight. Thursday is Thanksgiving which makes me sad, but I will be hopefully video chatting with my family.

Ok, I really do need to go to class.

Love and hugs!
Stephanie