Right now I am supposed to teach my students how to write about statistics. I hated statistics class in college so I am not looking forward to this.
This weekend was pretty good. Friday night I got my first real good nights sleep that I could remember for a long time. It was nice.
Saturday ended up being a rather unlucky day, although overall it was a lot of fun. First of all, I was in desperate need of a shower but the water was off in my building. I had plans to meet Lucy, Isa and Isa's friend Nora (who was visiting from Beijing) at 7pm. As it got closer and closer to you-should-really-leave-the-apartment-in-order-to-get-there-in-time o'clock, I was getting more and more worried. I kept running to the faucet and checking to see if the water was back like I had bad OCD. Finally, when I had almost given up hope, SUCCESS!
I immediately stripped down and hopped in the shower. I wasn't in there for 10 seconds when there was a knock at the door. UGH! I considering ignoring it but I was worried it would be a maintenance guy telling me that I shouldn't be using the water for some reason. I hopped back out, wrapped a towel around me and went to the door. It WAS a maintenance guy, but he just wanted to know if I had water. (Umm...didn't he hear the SHOWER?) I told him yes, he smiled and went away, and I got my wonderful glorious shower.
I got all prettied up and headed out. I had just turned right outside of the school gate and was still walking on my street when I slipped, fell and coated myself in mud. I am not kidding. Luckily I didn't get any on my face or in my hair, but everything I was wearing was a mess. My shiny white sneakers I got a month ago, my purse, my jeans, both the inside and outside layers of my jacket, and worst of all a brand new white blouse that I was wearing for the first time (I hadn't even taken the tags off yet!) Oh I was mad.
In the bathroom sink I rinsed off the majority of the mud from my purse, jeans and inner layer of my coat then threw them in the wash. I left my sneakers out so that the mud could dry and I could beat the dirt off later. The outside layer of my coat got washed in the sink and hung to dry, as did the blouse. Luckily the blouse wasn't stained.
I got prettied up...AGAIN. I had to use my very touristy Mao ZeDong bag because it was my only other purse. I had to wear dress shoes because I had no other sneakers. I also had to use my shawl because I had no other jacket. I took a taxi the whole way (60 RMB...bah) since I no longer had time for the subway, and still just barely made it there in time.
The restaurant was delicious. We went to the Lotus Flower for Indian food. It was a very cool restaurant where they had the low tables and you take off your shoes and sit on the floor with cushions and such. We got garlic naan, mutton curry, some sort of delicious sausage type thing in a cashew nut sauce, saffron rice, spinach with cotttage cheese, yogurt...it was all VERY good. We got beer with dinner and then martinis afterwards. Oh...and did I mention that the waitress spilled and entire glass of water down my back? And because I was sitting on a cushion area my seat was wet for the rest of dinner? Seriously, what was WITH this Saturday? The manager came over to apologize and I told him not to worry about it. The girls said I should have freaked out and maybe got us some free food, but I know it was an accident and I didn't want the waitress to get in trouble.
As we leaving and putting our shoes back on, one of my shoelaces broke. At that point I wasn't even surprised anymore. I even told the girls as I was heading to the bathroom that if I wasn't back in 10 minutes, to just assume I had fallen and broken my neck.
After the restaurant we went to Shanghai Studio since they were having free drinks for Women's Day (March 8th). We sat around chatting and playing "Never Have I Ever" for a bit. After that Lucy headed home and Isa, Nora and I decided to go to Windows Underground (for my faithful readers, the last time I went was with Benno and Kyle way back in October). This time the place was packed, but the drinks and food were still just as cheap and delicious.
We played a dice game for a bit that Isa and Nora play in Germany where you roll two dice, not showing the other players and say the higher number of the two first. So if you rolled and 2 and a 3 you would say "32". Obviously the highest you can get is 66, except that 21 is the max for some reason. You take turns rolling and the number has to go higher and higher as you go. If the number you roll ISN'T higher than the person before you, you have to lie. If the next person thinks you are lying, they reveal your roll. If you were NOT lying, they have to drink, if you were lying, you have to drink. Nora was after me in our game and I think she was getting more and more annoyed at me because she always thought I was lying and 9 times out of 10 I wasn't.
We also played foosball for a bit and I found something out. I rock at foosball. I started playing with Isa and Nora in turns, but they dissapeared for a bit and I ended up playing with other people at the bar. Sometimes two against one, sometimes with this super excited guy in a black shirt you wanted to high five me anytime ANYONE scored a goal. Big, enthusiastic high fives when we scored, and low, calm high fives when the other team scored.
I also made sure to dance. I got pulled onto the dance floor in the middle of a foosball game once and soon after that was ushered onto the little stage right next to the dance floor. I was up there for a minute or two before someone passed me some wings to wear (you know, cardboard wings covered with fake feathers?). I figured what the heck and put them on. I already get stared at a lot. I got home around 3:30AM.
Sunday I woke up early-ish because there was a group getting a chorus together and I figured what the heck. I miss working with a group towards something and I miss singing and performing. I was happy to find that the meeting place was off of line 4 so I didn't have to go through People's Square. Whee! The meeting turned out to be excellent practice for my Chinese since, other than the woman running the meeting, I was the only foreigner there. We spoke Chinese for the whole meeting and also sung a bunch of Chinese songs. We also sang New York, New York (I said we should change it to Shanghia, Shanghai...hehe).
After I was supposed to meet up with Isa and Nora to finally go to the Financial Bulding (the huge one that looks like a bottle opener), so I went to the Super Brand Mall to get some coffee to wait. Turns out they slept late and there wasn't enough time to go or Nora would miss her flight back to Beijing so we had to cancel. That's makes for three times now where I had plans to go to that darn building that got cancelled last minute. Maybe fate is telling me not to go. Part of me was glad they cancelled. I was very happy to just sit outside with my coffee, reading my book and enjoying the first rays of sunshine I had seen in weeks. I also bought a book of Tridoku. For those of you that like Sudoku, you should try Tridoku. It's Sudoku in a triangle and it has some VERY COMPLICATED and CONFUSING rules. It's fun.
(I just realized that the students in the school next door are playing baseball TOWARDS our school. Like, if someone gets a homerun it is coming through a window. Bah)
Anyway, back in school now. This Friday is open house for parents that are consideirng sending their parents to this school. It's a little nerve wracking. I hate teaching with an audience. I've been doing a lot of lecturing and class discussions. I don't think I have had a "fun" class since I've been back. This week I am going to do some more songs in class. This time about money and being rich (since this whole section in the book has been about money). So far I've thought of "If I was a rich girl" by Gwen Stefani, "If I had $1,000,000" by the Bare Naked Ladies, and "Mo' Money Mo' Problems" by Notorious B.I.G. Any other suggestions? Preferrably new songs?
Love!
Steph
Our hostel:
A nice picture of West Lake:
A picture of some cherry blossoms (and a BEE!):
A Hangzhou lunch:
This is actually one of Lucy's pictures, but I thought it was cute so I had to share it:
The link for the rest of my pictures is HERE.
It was really nice. It showed that he was thinking about me, was using something I had taught him, and also tied me in with the school by using the logo in my name. I keep flipflopping here between frustration and lots of warm fuzzies. It's confusing.
If you actually want to read the article you can click it to see a bigger copy. It was in the April Fools edition of the "Acron" (instead of Acorn) so it's all a joke anyway. I just thought it was funny that I graduated and they are still using a picture of me...
We were there for all of five minutes before the waiters forced us up towards the front of the room to dance with the belly dancing girl. Like...the waiter had one arm and D'Arcy had the other arm and they were playing tug of war with me. Ouch. I went up and danced for almost a whole song but quickly slunk back to my seat when I had the chance to get away. It was strange at the restaurant because two of the waiters reminded both me and D'Arcy of Drew people. The guy who took our order looked like Drew Chen (the RD for my complex) and the waiter who tried to drag me on stage looked like Matt Miller (the guy who played the lead in Revels 2006). I couldn't decide if the second waiter was creepy or funny. He kept winking and encouraging us to cheers. I decided to be silly back and blew him a kiss. He hammed it up and pretended to fall over.
Yesteday D'Arcy decided that she would really like some more international food (since she lives in a very rural area in Japan and hardly ever gets the chance there). For lunch we went to the Indian Kitchen. The tandoori chicken was SO TASTY. D'Arcy, who has actually been to India, said it tasted like genuine Indian food and was very happy about that. For dinner we went to Big Bamboo for burgers. She said it was the first real burger since she had moved to Japan (in August). It's strange to think that she came to visit me in China and that gave her the chance to have a burger.
I had asked around where I could buy some but everyone always told me that you couldn't buy them, they were only at temples. I was very excited to see them in kejiguan. The shopkeeper for that particular store was quite a character. She kept saying that if she sold us stuff for the prices we were asking for, her boss would kill her. Which led me to ask what the lowest price was that she could give us where she WOULDN'T be murdered, and offering to protect her from her boss if she gave us a really good price. Another woman in another shop also quipped that D'Arcy needed to realize she was trying to buy shirts, not socks. These guys and gals are good at what they do. They have a lot of practice joking and laughing and winning over customers for a good price. They were no match for D'Arcy and I, though. We had secret looks and hand signs and often played the part of the impatient/stubborn/cheap friend.
Some lovely drawings on the wall of the restaurant...
Our spread for the evening (not sure why this picture is a little green tinted...)
The four of us at the restaurant.
Our "martinis" which were served in lowball glasses and made with vodka...um, k?
Coming down the stairs from the restaurant.
Isa shaking her dice cup at Windows.
My very dramatic roll in the middle of the dice game.
I forgot to mention this in my wordy post, but at Shanghai studio we ordered a "Flaming Mountain", which was SO COOL. The guy layered Kaluha, Bailey's and vodka in some glasses, then stacked some brandy snifters on top, filled a shot glass with rum (I think?), set it on fire and poured it over the whole thing. I know it's really hard to tell, except for some wavy heat lines, but the entire structure in the below picture is ENGULFED with blue flames.
You stick a straw in and slurp up the drink super fast. It was delicious...and warm. :-) After I was done with mine, I realized my straw was on fire. Ha!
Anyway, sending love,
I really do love living here. You meet the coolest people. And you also have a few automatic conversation starters: Where are you from, how long have you been here and what brought you to China?
First off you make the dough. Zeno made the dough with just dumpling flour and water. She kneaded it for a long time. According to her, you know when it's ready when it feels "smooth like a young girl's arm". After it's all mixed you set it aside for a bit and work on your filling.
Then you chop a lot. We made shrimp dumplings so the three main ingredients were shrimp, egg and what we called "grass" because I wasn't 100% sure what the English name for what we were using, and it looks like grass. I am pretty sure it's Chinese chives...
Chopping up some scrambled up eggs...
Here is the lovely dumpling filling all mixed up. We also add some dried up tiny little prawns and some sesame oil. One of my favorite jobs that I did on Friday night was going through the mixture and picking out with chopsticks any piece of "grass" that was too long. Ha.
Now you start making your wrappings. You roll the dough out like a snake, making sure it's an even thickness.
Then you roll the dough stick back and forth while you cut it into sections so that the pieces look like this:
The pieces will be sticky on both ends. Only rub flour into one side, as the stickiness in the middle will help the filling to stick. Smush each dough piece with your hand.
Using your rolling pin, work from the outside in, turning the dough piece constantly, to get a nice round wrapper. You want it to be a little thicker in the middle so that it doesn't rip and spill out all the delicious filling.
Here is the first wrapper I made by myself. I approve.
Then, using chopsticks, scoop up some filling into your wrapper. Don't overfill or it'll explode!
Closing/folding it is really hard to describe and I don't have the best pictures. You start by pinching it in the middle and then fold up each side. You want it to be able to stand. The more folds you can fit in, the fancier your dumplings will look.
One of my fancier dumplings...
Once you have a big ole' plateful of dumplings, boil up some water and drop them in. Be sure to keep the water moving when you drop them in or they might sink to the bottom and stick. When the water seems like it's going to boil over, douse it with some cold water and let it get to a boil again. Do this a few times.
If you want to fry up the dumplings in oil, you only want to half boil them. We decided to just have them boiled so we boiled them through.
Mmmm...a delicious dinner of boiled shrimp dumplings, jellyfish and Zeno's delicious chicken wings. Yum!
Once things quieted down I went to the "buy stuff" table where they were selling donated brand new items to raise money to pay for the shipping of the used clothes. I got two very pretty chenille scarves, a ridiculous rainbow hat with a smiley face on the top, and a blue Hugo Boss silk tie. Total cost? 30RMB, or a little less than $5. Just cuz I was curious I looked up how much a Hugo Boss silk tie normally goes for and the average price seems to be around $80. Wow.