Out to the French Concession! And the First of many New Years Celebrations

Just a 20 minute walk from the Xuhui campus is a little portion of Shanghai called the French Concession.  This is a part of the city where you can see the strong influence of European culture in the architecture, shopping and restaurant options.  I found a little Greek place called Milo's Tavern!  I can't wait to try their gyros.

Our culture teacher, Weiqi, took us out to the French Concession for a Chinese cooking class.  We were divided into teams and started making a delicious meal under the direction of Chef Mike, a former Ritz-Carlton chef.  Nitesh and I got to make an amazing eggplant dish!  When I get back to the states, I'm definitely investing in a wok.

After our cooking class, Weiqi took us to a full-blown wet market.  Similar to the one Kristy and I had seen by the Yu Gardens, but this one was much larger.  I even got to see some chickens get killed...only in China.

This week we also had the first of our many Chinese New Year's Celebrations...  a select group of students in our group (Kristy, Jessica Traver, John Swinford, Nitesh Bajaj, Catriona Sproul, Joe Musto and me) were asked to perform a dance at the SJTU Annual Faculty Banquet.  The dance we put together is a compilation of "the Most Dazzling Folk Song," YMCA, the Backstreet Boys and the Cotton-Eyed Joe.  Here's a link to our performance!  At this banquet, we got a little introduction into the Chinese drinking culture - basically we just did a lot of toasts and learned about "ganbei" ("bottoms-up!") with the Dean and plenty of other SJTU guests.  We even met Madame Ma Dexiu, who is the Secretary of Communist Party of China (CPC) SJTU Committee and the Chairperson of SJTU University Council.

Check out some pics from this week!

Yu Gardens and People's Square

Just playing some catch-up here...

A couple subway stops from the Xujiahui campus lies a not-so-little tourist trap called the Yu Gardens.  Kristy and I made a trip out there the second weekend in Shanghai.

There are SO many little street vendors who sell all manner of Chinese touristy items - pottery, embroidery, paintings, dolls, chopsticks, bottle openers (I bought one of those) and so much more.  It's all over-priced, so Kristy and I got some great bartering practice...we definitely had more to learn. 

After spending a couple hours on the market street, Kristy and I started looking for the Yu Gardens themselves.  We actually had quite a few problems finding the entrance...instead we happened upon a wet market!  The Chinese people value fresh food so much that they want to buy their chicken, fish, frogs, turtles, crabs and shrimp live then watch the vendor kill and clean it before taking it home.  Otherwise, they just buy their animals live and kill them at home, right before the meal is about to be cooked.

After eating lunch in a little cafeteria, Kristy and I FINALLY found the gardens...so beautiful!!  Rock sculptures, elegant sloped rooftops, bridges over tranquil water -- being in the gardens is really calming, except for the other tourist groups.  We found some Korean tourists and they asked us where we were from.  When we told them we were Americans, they immediately asked us if we knew "Gangnam Style."  They were so happy to hear that we knew the dance too! 

That night, Nitesh, Russell and I headed out into downtown for our first Shanghai clubbing adventure!  Nightlife in Shanghai is pretty insane... and it's so much fun!  After all, if you're going to go out dancing, the world's largest city is the perfect place to go.

The next day we went out to People's Square to see the "match-making activities."  Think of it like eHarmony except in a park, with ads that parents have made for their sons and daughters. 

Later that day, we went to Madame Tussauds Shanghai!  I've always wanted to see one of these, who knew it would be in China.  We also went to the Shanghai Museum which was full of great collections of ancient coins, clothing and art from China's long history.

Here are some pics from the weekend's adventure!

Living in Downtown Shanghai

Yeah, so my plan about getting caught up from the last month of our adventures here kinda fell through.  Too many crazy adventures and so little time!  Or sleep, for that matter, but that's a different story.

I thought I'd try to summarize everything that's happened here since that first weekend...

So for the first month we've lived at the Faculty Club at the Xuhui campus.  It's basically a hotel --
here's some pics!

One of the first things we had to do in China was to set up cell phones....that was interesting to say the least.  You can order phones online (Chinese ebay = Taobao) and they arrive in packages like this:

Then you can just stroll down the street to the nearest magazine stand guy who just happens to also sell phone plans and SIM cards...

This is probably the second thing you should get when you arrive in China --

So life in Shanghai.... pretty much amazing.  Things are rather cheap, especially when you're talking about street food.  5 - 10 kuai (less than $2 USD) will get you delicious foods on sticks (lamb, chicken, beef, vegetables, seafood, etc.) and it's all cooked right in front of you!

Quail eggs!

Candied fruit!

The city is HUGE.  Interesting architecture all over the place --most of it has European influence it seems, but definitely along the Bund (on the Huangpu River) and in the French Concession (not too far from our Xuhui campus).  However, things on the eastern banks of the Huangpu (Pudong) are more of what you'd normally expect in a huge city.

Shanghai World Financial Center -- "The Bottle Opener"

 

View of the city from the "World's Highest Bar"

 

Pudong at night

East Nanjing St (Las Vegas Strip, minus the casinos)

Traffic in Shanghai is different too.  So many bikes!  And being a pedestrian can be a little trying sometimes.  Even if you have the green light, there's usually a game of chicken that starts between you and the approaching taxi. 

And for the nighlife...clubbing is a super popular thing to do.  As a foreigner, club promoters are pretty interested in giving you free things so you can enjoy the club and make it look even more appealing to the locals.

For the past month, we didn't just run rampant through the streets of Shanghai -- we had classes too.  Susan and Weiqi (language and culture teachers) were just wonderful.  Susan was so patient with us as we struggled through phrases like "Wo xuexi hanyu" (I study Chinese) and she even taught us Pengyou!  Weiqi gave us some incredible insight into the Chinese culture and let us ask pretty much any question you can think of.  That led to some pretty interesting class discussions, let me tell you.

Once we finished those classes, we took them out to dinner at Grandma's (easily the BEST food we've had in Shanghai) and karaoke at Haoledi!

We also took a different culture class with Dianne (continuing our cultural dimension analysis) that helped us to organize our thoughts about the Chinese culture as we started to adjust.  She actually just went back to the US a couple days ago to organize things back at Purdue, teach ME 290 and help people sign up for ETA 2014.  We're also taking an online systems course with Professor Krousgrill who has been incredibly flexible to help accommodate our schedule in Xuhui.

 

Besides taking classes and exploring the city during the week, we've also had some awesome weekend trips!!  We also got to celebrate Chinese New Year about 5 times!  Look for those stories in my next couple posts!

Also, we're moving out to the Minhang campus today.  And we're headed on a 9-day backpacking adventure through Yunnan Province!  More on that later.