Today we all graduated from the Chinese precourse. I'm now officially on the bottom rung of the Chinese language ladder. I even have the certificate to prove it. Here's a photo of our class.
CEIBS was getting all the cats and dogs yesterday.
Went to see Ziyo last night at the Zhijiang Dream Factory. Much better than the description made them sound; “Blends rough reggae, sloppy jazz, punk rock and emo”. The young Debbie Harry lead singer got the otherwise statuesque (some sleeping!) crowd moving. Well worth a look up on their myspace page.
Accidentally attended the Shanghai Hash House Harriers meet today. The premise is not terrible, a group of runners follow pre-prepared signs (flour markings) along a 10-15k route around Shanghai’s streets and back alleys. Slightly irritating is that the the markings are sparse and often purposely misleading including dead ends and split routes with the intention of keeping forerunners back-tracking and the group loosely together.
Every country has a tat-market of stuff that got overproduced 10 years ago and offloading it to tourists is more viable than landfill. Shanghai’s best is on Dontai Lu, close to Old Shanghai. Expect “havalook!”, little red books, wooden frogs that double as instruments and somehow the feeling that you’re wasting your time. You Are! [location]
We've eaten a fair few bowls of noodles (Mian) since arriving. There are roadside huts pulling out noodles while you wait on every other street. Last night, however, pushed a single bowl of string from quick-fix to long-remembered. Along Tianping Lu at #220 sits a small eight-table noodle shop that looks like a third world greasy spoon diner. The are no pictures and the menu is chinese only but they know what we're here for - Kung Pow JiMian. Two bowls of fresh, tongue-tingling chicken noodles arrive barely a minute later. 12RMB (£1.10).