MTW

Monday after class we walked around Xujiahui and I realized that I did not come to China to buy things at the same price I could’ve bought them from home. Bargaining ONLY from here on out!

At night we hit up Barbarossa which was a sick looking Moroccan styled hookah bar and I FINALLY got to drink a margarita.


so apparently absinthe is legal here...

& that’s all I have to say about that..


Tuesday after regretfully waking up at 8 to go to class, we got to take a Tai Ji lesson (Tai Ji Chuan it’s called) which was super interesting. It’s like really slow so it’s not like we were learning crazy kung foo stuff, although we did get to see this guy do another form of Tai Ji which involved crazy ass stuff. I’m inspired to exercise, when I get back to Berkeley, although I’m pretty sure we all know how that’s going to end up. Anyways, later at night we to a CRAZY ASS acrobatic show which I expected to be, you know decent, but turned out to be goddamned unbelievable. I'm pretty sure i'll just let the pictures speak for themselves...



i dont think this picture accurately captures the snazziness of this place. maybe cause it's blurry. wilder, i don't want to hear it. that's the ritz over there..




starts out normal enough..


crazy asian girls in green costumes with crazy rope things and crazy things they twirl on their crazy rope things. CRAZY


girl can do crazy shit with that fan.


do you actually realize what she's DOING in this picture?


GAHHH!


okay i know the picture is super blurry and makes no sense but i took it so i could remember it because it was the cutest/saddest/most romantic act everrrr. it was like a sad love story and they were like flying around on their rope things and doing acrobats together. aww.


crazy balancing. i'm not sure if this picture adequately shows the intensity of her balancing.


ahhh the chair stairs!


okay they put up those chairs like one at a time it was sooo intense.


omg omg what are they doing??


AHHHHHHHH!


my lover. the guy who was in that romantic act earlier. so hot!




Wednesday we went to XinTianDi which is this shmazzy French hangout.


Pacific Mall







the gigglers.








it was all European styled, it was really cute.




Chinese movie theaters are WAY SICKER.




mmm




After Xintiandi, we went to Zapatos.
Uhh, let me just lay out some simple mathematics for you:
free margaritas + fiona = drunk fiona.
5 free margaritas + drunk fiona = dancing on a bar.
i know it sounds totally Girls Gone Wild but there was something NOT so slutty about it at the time. I promise. & there were lots of girls AND BOYS on the bar.
However, that does NOT mean that there are NOT questionable pictures of me floating around on the internet.

A double negative may or may not make a positive.



really rockin the asian glow.








see look, LOTS OF PEOPLE ON THE BAR!



& to divert attention away from that (sorry mom& dad),new places I've found out mosquitos can bite you:
-your hand, like the inside, like your PALM
-the back of your neck
-behind your ear
-your VERY upper thigh
-your FACE, your FACE, your goddamned FACE.

SLACKING

I just realized I've been REALLY slow with updates. Everytime I go online I get distracted/don't have patience to deal with uploading pictures. But I did it!

Sunday we took one of our day trips to Suzhou. It took about an hour and a half (bus + traffic) to get there. We went to this place called Tiger Hill which is apparently super famous and has all that historical significance and such. It’s called Tiger Hill because I guess one of the King’s who ruled the area, when he was killed in battle, was buried on the hill and after his funeral a white tiger came and stood on the hill. Something like that… Anyways, the place was absolutely beautiful and serene so I tried to overlook the fact that I was melting into the ground...


the entrance




i see it in the distance!






that's some sort of special rock. you touch it once for good like status/politics, twice for good money and thrice for good love. clearly i touched it twice :]






koiii.


sword pond. i have NO idea why it's called that. our tour guide's english could hardly be called..english..




buddhaaa.


almost...almost...


!!!!




chinese dragon/gargoyle!




After that we went to visit a silk factory. I don’t actually remember what the place was called but i suppose it was pretty exciting. We got to see & touch silk worms and saw the entire process of how silk becomes actually SILK. It’s a pretty brutal process, and although I knew that silk comes from silk worms I didn’t realize that you have to like KILL the worms and stuff. It was pretty sad actually. vegetarians should be up in arms. there are no vegetarians in China though...which reminds me of the time i saw dog and ox penis on the menu of restaurants....


silk works. sooooo soft.


silk cocoons of sorts.


dead worms :(


sorting through the silk worm cocoons or something.


i dont know how big the picture can get but on the bottom are the silk cocoons and on the top are like the spools of silk being spun out of the cocoon. if that makes sense.
[not pictured] dead silk worms at center of cocoon :(


maybe you can see it more clearly now..?


self explanatory.


stretching of silk.


stretchED silk. so soft


wooo runway show!


After the silk factory we stopped by Liu Yuan or the Lingering Garden, which is one of the most famous gardens in China. The garden was built in 1583 and has survived many wars and such. I think that’s why it got it’s name, cause it’s…lingered around…? & you want to linger around in it…? Either way, it was absolutely beautiful. When China makes an effort to preserve itself, it really is very beautiful. I feel the everyday person has no inclination to do so, however... Perhaps you can say that about most countries...?




so pretty..


i like the little girl posing...hah










apparently the rocks look like an eagle attacking a turtle. i guess i get the eagle part...i GUESS


a tall, famous, rock structure thing.


sometimes i forget i'm in CHINA until i look back at my pictures...


bamboo...


secret garden...




she came out of nowhere and started playing!


i'm special..


us + the canadians :)

We came home after our long day of being out and about and tried this supposedly Indian restaurant that was in my H&M magazine. Turns out it’s some sort of Persian/Chinese food but it was good nonetheless. There was dancing and lamb skewers and that’s all I really need to have a good time :]


us trying to find the indian/persian/italian place. we actually look like that a lot of the time...


someone was kind enough to capture my attempt to dance on the stage. they grabbed me i swear there was nothing i could do


we really couldn't figure out what type of food was in this restaurant until we left..


hah.



& that my friends, was my Sunday.


PS. Casual observations that I couldn't really fit into aforementioned entry...

-My transformation into Quasimoto is well under way. My mosquito bites are swelling nicely and my arms and legs are beautifully scarred. & no one shall love me again. The things I do for you, China…

-I’m trying to befriend the cleaning lady. I could really use an extra towel or 2 but there’s kind of a language barrier...

-I finally got to chatting with my Korean roommate the best I could in broken Mandarin and she’s leaving! To go back to Korea! Which leaves me:
with a spacey double (pro),
but without Korean teledramas for entertainment (connn),
but now I can walk around naked (pro)
but who will I practice my Chinese with? (con)
but now I can do whatever I want in my room without being judged (pro)
but my (potential) new roommate could be a bitch (conn)
but the Korean dramas…did I mention the dramas? (con! con!)