12:15 4-11-2010 but the events take place on 4-10-10
The morning is spent, as my mornings usually are, preparing for the rest of the day’s activities, trying to wrap up whatever you didn’t finished the night before, and killing time. For me that took the form of cleaning my room, rinsing out the hookah, and surfing the internet.
But around 12:30 I met up with Yiyi for lunch and this HR speech that she invited me to attend. Lunch was pretty good, two large bowls of soup that we added things too. Honestly it’s a little hard to describe them, I think as a westerner we’re just not use to see the amount of liquid that is usually involved in Chinese cuisine. Or maybe it’s just the food served in Shanghai, it’s important to realize that China is a massive country and their cooking styles vary as much if not more than in the US.
The speech itself was held at the Shanghai TV Tower or the Pearl Tower in the Theater Hall. The hall looked almost like a really impressive high school auditorium except it had these cool golden dragon statues all around the outside of the stage. The set up itself is probably a little different then what we would see in the US. The speaker himself is seated at a two person table with his laptop which is hooked up to a projector and his microphone. The speech itself was three hours long and it looked like this guy could speak the entire time. It was cool that he is the leader HR specialist in all of China, the tickets sold for 880 RMB or $128 and the place was pretty well packed.
Apparently though I was more interested in the speech, which by the way was completely in Chinese, then Yiyi was because she was soon fast asleep. Poor dear I think this drama with her friend along with her work schedule is really taking it out on her. Luckily that meant we decided to leave after only an hour and half, which was fine by me because I was starting to reach my limit.
We went back to dorm where we spent a couple of hours looking through some of my pictures. She was particularly interested in the photos of my old girl friends, of which she thought Hightower had the prettiest face. By the time we wrapped it up it was time for Yierm’s birthday party.
We went to this Thai restaurant which was pretty good but their food was way too expensive and WAY too hot. By expensive I mean it cost 15 people 1900RMB for food and drinks which included wine, beer, and my strawberry daiquiri. So by our standards everything was super cheap, but still it’s the local principal of thing.
I felt a little bad for Yiyi though because she was really uncomfortable being around so many strange foreigners that couldn’t speak Chinese. As outsider even among my own peers I could really sympathize how she felt, I often feel like an outsider and they actually speak my language. Still overall it was a lot of fun. Here’s a tid bit about Chinese customs, the birthday person actually pays for everyone, taxis, dinner, drinks, everything. I’m only guessing but I think it’s to counter the fact that the day is all about them so they essentially pay for everyone as a way of showing humbleness for the attention. All the same I think I’ll keep my birthday to myself.
Once dinner was dispensed with, a three hour ordeal, I took Yiyi to the subway which by that time was actually closed so she had to take a bus back instead. Then I hitched a taxi back to the restaurant (we had gotten lost and went to the wrong station which was a 40min mistake) and we headed to the club. Sadly the club was like almost all the other clubs we’ve been too, lots of standing, a crap ton of tables, and only a very small place to dance. There were some model quality girls there but I later found out that a good percentage of them are actually paid to be there, but o well didn’t have a chance anyways, nor would I want to pick up a girl from the club anyways. In the back of mind I know this’ll come back to bite me when I end up marrying this girl that I actually first met at a club, but o well that’s a battle I’ll face if it gets here.
So the club was kind of a bust, I didn’t even get anything to drink, and my friends weren’t really dancing to much anyways, so it wasn’t too long before we headed back home. Well most of did, Yierm, Luc, Louie, and Elfaniel went out to a bar but by that point it was like 1:30 and I just didn’t want to when I have class at 8:30 the next morning. I ended up going to bed around 2:30 once it was all said and done.
So that’s all that happened, sorry I didn’t post sooner, but today’s post should be on time.
P.S. I'm heading over to Clement in just a sec so hopefully I'll get some photos and upload them.
Update: Just updated the 4-7-10 Beautiful Day and a Night at the Trade Center with a few photos.
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