My Life In Shanghai!

6:20am Snooze Alarm.

6:30am Wake up.

Boil water (for tea, washing my dishes & brushing my teeth…it’s the only ghetto thing about living here I promise)

Check email, maybe a quick Skype call (since it’s 12:30pm at home)

Brush teeth (all 3 sets…imagine having to brush your theeth and a set of invisaligns with bottled water. It’s rough.), wash face, get dressed

Eat breakfast

Wash dishes

8ish Leave for work

Take subway Line 4 – 10 stops

Change to Line 2 – 2 stops

9ish Arrive at work

Work

Email

Work

Email

12:00pm Lunch

12:30pm Still at lunch but we’re done eating….so…we shop! Haha

1:30pm Back to the office

Work

Work

Work

Email

Talk

6:30pm Head home

Run errands…get food

8ish Arrive at home

Shower

Hang out with the roomies

Study some Chinese

Email

10/11ish Pop in “Friends” & Sleeeeeep. J


Shanghai so far…

Shanghai is an amazing city! It’s so big, I have so much to explore! And only 2 days a week to do it L work takes up a lot of time. Buuuut from what I saw while my dad was here was amazing! It’s very modern, and very clean! The subways are easy to navigate & the people are respectful. Sometimes someone will push if they’re in a rush but for the most part people are orderly & calm. I have to ride it during rush hour, and sometimes there are hundreds of people waiting for the subway, but everyone waits in single-file lines and fills up the cars in such an orderly fashion, it’s unreal! The food here is amazing. Any kind of food you are craving you can have. But I also see more KFCs here than I’ve ever seen in my whole life!! It’s like the ABC store of shanghai. Don’t worry, I haven’t eaten there. Yet. The shopping is ridiculous. There are giant malls everywhere & streets like 20 blocks long with just shops all the way down. Not markts…actual brand name stores. It’s crazy! I actually have only stumbled across a couple little markets…where I may have bought some DVDs & other things that were ridiculously cheap.

Although downtown is modern with huge buildings & lights & tons of trendy people, there are also very cultural & historic parts of Shanghai. There’s an area called the French Concession with beautiful European-style streets & buildings. There’s a park in French Concession where someone has a karaoke player & speakers set up they sing karaoke in the park. It rules! My dad actually sang “I’ve Got Friends In Low Places” there. That was a cultural clash if I’ve ever heard one!!! I walked through Sun Yat Sen & Mao Zhedong’s old houses, saw some museums, walked through an area where there were only music stores for like a mile. There are temples and old preserved buildings. It’s really cool.

The language barrier is rough. I knew it would be coming into this and if I could go back, I would have taken Chinese lessons at home before I came. But even still, the local Shanghai people speak a dialect called “Shanghainese” & it’s completely different, even from Mandarin. So like, I remember a teeny tiny bit of Chinese from when I took it in 7th & 8th grade…but I don’t have a clue about what anyone is saying anyway! I can’t recognize anything! Thankfully they all speak mandarin so when I get my Chinese lessons I’ll be able to talk to them. Many people speak broken English so I can get by…and some people’s English is actually really good! So I’m never overly frustrated…but I hope I can learn quickly.

My Apartment

I live in an area called Xin Jia Hui. A lot of local Shanghainese live there. It’s pretty convenient, there’s a subway stop a block away & a zillion restaurants & shops all over the place. If I had to stay in Xin Jia Hui the whole time I was here I would have no problems. The apartment itself is really nice! And way bigger than I expected. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, full kitchen, sweet TV/DVD/sound system…it’s preeetty cool! I have 2 roommates. One is from Lithuania. She has already graduated from 2 law schools (yeah…what!?) and is interning at a law firm. (surprised?) My other roommate is from Orange County. She’s interning at a local TV station. I hope they can both accept all of my grandmaness & aren’t offended when I go to sleep at 9. I’m trying to stay up later but we’ll see how long that lasts!

Work

I work at SMH International which is a marketing firm. The office is downtown in an area called Pudong. My office is in the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank building like right smack dab in the middle of downtown Shanghai. I feel like a real business lady with my long coat & fancy work clothes & fake designer bag. Hahaha. I’m such an imposter. Oh well! I have 2 keycards. One to get into the building, access the elevator & the bathroom, and one to access the office. Not gonna lie, it’s one of the coolest parts about coming to work. Hahaha. SMH mainly works with agriculture & goods trading between China & the US & Europe…mainly. So this company acts as a liaison between China & foreign companies to help secure trade agreements. We organize & host trade shows where US companies can come to China & display & sample their products so that Chinese companies will want to import their stuff. We do everything from contacting the companies, to retail checks, to advertising, to decorations, media coverage, dinners, negotiations…everything. Basically, we’re tradeshow party planners!!! (Sey, if you’re reading this…it’s going on the party planning resume for sure!) So for example, someone is going to Louisiana later to promote & recruit, so today I helped to revise the proposal and the PowerPoint presentation that they’ll use there. Sounds boring but it’s pretty interesting. Next month we’ll host a few tradeshows here in Shanghai so I’ll get to help with that! Everyone in the office (there are about 12 employees) speaks english to a certain degree, some better than others. But to each other they speak Chinese…specifically Shanghainese. So I feel a little lost sometimes…especially when they are talking & laughing about something…I wanna laugh too! But I don’t know what’s so funny. Haha. Oh well.

Ok wow this was WAY long. I don’t expect anyone to get through all this! But there it is. Life after a week or so.

Shoobies!

beating the system one loop hole at a time

The blog lives on!

a local "Shanghainese" friend told me about a VPN server that I can use to access blocked websites. Low and behold...here I am! I hope I don't get in trouble for using it.

Anyway...for anyone who is itching to be kept abreast with my oh-so-exciting life in China...rest easy, it's coming soon! Work takes up a fair amount of time (and energy) so you can expect a full update sometime this weekend.

I miss everyone & I miss home a LOT! But life here is good & I'm getting used to everything so at least it won't be a dreadful 3 months. Until next time...

Aroha!

Big Gulps huh? Welp...see ya later!

[Fun Fact: if your baby exceeds 100lbs, rest easy as he/she will be safe in a target shopping cart]


This is it...at 11am tomorrow I'll be on a plane en route to Shanghai!

The best way to ensure that I keep in touch is via email...since last time I checked, blogger is blocked...soooo this may be the last update for a while. I will try to foil the Great Firewall of China. We shall see...I've got some tricks up my sleeve.

I'm excited & anxious...but I'm also sad & scared. I've been gone for this long before...longer even. I've been further away, I've gone to more dangerous places, I've survived with $20 in my bank account, I've couch surfed...I've been FAR worse off than I will be in Shanghai, but for some reason I feel a little less at ease this time around. Could it be old age? Haha. I think maybe it's because this is the first time I'm doing it alone. I think that's what scares me the most. (of course I'm kind of cheating...my dad is coming for a little while...but still...) And I'm sad to leave home, so much sadder that I've been in the past. But I keep telling myself that 3 months will fly by, and by the end I may be sad to leave Shanghai!

So help to keep a scared, sad & lonely girl company by showering her with emails! :)
(haha. jk. but really...pualena@gmail.com.)

Tata for now!

T minus 7 days...

I've got one week left until I ship off! I'm starting to get nervous & sad & excited & anxious. This week is full of last-minute trips to longs, walmart, costco, the dentist, the doctor, hair cut, hanging out with everyone that I won't see for 3 months...busy busy busy!

I'm going to the dr. today for round 2 of vaccinations, featuring: Hepatitis shots! Fantastic...

Yesterday, my dad & I picked up our boarding passes & flight itineraries. Even though the flights will be long & the jet lag will be horrible, I'm stoked that we're flying Japan Air. Delicious food & great service! We are stopping in Tokyo for a few hours which I'm ecstatic about! I LOVE Japan!!!! Shanghai is so close to Japan, but I have a single-entry visa, so I can't go visit while I'm there. It's ok, I'm sure I'll find TONS to do in the world's largest country. :)

Gotta go, lots to do!