Shanghai on Life

So, good Christmassy times in Shanghai kicked off last week with a Tiger Beer Santa Claus pub crawl.  For $15 you got a decently elaborate blue Santa suit,  transportation, and of course, all you can drink Tiger Beer. They had a couple of buses plus about 8 motorcycles with sidecars that people could take turns riding in. Fortunately for me, there wasn’t much competition to get myself in a sidecar as it was freezing cold out, and what a great scene! whizzing around downtown Shanghai in a sidecar in my santa suit! I have to say I was a little bitter that I was forced into the Mrs. Claus version of the suit which involved a skirt and even worse, no beard! Don’t worry though, I managed to score myself a beard by the end of the night, obviously making myself irresistible to all of the gentleman in the bars!

On Wednesday night we went to see the Shanghai Ballet’s Nutcracker. Now, I don’t know much about ballet, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it wasn’t the best ballet performance of all time, but then again, you really just go to the nutcracker for the atmosphere anyway. If this experience is culturally representative, it appears that it’s perfectly okay to chat through theatre performances in China. I actually really enjoyed this because I tend to get a bit restless during ballets and other such things and really liked being about to make my little jokey comments at a normal whisper and not even feel guilty about it! Also, a woman’s phone went off behind us with a rather comical and loud ring tone…so we’re already having a laugh about it, and then she picks it up  and proceeds to have a conversation! This and other similar scenarios (one guy actually dialed someone and started talking) occurred throughout the performance, so it wasn’t even a really an isolated incident.

On Christmas eve a group of about 20 of us went out for a very nice dinner of all-you-can-eat (and drink) Japanese Teppanyaki. Following dinner we went to Christmas mass at an international Catholic Church. After the service we went to a friend’s apartment to drink this German “glühwein” which was followed by clubbing. So in the end it was a very unconventional (but pleasant!) Christmas Eve for me with the mixture of Japanese food, church-going, and bar hopping, but it was as enjoyable as possible under the circumstances of being away for Christmas.

On Christmas morning we rolled out of bed and headed over to another friend’s apartment for a Christmas lunch and hanging around. Some of the French guys provided the French-themed lunch and I ate too much in keeping up with at least one Christmas tradition :D We had a secret Santa gift exchange for which I gave a hot water bottle of sorts that you can plug in and it had an awesome Chinese cartoon lamb all over it saying some nonsense thing in English…I have to admit, I actually really wanted it for myself. Had a nice skype with the family back home and was pleased to see Steph’s Christmas tree costume had arrived. It’s nice to see that things remain “normal” even in my absence.

That evening I hung around the apartment with Danny Boy, Sandra, and Sandra’s boyfriend who is visiting from Germany (also Daniel). We exchanged gifts and ate a delicious Christmas dinner of home-cooked Kraft Dinner (lovingly air-mailed in time for Christmas by my mom, thanks mom!) and spicy chicken wings from McDonald’s. I know it sounds dismal, but actually it was kind of funny and perfect. Sandra was especially excited about the Kraft dinner as she got hooked on it during her exchange in Canada and happens to be in that very small minority of Europeans who has tried it and actually likes the stuff.  Later on the guys came over and we watched “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (classic stuff) and played cards.

Now I’m back to my old lifestyle of avoiding my minimal schoolwork and taking it easy. The main difference now is that I have a massive hoard of chocolate to add to my daily comforts thanks to Christmas gifts and the lovely Christmas care-package sent by mom and dad.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday, thinking of you all lots during this time. Less than a month before Cody and Jen arrive and only a few months until I’m back home, unreal! Merry Christmas everybody!