Autumn in Shanghai

Hey there, the extended absence is due to the fact that midterms are upon us. not only that, but fall has actually arrived, and my sweaters are being dug out from the boxes that they were hidden in. yesterday, it even reached the upper 50s.

Here are some photos of the school these days:

We've had some gloomy, rainy weather for awhile. This is the pond outside of the junior high.

Right outside of our building. Where we park our bikes before getting into the office.

They've been doing a lot of construction at the school; tearing down old buildings to make room for news one. The latest victim was a building that was actually used as a prison during WWII. Our school was a Japanese internment camp, and the movie Empire of the Sun was based on the school's real history.

The school hallway after all the kids have left for the day. Usually it is impossible to walk through these. You basically have to swim your way through the kids.

The classroom where I have three of my classes: English, history, and Ecology.

So, I was talking about midterms before. Midterms here are really involved, with all sorts of rules and regulation. Every test has to be a certain way, and handed in with the right identifying codes and information, but at least the hard part is over now.

Today, in the spirit of halloween, I showed my kids Nightmare Before Christmas, and at first some of them rolled their eyes. oh we're too big for this. oh that's just for children, but once the movies starts...bam, they're glued to the screen. completely captivated.

Life is moving along. When I sit down and recount our adventures it seems a little lame. So much of it revolves around finding a burrito or a normal deli sandwich, but you don't understand. When one eats Chinese cafeteria food five days a week, dreams of other kinds of food start to encroach into both your sleeping and waking hours. And that turkey sandwich that you took for granted, the one with the perfect round roll and cheddar, you start to obsess about it. And pizza. And tacos. and...well, you get the idea.

So, because of our cravings, we've gone on a lot of food hunts. One main trip was to New York Deli. With a name like that, how could we resist. The ad in a magazine promised that they carried "US quality meat" and I was sold.

The deli turned out to be a small counter next to Jing'ling Road, where we bought our guitars a few weeks ago (and by-they-way, I've been playing my guitar like crazy. Just like being sixteen again. I even remember how to play Crash and The Sweater Song...good times).

They also had very good giant burritos. Stephanie couldn't finish hers so she carried it around her purse the entire day, even when we went to the museum later on. Occasionally, she would peek into her bag and coo to the burrito, whispering loving words to it.

Stephanie, Nicole, and Mai Kao. Apparently it was jeans and black t-shirt day.

Serious eating.The deli crowd. Me, Mai Kao, Josh, Brian L., Stephanie, Dennis C., Dennis N. (yes, there really are three Den(n)is's here), and Brian W.)

Some street meat prepping. Actually, you can't see, but all around were people chopping up all types of critters outside, which would later be used for the meals cooked for dinner. Um, nevermind the pollution and fly marinade.

After the deli, Nicole, Stephanie, and I walked to the Shanghai National Museum (I think...we were trying to find the Shanghai Modern Art Museum, but stumbled into the wrong one).

The walk to the museum. It was a nice day. Oh, note the couple in front of us. People here hang all over each other, literally. Not that much public kissing though.

Outside of the museum.

There were people all around the museum selling these squid kites. They would walk up to any group of white people and say, "Buy my kite, buy my kite." All the tourists were too polite and would stand there suffering as the hawkers moved on to watches and other trinkets.

They tried to sell kites to Nicole and Stephanie too, but I think my presence deterred them in the end. I'm like Chinese-hawker kryptonite. Except for maybe the ones who think I'm Japanese. When that happens it's usually these women saying, "Why don't you talk to us? You Japanese? Why so unfriendly? You like KTV (karaoke)? Go art show?"

Lion statues outside of the museum.

Inside the museum were all sorts of exhibits, but we couldn't take pictures of most. I was, however, allowed to snap photos of the different kinds of Chinese money. These pictures are for you Mr. Barriale, coin-collector extradinaire.

After the museum, we hiked through the busiest street ever while looking for a Japanese clothing score. Sometimes there are just too many people here.

Another night, a group of teachers had a barbeque. We ate China steaks and you know what? It was pretty good. I wasn't sure how long they needed to cook so I probably overdid it, but they were still relatively tender and tasty.
Action shot. cole playing wii tennis with josh and brian.

It was a great night. Crisp air. Smoke of the grill. People talking and laughing together. And one giant sing along that included weezer, oasis, and radiohead classics.

One last food report is our trip to New York Pizza (hmm, new york deli, new york pizza, I'm starting to see a trend here).
Outside, there was some kind of Russian folk dance show going on.


The pizza really was like New York pizza, and it tasted just like the two slices and a small coke special I used to get for $4 at that place near NYU, on University Place. So ok, not the greatest pizza, but perfectly acceptable greasy slice, which for China is like, in the top 5% of pizzas.

Decent pizza=happy times.


Yum. Oh yeah, all that weight I lost by being so nervous at the start of teaching? I'm pretty sure I'm well on my way to fixing that.

That's all for now. Sorry for the clunky writing; sometimes I feel my ability to express myself coherantly slip away as I teach all these kids with inverted and mixed engrish grammar. I'll try to get the rest of Singapore up next.