We've been doing a lot of work and play because 1- We have Jay and Staci coming to visit! and 2- It's the Chinese National Holiday. I've been cleaning up the house and catching up on laundry in preparation for our house guests, I'm super excited. And I've also been extra busy with work because our game approver has the week off which means that her job is now my job for the time being. I'm becoming less tolerant of game approvals due to the connectivity issue here. Usually I don't have a problem handling the support emails I get, but loading games takes forever! It's another job in itself.
It also seems like time has been going fasting since we got back from Beijing. We relaxed for a little bit but the last few days have made it feel like we've been partying like rockstars, and we've been having a food adventure.
We checked out a new place called Mai Thai in the French Concession, it was only okay, but there were a bunch of places near by that I'd like to go back to. We walked around and just kind of had a nice afternoon. We headed home, worked for a bit and then went out to Mesa Manifesto for a really nice dinner. We finished the evening off right with a really nice massage and headed home full, relaxed and exhausted from our "rough" day of living.
I made reservations for us that weekend to check out a bunch place called Yi Cafe. The restaurant is in the Shangri-la Hotel in PuDong, so we had a little morning adventure getting there. Everywhere was packed because of the big holiday here. People were all over the place, it was madness, absolute madness! The brunch was really yummy though, and had soooo many choices. There was Indian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, European and American and the dessert and fruit bar were amazing. Lots and lots of choices and of course we tried them all. We were so full, as usual after lunch and we were lazy and took a cab back home. I know, so far it doesn't sound like we've been party animals. We headed over to a Belgian Bar called Kaibar later that evening just for a nice relaxing drink and to hang out for a bit.
The next day we headed over to the shopping area I really like in the city. I like the area because it's a bunch of little back alleys all connected in a labyrinth sort of way, and there aren't any cars. We went to an Australian place called Kommune and had their wonderful breakfast. They have bowls of coffee! I didn't have a bowl of coffee but I did enjoy one of the best mochas I've ever had. We both had yummy eggs, and then of course out did ourselves and ordered a plate of cake. Yes, a plate. there were fours slices of different kinds of cake. There was a really really good chocolate cake with coconut on top. Mmmmm, after brunch we walked around for a bit and I bought a market cart. Yes, I have an old woman cart so I can go to the grocery store just like all the little Chinese ladies here.
To be perfectly honest I don't even remember what we did for dinner that night, it was pretty laid back though, obviously. The next day we decided to check out a grocery store I had read about called City Shop. I had read that they had an excellent selection of groceries, but was disappointed when we got there. The place was in a basement and it wasn't very well lit. It was just blah, I won't be going back. We did have a delicious lunch at my favorite burger place....Gourmet Cafe!!! Wonderful as usual.
Then we headed home because Bob had a lot of work to do. We worked for the afternoon and then I ordered in Hunan for dinner. I love spicy green beans, and dumplings, I could eat them every day. We caught up on fun tv and I watched one of the worst movies ever. I made Bob buy me the DVD of "Nine" the musical off the street, here in Shanghai. I now know why it got panned so badly at the theatre. It was seriously terrible, I do not recommend it, even if you like the music because the music is not what you will be familiar with. It was just bad and long and ridiculous. Oh well.
Now this is when things pick up. We met up with Patrick and Sean for dinner at a place called Xingu 131. Yes, the number is part of the name, apparently that's the address for where the original restaurant was. It was a spicy Szechuan place and it was wonderful. We even ordered a bullfrog dish that was pretty good. I know, ew bullfrog. It's not too bad, but it's such a pain to eat, so many little bones.
After dinner we went to PartyWorld! It's a karaoke place, and we got our own room. It was Bob and Me, Patrick and his girlfriend Yoko, Sean and a couple of his friends and then later in the evening Yoko's friend Key showed up. I love karaoking in our own private room, it's so much more fun to get to sing as many songs as you want, and the selection was pretty good. Bob even sang a few songs. Around 12:30 some of Sean's other friends showed up to play and things just started to get too crowded and rowdy for us. Plus we stank of smoke. That is one thing I definitely appreciate about places in the states banning smoking, my clothes love it too.
Anyway, Patrick had told us that he and Yoko were going to go out of town the next day to check out a near by water town. What is a water town you ask? It's kind of like a mini Chinese Venice. We stayed at a hostel in the town and it had a really nice community area that we were hanging out in for most of the night. We had a delicious dinner at one of the restaurants over looking the river and then took a boat ride around the area. We had a wonderful time and were up so late just having fun. The next day we did some shopping around the area and had wontons for breakast, and sweet tofu drink. Mmmm, sweet tofu. And we pet kitties! The hostel had 3 pretty orange cats, and one of them loved Bob and me.
I'm going to write a separate post on the Water Town.
After we got home around 5:30pm we reorganized ourselves and prepared to go out to a concert. Bob had read that a rap band called PuppetMastaz, from Germany, were going to be in town at a local venue. The band is pretty cool, they actually use puppets to perform, it was a great show, and the place was packed.....with a bunch of foreigners. :) I recommend going to see this band if you ever have a chance, the songs are catchy and the show is really fun.
The rest of our weekend was pretty low key. We did a lot of sleeping in, cleaning, and grocery shopping in preparation for our house guests. They arrive later tonight! Hoorays!
We're going to be in Shanghai for the first couple of days they're here, and then we're going to head down to Beijing because Bob has a conference and we want to take Jay and Staci to the Great Wall and a couple of other places.
I'll keep you posted on our fun.
Loves and kisses,
Margaret
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