Shanghai City Tour Part 1

I had booked a city tour online for February 14th, basically the only activity I did in Shanghai due to sickness, weather, and time constraints. Because it was the first day of the lunar new year, a major holiday, I was the only one on the tour. I felt kind of bad that they had to work on a holiday just for one person. It also made the day extremely difficult for me, since I had to converse with the tour guide. I'd rather have just listened to her drone on to a group, and not have had to open my mouth all day.

Our first stop was the Shanghai Museum, where we had to stand outside in the rain and wait in line for at least 30 minutes. It was grueling. Once inside, I was given an hour to wander around and see the exhibits.

First I looked at some furniture:




This is supposed to be a detail of the above, but the detail is kind of hard to see. Pretty much everything in this hall was intricately carved.



Same problem here:



I totally want this set:


I enjoyed the architecture of the museum. These are the stairs:


Next I saw some paintings. Many of them would look like something else, then I would realize I was looking at it wrong, and I'd see what it was supposed to be.

Like, I think I must have been seeing some grumpy, disfigured old man in this one, but then I saw the bird and realized I was looking at a rock:




Next was pottery:





Floor design in the lobby:


Ceiling:


The End.

Shanghai First Night

For my Lunar New Year Holiday I went to Shanghai. I'm not going to say much about it, because it was a pretty lousy weekend, but I'll give you some pictures and videos over the next couple entries. I had been sick with some sort of flu since the Wednesday before, and even had to take my first sick day at Kate LA the day before I left, just so I could rest up enough to possibly be well enough to enjoy my weekend. Although I did get well enough to not alarm anyone at the airports (which I was EXTREMELY nervous about), I did not have a nice time in Shanghai, particularly since the first thing that happened to me was I got ripped off royally on the taxi fare home, since it was a major holiday, I assume.

I stayed at the Everbright Hotel, which has an exhibition hall and is popular with business travelers. It also has a pool, which I paid for a more expensive hotel for, then I found out charged a fee for use of the pool and athletic facilities, and I couldn't even use the stupid pool anyway, because I was too sick. What a waste. Otherwise, the hotel would have been totally nice, except it didn't have A SINGLE CLOCK ANYWHERE IN THE WHOLE PLACE. That really bothered me, as I had to use my cell phone to czech the time (my watch band broke recently), and my cell phone put me in the wrong stupid time zone. I also didn't have my charger, so I was afraid it'd run out of battery the whole time.

Because of the whole time issue, I was waiting an hour early in the lobby for my tour van to pick me up, and had tried to call them before the scheduled time to see why they were late. Luckily, n one picked up when I called.

Night exterior:




My room:


It was freezing in that damn room all night, as nice as it was. I wish they'd turned the heat on before I'd arrived.



It being the eve of one of the biggest holidays of the year, there were major celebrations going all night long. The fireworks started off like this:


But as midnight approached, began to look like this:


They continued strong until about 2am, and then kept going lightly until about 4am, then only sporadically throughout the morning and all the next day. I would know, as the medication I was taking for my sickness kept me up all night (I hadn't slept in days).

I stayed in the room all the first night to rest, so I would be strong enough to endure, or even enjoy, the city tour I had scheduled the next day.

Classroom Stuff

On Friday two vaguely interesting things happened.

The first was that a student went into an almost catatonic sleep in my class. I got a new class earlier this month with four very young students in it. At least one of them is in kindergarten, which is the one who fell asleep. Lots of students fall asleep in class here and there. Actually, I'm surprised I don't get one or more in every class daily, considering how overworked they constantly are. Somehow they manage to stay awake most of the time.

I saw that Wendy was not really that energetic in class, and had her head down on the desk for most of the first half of class, so I figured she was tired. Then I noticed she had totally fallen asleep, so I went over to wake her up. She didn't wake up right away, so I let it go. Most of what we do in that class is talk, anyway, so she wasn't missing much. She's so young that I figured if her body needed to sleep, she should just do it.

Then class ended and I wrote down her homework for her and let the other kids get ready to go while I tried to wake her up. I've never had so much trouble waking a person up in my life. I was calling her name, rubbing her back, shaking her, trying to tickle her, patting her on the cheek. One of the other kids even ran over and screamed her name at the top of his lungs, but there was nothing in all that except one of those false wake ups that kids do, then go immediately back into their kids comas. In retrospect, I should have asked them what her Korean name is, as she might have responded better to that. I ended up letting the other kids go and then the Korean teacher that they had next came in (I guess they told her) and woke her up in Korean. She asked Wendy if she was sick, but I didn't find out for sure, and I saw her still in the school a little while later, so maybe not. Honestly, though, it's not much proof she wasn't sick--kids and adults alike in Korea have to practically on their deathbeds before they can miss school or work. Anyway, crazy wake up adventure.

The second was something I heard on the recorded dictations they play in the Korean teachers' classes. Next door the teacher was playing an informative lecture that stated that even occasional smacking can be permanently damaging to kids, both physically and emotionally, and the speaker stated all this evidence to that effect. I found it ironic that this material would be part of the curriculum, considering that most Korean kids get smacked around 24-7-365 by parents and teachers. I also was kind of surprised it was allowed, since it might give the kids ideas about fighting back against abuse. But then I realized it's Korea, and ideas are discouraged from a young age, so there probably wouldn't be any trouble.

Hairstrosity

Yes, I got another haircut. I got tired of bringing in this specific picture, even to hairstylists in the US, and not being able to get what I want. So I found a new set of pictures to show what I wanted.

Here's a link to the pics. I printed this one and the next one in the series.

http://www.google.co.kr/imglanding?q=ashley%20greene%20twilight%20hair%20pictures&imgurl=http://www.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Twilight/jackson_rathbone_and_ashley_greene_twilight_movie_image.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.collider.com/entertainment/article.asp/aid/9866/cid/13/tcid/1&h=400&w=600&sz=130&tbnid=IBP3ho9MLpd3TM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dashley%2Bgreene%2Btwilight%2Bhair%2Bpictures&hl=ko&usg=__SyzlXy1f1TkOmgTuyAX6ipCzw9w=&ei=FLiLS6vmIJ7GtAPNhZCGAw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&ved=0CBcQ9QEwAA&start=0#tbnid=IBP3ho9MLpd3TM&start=1

Wow. That's a really long URL. Suckaas.

I think the hairdressers were having a little chuckle about me bringing in a picture of Alice Cullen for my haircut, but I could be wrong. I'm almost positive it was me they were laughing at, though.

Anyway, it seemed pretty easy to pull off, just taking off a few inches from my length, adding some layering, and then going at it with a flatiron. But no, it's just not that simple.

I could tell almost right away that she was not going to get it right. I don't know why the reluctance to chop my hair off, but she really needed to cut about two more inches off to get this thing right. I should have said something, but really at this point, I'm more curious to see how they mangle my hair than in actually getting a good haircut (which is impossible anyway). It's only ten bucks, so it's kind of worth it to have the bad experience.

So she didn't cut off enough hair to begin with. I did actually intervene and tell her to cut more off the back, because I really can't stand all that scrag at the back of my head and neck. Then this other chick washed my hair and they both dried it. Why Koreans feel that a person needs two people to dry one head of short hair is beyond me, but it happens every time. Next, the washy lady styled my hair, according to the directions of the other chick, who indicated the pictures. To my shock and disbelief, this woman pulled out a barrel brush and the hairdryer and started trying to make this happen with those totally inappropriate tools. It took like five minutes to do only a couple small pieces. I thought I was really in for it, and was eying (are you kidding, is that really how you spell eyeing?) the flatiron in the station behind us, willing her to wise up.

She wised up. Out came the flatiron and away went the barrel brush. But I almost started laughing when I saw what she was doing. Instead of setting the iron in my hair and pulling it down diagonally like she should have, she brought it straight down, then rotated it completely around at the ends, like a curling iron, to make these ludicrous boingy-curls. I got really masochistically excited at this point. I thought either she's got a master plan to make these Farrah Fawcett curls relax into a more straight sticky-outy style, or she just has no idea what she's doing. From her hesitance and fussing and the looks on her face, I guessed the latter and figured I should just remain amused, put my hat on when I go outside, and take a picture as soon as I get home, which I did.

Keep in mind I had to buy groceries before I went home, so this is what my hair looked like after having a winter hat on for about half an hour after I left the salon. It was a bit sillier at first. Don't I look disappointed?