Another, & perhaps my last (!?! ) Shanghai weekend

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Weekends normally start here on Thursday nights, but this Thursday night was a little different. After Wednesday night's seder was not very much of a success, we had the great idea of doing our own seder at the apartments on Thursday night. This was a great idea for many reasons, mainly that it would feel much more like home, would be much more personal, and for what I think was by far the most important reasons - that way, we could include all of our non-Jewish friends, and invite anyone who was remotely curious about it. The most exciting part for me was, well was really a mixture of things, but definitely the fact that my Chinese teacher Guo Laoshi (she's the cutest woman ever, and while it's really tricky to be able to tell how old Chinese people are, I think she can't be older than mid-20s) was going to come. She had wanted to go to the big seder in Shanghai the night before because she has a Jewish friend, but she wasn't allowed in, so she was so excited to be able to come to ours. I told her Jewish people always start things late, but she showed up at our apartments promptly at 8, all dressed up with wine and two of her friends, and I was so glad to be able to share this with her, as she was genuinely, genuinely curious (and will most likely never be able to experience this kind of thing again). A lot of our non-Jewish friends were helping out with the cooking, and it was so cute because they were trying to obey all of the strictest Kosher laws, so they kept asking if they could put this in or that in (they left out corn syrup and soy sauce and everything) and it was amazing that dinner was completely home-cooked by my classmates here, and was the best seder dinner I can ever remember (and perhaps the first time that I actually felt full after). As for my part, I was doing a lot of running around and "supervising," and I spent some time helping make the Charoset which we made in a blender and the ingredients had managed to spread onto every surface of the kitchen, it was frenzied but really fun. In one apartment, they were making veggie stir fry (yay for a Chinese style Passover), and the main course was an Indian style curry (it was very vegetarian and very fantastic) made by our Korean friend Alex, and so so many people came down into one of the four kitchens to help out. I had such a warm feeling, and I was so proud of the other Jews for organizing it, and my friends Ben and Mike for leading the seder and really doing it, and so in love with everyone for helping out and being genuinely interested, and sharing it with us! Because the apartments are just enormous, we had it set up that we were all in the same common room, at three different tables, and I was the head of the table on the floor (yay another Asian element). It was such a happy, memorable night, and gave me yet another reason why I am so very happy here. It really feels like home, and these people feel like family. Unfortunately, I had to leave a little early after dinner to study for that damn midterm I had to wake up the next morning to make up. But Kelly and Shana and Andrew all stopped by and offered to help me study and so I was only half studying, and half hanging out.
Friday was a bit of a frustrating day, as we had intended to plan the trips we're planning to take for EVERY weekend left in the semester. I had big plans for what we'd accomplish, but after honestly 5?6? hours at the travel agent and on CTRIP at the CIEE office, we had a reservation that had already fallen through once for Xian next weekend. We didn't find out until our plane tickets were delivered the next day (Saturday) that we're actually going, from next Friday am until Saturday night, so I can be back in town for when my parents arrive on Sunday! woohoo! (Our favorite bar here Barbarossa is also having a birthday party thing on Saturday night, so that was another motivator)...By the time we had the whole thing sorted out, it was pretty late and it ended up being just me and Kelly, and I'd already eaten a big dinner and a whole box of cookies, but nevertheless we decided to go out to my favorite favorite favorite part of town, Xintiandi (where, by the way for those who know London, they're opening up a real British Pizza Express!!) I was really mad I'd already eaten so much, especially since I spotted a Tapas restaurant with a whole vegetarian section, and Andrew came to meet us and we randomly entered a club that turned out to be a real live Chinese techno( (part of the time) club, and we were so mesmerized we got a table and decided to stay. It was a real people watching opportunity, and I personally couldn't get over why it seemed to be the cool thing to do to wear sunglasses inside while it was already really dark, and how there were all these Chinese trendsters who looked really cool and put together until they started to dance, and it was just a nightmare (Chinese people really have no rhythm - I know we thought they were bad when we went to Canada for spring break, but this is really just a whole other level, up there with the traffic situation here). Tonight ended with an adrenaline high and the knowledge that it was an experience, but we will definitely not be going back (we can't go back in fact, but that's another story...)
Saturday = best day ever. Now that its been 2 weeks, I think I can say that my favorite activity that I've found so far in Shanghai has been running with the Hash House Harriers on the weekends. The Hash House Harriers refer to themselves as a "drinking club with a running problem," and it's made up of mostly expats and a few locals too. Apparently there are Hash running groups in nearly every city around the world, and I'd heard about them before I came to Shanghai, but it took me almost 2 months to get motivated enough to go on one of their runs. Last weekend I convinced my friend Melissa to come with me, and it was raining and we were so close to not going, but we did and it turned out that the rain was probably the best possible condition for my asthma, and the run turned out to be almost an hour and a half, and when we got back to the restaurant and were greeted by buckets and buckets and what they refer to as "piss pots" filled with beer, we found out that the run had been approximately 7miles, which is probably the most I have ever run, and it was relatively painless cause it was outside and fun and we were following a trail of flour around the French Concession area of the city. When Melissa and I got back last weekend, we went straight to our sauna at the gym, and couldn't stop raving about it to other people on the program. So this Saturday, even though Melissa was out of town, I convinced Andrew and Kelly and Susannah to come with me, and this was a big run (we had to make reservations in order to make sure we'd get t-shirts) because it was #888, which is probably the luckiest number in Chinese, so the dinner after was at an awesome music lounge/bar/restaurant right on the Bund (#5 on the Bund), and the whole event took up my whole Saturday - we left at 1:30 and my friends basically had to drag me out when they were ready to go at 8:30 or 9pm, and the run (about 6 miles this time, for the first part we ran right through the most touristy part of the Bund and I'm sure we showed up in 100's of Chinese peoples' tourist photos, but they love us - they're already excited enough to see white Waiguoren on the streets to begin with, but a whole group of white people running is a whole other story. The other best part of it is for once we have the power to run through the streets as a pack and actually stop the unstoppable Shanghai traffic! Oh what a feeling of power!!) was only the beginning of the fun, but in many ways its the part after the run that's the best part. I just love and absolutely thrive on meeting these expats - while we're still the youngest ones there, it seems like there are a bunch of guys (and a few girls) from Sweden and Germany and Australia and England and Ireland who are only a few years older than us, and are living the dream and working or interning in Shanghai. Oh and I forgot to mention the craziest thing that happened when I first got to the Hash last week, as it turns out I was wearing a Rice Oweek shirt, and while I can pretty much count on no one recognizing Rice if I were in New York, a guy immediately approached me and said, "I have to ask - what college are you at?" And I was shocked cause he obviously went to Rice, and as it turns out both he and his wife were at Wiess, and they live in Shanghai now but they have a daughter a year younger than me who is at Wiess now!! What a small, small world! And they were so nice, the guy gave me his business card and said to call if I need anything at all while I'm in Shanghai, and considering that I came to the complete other side of the world, to a country where once again I didn't know a soul, I feel like I'm doing pretty well for myself, I'm meeting people who would look out for me if I needed anything, and I'm starting to carve out a niche for myself. I think I've already made quite a reputation for myself at this running group, and I think I'm also getting addicted to it, and it's tough because now it's coming down to go out of town & travel for the weekend/or, stay in Shanghai and do the Hash, and the Hash still manages to be so appealing...another reason why I'll have to come back here in a few years. I feel like I've already found a welcoming, and really crazy, community...
Sunday I opted to go on a strawberry picking field trip which turned out to be pretty uneventful, as the strawberry picking part didn't last for more than an hour, and the real motivation for the trip was clearly trying to get us to make Chinese friends and play "games" with the group of Chinese people who came too and were about our age. Okay, so it wasn't really my day and to be honest, sometimes I do get a little tired of Chinese people and dealing with some of the things I find a bit weird about the Chinese culture (yes this is why I'm glad that I didn't do a homestay), and so I may or may not have chosen to "sit out" the games, by myself, on the bus, BUT i did get a bit of studying in for my Chinese test tomorrow, and IT JUST MAY HAVE BEEN WORTH IT because I'm about to go upstairs to help make chocolate fondue, because what else is there to do with a ton of handpicked strawberries?

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