Sinoed: Pre-Spring Festival Update

I am free as a wind. To the best of my abilities that is. The semester is finished. Almost the whole school moved to their hometowns to celebrate the Chinese New Year (The Spring Festival). The campus is unbelievably deserted and that is making me happy. Being a little sick I am staying home but plan to travel soon. Should be ashamed of myself getting up at 1PM, spending all the day in front of the computer, but feeling happy about that. Sweet doing nothing : )
What a beautiful afternoon that was today! Sunshine and warmth. Outside under the sun it is really warmer than inside.
My laundry drying out on the balcony was dry already this afternoon, but I decided to give it some more time. With the dusk, seeing the crawling fog form the sea I visited my laundry and found out it is all damp now. Oh well. All's for the better. Had to leave it 'drying out' again. You have to experience the ugliness of non-action first-hand to become a better person : )
But this period of inactivity gives me a chance to enrich my blog. I have tons of stories to tell from my past in China, and though they will not be in a 'diary-like' format, with the dates jumping like fawns on the forest hills, I will try to give an account of my experiences here, spiced up with a good measure of cultural shocks and smaller shocklets.

Story #1 - My trip to Shanghai for the Russian Orthodox Christmas.

Right from the Russian Consulate you can have this magnificent view of the Pudong District - with the signs indicating my former visits to Shanghai : )

In the afternoon I made a raid on the open-air market where I purchased a winter jacket and a backpack with wheels - my long-time dream.
I also witnessed a nice picture this country abounds in, and though to me now it is nothing but the routine, some of my friends over the oceans might find this amusing:

After the market I had a nice dinner in a restaurant named ''Little Country''. It is actually a high-class restaurant, not without a hue of 'cultural' quirks, and

with an exquisite menu, full of that special Chinese flavor I like so much - seriously - both linguistically and gastronomically.

I am not making a joke here, that is a super tasty and cool place to have a meal in. It was a kind of a tourture (pleasant in a way as it was) trying to decide what I want to eat because my wolfy eyes were running insatiably through the countless lines of various delicacies, having a hard time hooking on to something because any next thing seemed to be way more appealing. They had a huge choice of 'hot pots' - mutton, rabbit, 'deer'... At first I wanted to try the rabbit hot pot, but later thought it's more 'refined' to try venison. Turned out it's a huge serving unconquerable for one person, so the waiter talked me into having mutton.
A funny cultural thing I want to mention here is that when the xiaojie (小姐- waitress) was bringing me the venison, her thumb touched a piece of heavily gravied meat - openly and loudly with no way for me NOT to see it, - and her behavior was something I often see in this country - every time with changing feelings (from anger on my earlier stages here to now smile) - the naive and sly method to squeeze through life. She stuck her thumb out, made a swoosh over the dishes, surreptitiously cleaned it on the table cloth under the table, and picked a pen form her apron - all this in one graceful motion - too transparent and at the same time ingenious. You know, with that childish air - ''no one saw, I hardly saw myself so it kinda not happened''.

Other things that caught my attention on that trip are:

A self-sufficient guy in the Shanghai subway, who turned heads and drew smiles form the Shanghainese who are apparently not too much surprised at many weird things - entered a car, unfolded a chair and fell asleep right there. A pretty clever move, carrying a folding chair around, remembering how people here rush and push trying to run into the train first and take a seat.

A pedestrian crossing near the Shanghai Railway Station - there are traffic light there, but the crowd too eager to cross the street no matter which light is on required mentors who herded them - a not infrequent picture at crossings here. This I see in many cities, looks like the people here live in another dimension, not respecting rules and regulations, even though physically living in the world where the tangible artifacts of those regulations exist - in the form of meaningless decorations like the traffic lights and road markings. But the traffic workers near the Train Station took a more drastic step and implemented a useful tool - a long cord with red flags on it to pen off the pushing crowd of newly arrived indigenous folks fresh off a train. They unraveled it with the red light and coiled it up when the green came back on. You gotta do what you gotta do.

(It's not very clear in the picture but you can still see the line if you look real close - sorry had no chance to have another go at the paparazzi thing).

The night was spent in a sauna which is a special topic altogether, with massage and shower and hot rooms and swimming pools - sorry there are no snapshots of the interior, but that's what the hall looks like