Busy weekend

Friday

After my class I met with my Korean friend, Lee, and we went to Xujiahui to get some lunch. We ended up in Cha-mate which has such a wide selection of food to choose from and a lovely fruit tea that I had tried last time I was in Shanghai. I had a set meal of pork chop with mushroom sauce, it came with rice and a bowl of salad, a bowl of mushrooms and a bowl of minced pork for 45RMB ^^ We shared the fruit tea and then went to Saint Marc cafe downstairs where we both had a Royal Chocolate to drink. Whilst we were drinking and the waiter came up to us to fill in a feedback form. It felt like a Chinese lesson where I was guessing what the question said and Lee would tell me if I was right or not.

It was quite surprising what questions were asked - things such as how the waiters greeted you as you entered, if they spoke in a soft tone, if they were well presented and if they smiled enough! So I gave them all high scores and then we left.

Saturday

In the morning I went to Jing'an Temple station and met Hannah. We then walked to Julu Lu to Mr Pancake which is an American pancake place that had good reviews on these Shanghai websites. Even being early (well before 11am) and it was so packed! But luckily for 2 people we were easily seated. It was very squishy and a lot of foreigners. I had a breakfast special pancake and an English tea which was refilled for free whilst there. The pancakes were fluffy and sweet but butter in China doesn't taste nice - nor does milk....

After breakfast/brunch and being so stuffed we went for a walk and went shopping. We walked for hours and had the strangest experience twice in one day - a car actually stopped for us to cross the road! That NEVER happens in Shanghai. Even if the green man is lit and people are crossing, cars will still go as will bikes. So far in the month I have been here I've seen a car hit a cyclist twice and a cyclist hit a pedestrian and knocked her over.

It is taking a lot of getting used to being greeted as soon as you walk into a shop, and being followed around a shop being hassled into buying things. I get so put off I sometimes walk out - especially because they are speaking in Mandarin and I still don't know what they mean or what discounts they are talking about! Then they look at me as I'm Chinese that I surely must have understood so I smile sheepishly and nod and walk around. I think it is the wrong response and the salesperson will then have this secret smirk (knowing I'm foreign) and then walk away.

We walked to South Shaanxi Station and along the way, near the Four Seasons hotel, there is building work. I swear the builders were posing for each other taking photos with those construction cameras! He had his hand on his behind and his other hand holding a pole, looking over his right shoulder and smiling at the camera! Then further along this stretch we saw another man who also seemed to be posing with a pole.... Also this is where the Want Want headquarters are (I know this brand from rice crackers!).

We went to a department store and had a soft drink before we parted and I came to realise that the line 1 and line 10 at South Shaanxi are not linked and that you have to travel across the road and down a side road to reach line 10.

Sunday

This morning I woke up quite early and decided to head out and try and grab some breakfast on my way to Jing'an. I stopped by a pharmacy because I'm starting to feel a cold coming on. I've come to learn that the older the people are, the less likely they will know English, so this pharmacy has 3 old ladies working there. I brought my phrasebook this time in case there were complicated medical words I needed to know. Luckily they understood me well enough to give me some flu/cold tablets and I managed to ask how many times and how many tablets I needed to take. They then recommended me some Vitamin C tablets and as I was leaving they made sure I knew to dissolve these in cold water.

I got to Jing'an and walked to the hotel where we were meant to meet the Bean Volunteer group for the event. There were 9 of us in total and we were told we were going to a place just outside of Shanghai (40 minute drive) to interact with some cats.

It is said that this old man loves cats and over time people donated cats to him. Mostly the people couldn't look after them anymore and the man couldn't say no to a cat. He has had to move 3 times and further out of the city because nobody would rent a flat to him as he had over 200 cats! So this charity got involved as the man had health problems and didn't have the money to look after the cats nor would he get rid of them so the charity pay for all the litter, food, and someone to come each day to clean up after them. However, the cats don't get much attention so Bean volunteer every 2 weeks for people to come and groom them and play with them etc.

So we got into a van that took us to this place which was such a different place to Shanghai. It was a lot of concrete buildings, some warehouses, and lots of winding back streets with kids playing outside and the whole area is so run down. The cats are kept in a place like a garage and it is so cold! They huddled together in giant cat beds but when they heard us coming came running up, purring and wanting attention.

There were also 5 dogs kept in the other room but they are so aggressive we weren't allowed near them. They constantly barked, I wonder how the cats coped with that. I was a little scared at first, especially seeing some cats climbing up on people. Sometimes I had a cat trying to climb up my leg which was painful. I brushed some cats and played with them and eventually got to hold one. He kept on kneading my lap and even wearing jeans my legs are covered in tiny cuts from his claws! I was told kneading is a sign of affection but it hurts a lot!

After about 90 minutes we had to go and we got back to Jing'an and Hannah and I went to Pizza Hut which was so filling and such a comfort (gosh how I miss cheese).