You Walk Like a New Yorker

It's almost Chinese New Year baby!!! which means a week long vacay and lots of candy aka several cavities to factor into my shanghai budget. AND loads of overtime paid to the workers outside my hotel for soft launching the opening of the "HUGE mall" and this awesome dragon boat CNY decor. impressive. unfortunately nothing is open in the mall but all the windows aren't boarded up anymore! here i've found...it's all about small wins.

I also got a suspicious knock on my hotel door this evening, while blasting drake on pandora and munching on sweet chili flavored 'toss' chips (unabashedly resembling a can of pringles). twas the hotel manager with a gracious and beautifully wrapped chinese new year gift. he eagerly explained it was 'traditional chinese' and as i closed the door i thought 'sweet, i can re-gift this to my team'. but then i opened it and found this:

is it a fish?! is it an ornament? is it a marzipan koi?! it's shrink wrapped AND has a preserving pack in it (similar to the ones in my aldo shoe boxes). i'm sure all you chinese peeps out there are laughing at my ignorance...or my inability to notice that it's something as obvious as a chinese new year chocolate fish (a la the easter bunny). i shall find out tomorrow when my team opens it! ha!

in other news, i did do something cooler than use my vpn on american websites and eat imitation american food! fellow pennster jo tong took me to this awesome cafe behind A SNEAKER STORE. how can one match all my soul's fulfillment in one space - food, kicks, nixon watches, menus in english, hipster crowds and asian djs/store keepers. seriously how. after slurping my tasty melt-in-your-mouth pork belly noodle soup and a bite or six of lemon curd cake, it was time to take to the art galleries and continue the hipster trend for the evening...

Found some great galleries and another awesome cafe featuring the tastiest teas in town. thanks to jo for taking me around! best compliment of the night was 'you walk like a new yorker'! not sure it was a compliment at the time :P but i loved it!

In some housing news, soon i shall depart the hotel room. when i get back from india, i'll be moving to a permanent locay. on the way back from withdrawing my US account clean to pay for this apt, i passed by another building my agent took me to see, near a park. i had seen it at night and it was like seeing an apt in central park at midnight on a sunday. creepy and intriguing. but same location on saturday noon - amazing and wholesome. i had a bit of non-buyer's remorse until i passed the same park and realized this was not the place to air out all my dirty laundry. ha...ha. c'mon you're laughing...i can hear you.

tomorrow i plan to attend a very non-assuming expat event at a bar appropriately titled "The Geisha". posts to follow...