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It is getting warmer and warmer. We can finally say goodbye to winter and enjoy spring (which came a bit late.. )

This will be my second and last entry about Shanghai winter 2008.
Note: More than 20 pics in this entry

It snowed for a few more days after my last update about snowing in Shanghai. In fact, we had about a week of snow here. Shanghai didn’t look the same. The first few days were great! I was in a wonderful mood each time I went out and saw everthing covered with snow but after 4 consecutive days like that, it started to get annoying and I kept wishing that it would stop snowing.

In fact, there was so much snow that I was able to make a snowman. My first ever snowman! Well I didn’t make it by myself. Desmond and I walked in front of the soccer field that day at around noon and saw this:

Snow-covered soccer field

Some people were already making snowmen. It looked fun! We decided to make one too but first, we hurried to the dorms and knocked on our friends’ doors to ask them to join us. Some of them were still sleeping so it was only at around 3 p.m that we started on our snowman. By then, the snow on the ground was already melting.

Working on our snowman
We used an empty plastic cup for the nose, orange peel for the mouth, leaves for the hair and the eyes,a branch,etc.

Desmond working on the snowman’s hand to add the V sign simply because euh.. we are in Shanghai. To those who are not familiar with it, I’ll just say that anyone who has been to China and who has Korean or Japanese friends do that V sign at least once when taking pics.

Laughing at our snowman.
The head looked so strange.

Two Chinese guys came while we were busy making the snowman and started taking pics of our chef-d’oeuvre (*cough*) and us. It felt so weird having strangers openly taking pics of us like that. The 2 guys stayed until we left the soccer field after we got tired from the snow fight and all. Desmond left his number and email address with the guys, asking them nicely if they could send us some of the pics that they took of us and one of them really sent us the pics.

Group pic with the snowman. See the v sign?
One of the Chinese guys took this pic for us.

~The soccer pose~
Free kick! Usha shoots!
Guys: We need to protect our private parts. Karina: I want to join too!
Check out the snowman goal-keeper and the tracks made by the snow ball that we rolled around to make the body of the snowman
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Happy Chinese New Year to everyone!
It’s the year of the rat now and hopefully, it’s going to be a great year for me. (I was born in the year of the rat. )
After almost a week of snow, it has finally stopped snowing a couple of days ago. I’ll upload more snow pics soon.

I had dinner with Desmond and the other Mauritians in Tongji yesterday. Desmond made lamb curry, Jean Noel & Karina made fried rice and potato salad, Ashish made a shrimp dish, Kailash made a chicken dish, Dominique made fruit salad, I brought the naans and the beers, Vricksha brought the soft drinks. The others helped in the kitchen.

Some photos:

Jean Noel, making fried rice.

Karina at the sink.

My plate of food. I took a bit of everything.

Photo of half of the group. None of the sino-Mauritians wore red. I wore red gloves (not in this pic) . Does that count?

After dinner, we continued to watch the Chinese New Year show on CCTV 1, played cards, domino, Pro Evolution Soccer (the guys of course) and then went to the rooftop to watch the fireworks.There were other students up there already.
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This winter , it has snowed several times already but it was too little to be worth mentioning. However, yesterday’s snow was quite heavy for Shanghai. I say that it’s quite heavy snow for Shanghai because it doesn’t snow much here in winter. The only other time I experienced such snow here in Shanghai was on Dec. 30th and 31st 2004. (Old post & pics about it here) Yesterday’s snow was heavier. Perhaps it felt that way because I was outside in the snow longer than in 2004.
I went to meet some of my Mauritian friends at 2 p.m to go to Hong Kong plaza and despite carrying an umbrella, my jeans, boots and bag were all covered with snow because of the wind. Being from a country where winter is around 15 °C and hence never snows, we were all happy that it was snowing. The only problem is that in Shanghai, the snow melts too quickly, which is probably why I’m down with a cold now. My clothes got a bit wet yesterday.
Two pics that I took yesterday:

The snow stopped after a few hours yesterday but it snowed again early this morning. I didn’t go out this morning but Desmond, who went to drop off a French guy at the Hongkou stadium at 5:30 a.m came back and showed me the snowball that he made. He also told me that the road was very slippery. The taxi driver wasn’t happy at all.

Desmond holding the snowball

He could have made a much bigger one but he wanted to go back inside the building asap.

Sushi was fascinated by the snowball. She was a bit scared of it at first but once it started melting a bit (or rather,a lot. The ball became much smaller by the time Sushi was willing to get near it.), she started licking the ball but stopped once the cold got to her.

She pounced on the ball and then ran away from the ball. She did that a few times before we finally threw away the ball.

It has been quite cold today. It doesn’t feel cold when it snows but after the snow, when the snow starts to melt or has finished melting, it feels very cold. I looked out of the window just now. All the snow has melted already and the ground is wet. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr ………… It feels very cold. Now I’m trying to decide whether to brave the cold, go out to have dinner or stay home and cook noodles or something. I’m definitely not a winter person. (unless if it’s the winter in Mauritius!! hehe) According to weather.com, right now ” it is 1°C but it feels like -3°C ” . It doesn’t sound like much to people who are from countries where winter is below 0 °C but for me, it’s COLD.

-edited to add the following-
I didn’t go out so dinner was noodles indeed.
Looks good huh? It tasted great! Prepared by…… Desmond. Yeah, not me. Those who know me personally won’t find it surprising.

BUT…. I fried the fish!
It didn’t look appetizing at first so I used the leftover lamb curry (cooked by Desmond yesterday) to pour on the fried fish. Hence, the fish tasted like lamb but it was still good.
ta daaaa!

My camera went kaput again, showing me that annoying memory card error message when I switched on my camera. I almost reached for the screwdriver like last time but before that, I shook the camera a bit and gave the bottom a few taps. And… it’s working again.
Now that the photos have been transferred to my computer, I can write about my Christmas.

All the students in my faculty (the students are all international students) got 3 days off for Christmas (24th ,25th and 26th Dec). As for the other faculties (Chinese students and a few international students), the students had to go to class. No hols for them.
Unlike the past few years, we didn’t have a Christmas show in International Students Building 1. Usually, Mrs Pei who organizes activities for the international students would be going from class to class, trying to get students to sign up for the Christmas show. The students would be the ones performing during the show. With exams coming up 2-3 weeks after Christmas, I’ve always thought that the timing wasn’t right. This year, there was surprisingly nothing to be heard about a Christmas show.
Instead, all the people from our faculty got a free lunch at the restaurant on the 2nd floor in International Students Building 1 as a late Christmas treat. Most of us never go there on normal days because the food is much more expensive than at the canteen which is right below the restaurant.
What was on every table when we entered the restaurant at noon:

The dish with the cherry on top was kinda weird. The bottom layer was tasteless, the middle layer was a bit salty and the top layer was sweet.

They brought around 8 more dishes after that, including dessert. Half the people at my table had already left when they brought the last 3 dishes. We didn’t know that there was going to be that many dishes. We were all full already. Pic taken halfway through the meal:

This sweet and sour fish was brought to the table when many people had left the restaurant already. Fortunately, my friends and I were still in the restaurant. This was good. Yummy. My camera was out of battery by then so no pics of desserts.

The Head and Vice-head of our faculty went from table to table during the meal, wishing everyone a Happy New Year in advance. When they came to our table, the Vice-head called me by my name. I didn’t know that the vice-head knew who I was. I wonder what goes on in those faculty meetings. He said : “You already have HSK 8,right?”. I said yes. The Head of the faculty then said to the rest of the people at my table that HSK 8 is part of the requirements to be able to graduate and encouraged them.

Note: Entry has been edited on the 29th to add the 3 above pics. There are 13 more pics in this entry.
Warning :Long entry.
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