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Yesterday Rosemary, Joanne and I went out after class. We walked for quite a long time and just when we were about to go back, we saw those two people selling food on the pavement.
We saw a girl who had just bought something from them and she was eating from a bowl. When we got closer, we saw that the board in front of the ‘tricycle’ had 八宝粥, 水果羹 written on it.

Rosemary and I wanted to try the 八宝粥 (ba bao zhou, Eight Treasures porridge). The woman told us that it’s RMB 1 for a bowl and we didn’t hesitate any longer and took out RMB 1 each. So cheap for such a big portion! We had 八宝粥 before but only the type sold in supermarkets at about RMB 3. This one looked a bit different.

I started eating and remembered that I have my camera in my bag. Joanne took this pic for me.

After that, I took a few pics of my portion of 八宝粥. I don’t know what that orange thing is. It tasted okay.

I pushed the orange thing to the bottom and took another pic.

A closer look. The white thing seems to be made of glutinous rice.

The 八宝粥 was good. Unfortunately, the portion was too big for me and I couldn’t finish it all. I only managed to finish 2/3. The 八宝粥 might not look as nice and colorful as the ones I usually buy at the supermarket but I love the taste. (homemade taste and not as sweet as the ones sold in supermarkets)

It was my first time around that place. I have no idea if the seller is usually there. Still, I took a few pics of the surroundings so as to remember the place. I find it difficult to find certain places sometimes.
Taking pics always help. hehe

I took pics of the middle school found on the opposite side of the road. (Name and address of the middle school: 上海同济初级中学 ,上海市杨浦区政通路260号)

My first pic was too dark and the color of the building looked weird.

I took two more pics.

Now I’m sure (okay maybe 99%) that I can find that place again.

My winter vacation is over already and my new classes have started on the 5th of this month. Everything is going smoothly for the time being and the only thing that I’m unhappy about is the weather.

After a few months of cold weather, the temperature finally went up to 20 degrees at some point during the vacation and slightly more than a week later, the temperature dropped to almost 0 °C and it was very windy. The temperature is on the rise again now and hopefully it won’t drop anymore. I hate cold weather. I hate having to wear so many clothes, falling sick,etc… The worst is that I tend to eat a lot during winter. Lack of self-discipline. *sigh*

*edited on 10th March at 00:36*
Argh! I’m sick now. :weeping:

After hours of shopping, we felt like having pizza for dinner. Rosemary and I are sick of Pizza hut pizzas and decided to order from Papa John’s. Pizza hut’s pizzas taste o k a y (a very reluctant okay’) in comparison. (our opinion anyway..)
Jean Noel and Jennifer (2 of Rosemary’s siblings) have never eaten Papa John’s pizzas before (unfortunately, no Papa John’s in Mauritius:( ) so this was a good opportunity.

We preferred to eat at home rather than in the restaurant so Rosemary phoned to order the pizzas when we were on our way back home. The big question was : How many to order? When Richard was still in Shanghai, Rosemary,Richard and I used to order a large Papa John’s pizza and the number of slices per person was just right if we weren’t extremely hungry. Taking that into consideration, we were originally planning to order two medium ones but after much thought, we ordered two large ones. *cough cough* Papa John’s large pizza is bigger than Pizza hut’s, 14 inches. Papa John’s medium pizza is 12 inches, same as a large Pizza hut pizza.
2 large pizzas for 4 persons (3 gals and a guy)… 20 slices in all… I didn’t think that we would be able to finish the whole thing..but surprisingly, we were able to.
What can I say?
hmmm… Hours of shopping + walking around= very tired + very hungry.

Photo of the two large pizzas that we had ordered…….. and that’s Jean Noel’s hand reaching for a slice

Half Island Spice , half Texas Heat pizza

Super Papa’s

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I didn’t go travelling this winter hols. Thus, I stayed in Shanghai and celebrated Chinese New Year with some friends; just dinner at a Korean restaurant. We didn’t go to a Chinese restaurant because we didn’t want a noisy atmosphere. I never cease to be amazed at how loud Chinese people can be in restaurants.
At around 7pm, we were the only people in the restaurant. The usual customers were either back to their own country for the hols or dining at Chinese restaurants that day. We got our food really fast. Some Koreans and Europeans came a bit later.

We asked one of the waitresses to take our pic after we finished eating.

I usually wear red when it’s Chinese New Year but this year I settled for pink. The purpose of wearing red is to ward off evil spirits and to bring in good luck. Well, I did wear something red yesterday but it wasn’t visible to other people.

It’s great spending time with friends but I couldn’t help feeling a bit homesick yesterday. Chinese New Year is really a time for family. What I miss the most about Chinese New Year in Mauritius(in no particular order):

Being with my family,
Unrolling the big roll of red firecrackers which we usually hang from the 2nd floor(which is equal to 3rd floor in Chinese) all the way down to the streets,
My dad lighting the firecrackers, the whole family covering the ears and watching the firecrackers explode ,leaving pinkish red remains all over the streets… I love the sound of firecrackers ,
Hong bao time… money money money.. ,
Sitting around a rond table and eating with the whole family ,
Eating the Chinese new year snacks made by mum (yummy!!),
Going to pagodas with the whole family ,
Watching lion dance performances ,
…..etc

What’s good about this year is that it’s PIG YEAR!! I love pig stuffs and now they are on sale everywhere. More pig stuffs to add to my collection…

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! :flowers:

Ouf!! I can finally access my website! I’ve been trying for days to write an entry here but the page wouldn’t load.
I guess that everyone has already heard about the earthquake which occured in Taiwan by now. The earthquake has caused deaths and injuries. Many problems also arose because undersea fiber-optic cables were damaged. (more information at link 1,link 2,link 3)

Since the Taiwan earthquake, internet speed in Shanghai has been very slow. It’s faster than the day of the earthquake but still not normal. I can connect to my Windows Live Messenger sometimes but I know some people who aren’t able to. Chinese websites load fine for me now (unlike the day of the earthquake) but most websites I usually browse cannot load or take a long time to load completely. Big images just won’t load.:( Surprisingly, the gmail website loads fine for me. (Yay for gmail and gmail chat!) Still, it’s really frustrating not to be able to browse my favorites websites.
I’ve always thought that the Internet connection in my university’s International students dorms wasn’t fast enough but now that this has happened, I’ll stop complaining about the internet. (at least for a few months… )
The internet situation has improved little by little but I’ve heard that it will take a few more weeks for everything to be back to normal.

I was out shopping (yes, again!)yesterday with Rosemary and Jean Noel. We were about to go back home when we saw a jewellery stall. I was having a look at the rings when I noticed two young people in the next shop,sitting near the door. I wouldn’t have noticed them, had it not been for the jewellery seller who kept glancing at the couple. The girl was sitting in the lap of the other person and they were kissing. Rosemary noticed that I was looking at the couple and she told me that both were girls. I couldn’t tell . I had assumed that the other person was a guy because of the clothes and hairstyle. Even the face looked like a guy’s (according to me anyway). The couple just kept on kissing and I continued looking at the rings and trying some on.

Seeing Chinese people kiss in public was a bit surprising when I first came to China. Because of my parents’ obvious disapproval of public displays of affection, I had thought that kissing in public (esp the long,passionate kisses) wasn’t acceptable in China. Since I came to China, I’ve seen quite a lot of young Chinese people kiss in public. The Chinese couples I’ve seen kissing in the streets look like they can’t get enough of each other. No big deal about that but when I see the disapproving or somewhat embarrassed looks on the passerbys’ faces, I feel quite amused.

Anyway, back to the kissing couple…
They left the shop after a few minutes and the salesgirl came out of the shop, shaking her head and talking about the couple in a loud voice. She said that the couple kept on kissing and that they were both girls. She said ‘mouth to mouth kisses’ a few times,almost like she could barely believe what she just saw. I guess she was also quite angry that the couple sat in her shop for so long without buying anything. The jewellery seller, seeing that my friends and I (she knew that we were all foreigners) had witnessed that scene, looked quite embarrassed. She told us:”她们是社会败类..损坏上海的形象…不男不女的 …” I looked at the couple walking away, then turned to the display of rings once more…
I don’t have anything against lesbians . It was the reaction of the two sales persons which amused me at that time and I did my best not to laugh in front of them.
When I think about all that now, I can’t help feeling sad for yesterday’s couple. It must not be easy for them. Homosexuality is still regarded as a taboo here. Still, China is slowly moving towards acceptance. There are some gay & lesbian bars now and even hotlines. However, there is still a long way to go.

It seems like we are reaching the end of winter. It was a sunny day yesterday!:D It was around 17° C yesterday morning. I was even able to go out in a skirt and turtleneck sweater instead of the usual jeans,sweater,scarf and long coat. The temperature dropped to around 10° C at night but it was still okay because I had brought a light jacket with me. However,it’s a bit rainy today and cold(9° C right now). I read on weather.com that it will still rain tomorrow Noooooooooo. :confusion:

I went out with some friends yesterday and while in the bus, I kept staring outside until a sentence (from radio program) caught my attention : “…相爱的人在一起，每天都是情人节…” .
Sure, if people who love each other are together, everyday can be like Valentine’s Day. Why do we need to have a special day in the year for love? Maybe it’s because some people don’t have much time (work,studies,etc..) to celebrate, to show their special someone how much they love them? It might be the only day during which some couples celebrate their love. For some people, Valentine’s Day is the only day their boyfriends or husbands remember to give them flowers, sweet cards,etc. :confusion: I think that Valentine’s Day is over commercialized. Prices for roses and chocolates go up. Since a few weeks now, chocolates in heart-shaped boxes, flowers and big red hearts have made their way into many stores.
Personally, I find it no big deal whether I celebrate Valentine’s Day or not. Just being with my special someone is enough. I prefer romance to be spontaneous and not planned. I don’t want my bf to give me presents only because it’s Valentine’s Day. Some guys don’t understand it but it’s the little things they do which count.
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The guy who phoned me the other day, phoned me two more times the next day at around 4 a.m , letting the phone ring a few times only. Very annoying. I had to put my cellphone on silent mode.

My roommate is back. She came back yesterday morning at around 7 a.m and I thought it was a burglar or something. She tried to open the door but I had locked it(door latch) from the inside and instead of knocking on the door or calling me, she kept trying to open the door, pushing it for a good 5 minutes until I finally decided that a burglar cannot be that stupid and went to open the door. I wasn’t expecting her to be back so soon. I wrote a really long entry about her one month ago but I deleted it because I didn’t want to rant about her here. We’ve been roommates since a few months only. The thing is, I cannot live with her. We are too different and she has some habits which really get to me. I’m her second roommate now and it seems like she really cannot live with someone else. I’m now waiting for my friend Eni to come back so that I can change roommates. To do that, I also need to wait for the new student to come too. The nice lady at the reception told me that there’s a new student but she hasn’t arrived yet. Well, my roommate can have that girl as her roommate instead. On the other hand, it won’t be fair to the new girl.

Wait a minute! My blog title is 10+ degrees today… I nearly forgot that I wanted to write about the weather. :confusion:
I woke up at 11am today, feeling terrible. Sore throat, slightly runny nose… seems like I’m coming down with something. Or maybe it’s because I went to bed too ‘early’ ? I managed to go to bed before 1 a.m yesterday. Lately, I’ve had trouble sleeping, tossing and turning in bed, trying to fall asleep until I finally give up and go online just for the sake of having something to do. I went to bed at around 7 a.m on several consecutive days and woke up at 2 p.m or even 6 p.m . (on days that I don’t have to go out)
Today, weather.com says that the highest temperature in Shanghai is 16° C and lowest is 12° C.
It seems too good to be true. I hate cold weather and having to wear many layers of clothes when I go out(for me, anything below 10° C is very cold) but if it’s really 16° C today, I cannot stay in my room all day. I have to go out and enjoy the nice weather.