Eliots Hit the Hai

I had the greatest time with my family last week on their extremely brief trip through Shanghai. We walked around the city, had a taste of true China at Fuxing Park, a taste of retail heaven (read: Barbie Store!) and an even bigger taste of retail hell (read: Fake Market). I finally went to M on the Bund, which yes, had an amazing view of both sides of the Bund.

Here are a couple gems from the visit ... somewhere there is a shot of Daddio getting a mani/pedi too, but sadly its not on my camera.

Why are the Eliot sisters wearing mustaches you might ask? We threw H a Mexico themed 25th bday party, of course. My mom supplied the pinata, pin the tail on the donkey, and all kinds of goodies.

Family minus me at Fuxing Park ... there is an amazing maraca dance party going on behind them in case you cant tell.

Me at Yu Gardens ... I gathered several giggling fans when I did this.

Thats it for now! I'm trying to make these shorter so I post more often. Those of you who know me, though, know that I struggle with brevity.

Cut Your Damn Hair!

I've never really been the type to spend money on beauty extravagances. I get my hair cut maybe twice a year, generally experimenting with a new look each time, I don’t like facials, get bruises from massages, and I didn’t even get a manicure before my senior prom. But somehow, since moving to China it’s as if I’ve become a whole new woman. I purchased my very first hair straightener within weeks of moving here, my massage appointments seem to be increasing exponentially, and I have even started to skip lunch during the week to sneak off and get a midday mani/pedi.

One of my favorite new activities is going to get my hair washed. I know, it sounds a little ridiculous, but don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it my friends. On the occasional weekend, after getting dressed and doing our makeup, H (my lone female friend and thus beauty companion) and I grab a couple beers and head to “Super Star” and for a mere RMB 30, get our hair washed, rinsed, blow-dried and styled (I tend to go straight, while H goes for the curls). They even throw in a little massage to relieve the stress of being waited on hand and food … and head.

This being China, of course, even getting your hair washed at the salon isn’t exactly how you might picture it. Instead of leaning back with your hair in a sink, at “Super Star” (and most salons in China) they dump shampoo on your head while you’re in the chair and squirt on water slowly until you have just the right amount of lather. They then proceed to massage your hair into hilariously unflattering shapes until its squeaky clean, all with you sitting up, sipping on your beer, and remaining impressively dry.

Fun right? Well, there is one small catch.

See “Super Star” isn’t exactly the most high-end salon around (hard to tell with a name like “Super Star,” I know), and it seems their electrical set up is a little outdated. H says the power has gone out four times while she’s been there, but she’s generally been just about finished and therefore just paid and headed out. Last time we went, we weren’t so lucky. We had just finished getting all lathered up, both of us had heads full of shampoo and I had just been led over to start my rinse when, BOOM!

Blackout. I blame it on the lady whose hair was so ridiculously long they had to use two blow-driers at once just to have any hope of getting it dry.

This was quite a pickle. My hair was wet and full of suds, and H’s was somewhat resembling a beehive held together with bubbles. There was no electricity, meaning no lights, no more hot water to rinse, and of course, no blow-driers. We were laughing hysterically at the whole situation, much to the relief of the salon workers, but we couldn’t exactly hit up our favorite bars with our current looks. We needed a solution.

“No problem,” they said (speaking Chinese). “We can go down the street to another salon.” Oh good … classy. The hair washers carefully wrap our heads in white towels and hand us our purses, and leaving coats and beers behind, H and I headed outside and proceeded to jog after our hairdressers down about a block-and-a-half to the tiniest little hole in the wall salon I’ve seen. Standing in the back of this maybe 10 sqm establishment were three incredibly angry looking prostitutes, one of which was not pleased she had to vacant her perch on the washing chair so that I could finish my rinse. H and I each took our turns rinsing out the suds, and then sat down in our swivel chairs for blow-dry and styling, which also turned out to be a less than relaxing experience. H’s hairdresser kept getting so distracted by the Chinese soap opera on TV that he would momentarily space out mid-curl, and I was not appreciating the prostitute stink-eye.

I will give “Super Star” some credit for thinking on their toes. Regardless of the power drama, they were still able to make us pretty, and we even managed to get one of the hairdressers to pop back over to the first salon and grab our beers so we could at least numb ourselves to the hilarity a little bit.

I feel like every day I have an experience that leads me to sigh, “Only in China.” Bizarre things like this just don’t seem to happen elsewhere. At this point I’ve seen a lot of crazy sights in Shanghai, and been part of even more. It seems two white girls running down the street with their hair full of shampoo is just another oddity to add to the list. I will definitely be back to “Super Star,” probably soon. Next time I’m just going to have to check out the other customers, and if anyone has hair past their shoulders, I’ll just have to come back another time.

Recognized!

So the other day I was wearing my Midd Water Polo t-shirt at the gym, and the girl on the treadmill next to me leans over and goes, "Hey, did you go to Middlebury?" Turns out she's from Boston but her husband went to Breadloaf ... small world!

Sadly, other than A, my one Midd friend from the class of '03, there actually aren't that many Midd kids here in Shanghai ... or if there are then they are considerably older than me or only here for a brief period of time, for the "experience".

Stop going to Beijing and move down South already guys!

Shanghai Sea Dragons

For those of you who have known me for awhile, you know I have always had a real love for water sports. This is despite the fact that I’ve never actually been that great at them. With water polo right at the top of my list, when I met JC at a BBQ my second week in Shanghai, I knew we would get along. JC has played polo for years, even knows my old high school coach Clarke, and he had been looking for some cohorts to start up an expat team here.

It took awhile, and to be honest I had little to do with the initial kick-off, but by mid-summer or so, the Shanghai Sea Dragon’s International Water Polo Club was formed, with JC in charge and a distribution list of around 40 potential players. Now, about 20 of us or so head up to the Qingpu Sports Center (where all of Shanghai’s professional athletes train (once including Yao Ming and Liu Xiang)) every other week to play a 6-quarter game against the Shanghai (men’s) professional team, scrimmage among ourselves, and practice some drills. I am one of maybe 3 females on the roster, and as of late, the only one that actually shows up. This makes me “Women’s Captain”, a meaningless title that I carry with pride.

This past weekend the team had our first real test of skill when we were invited to play against the Sichuan Provincial women’s team in Chengdu. We headed out on Friday after work: nine players (including myself as the lone female) and three girlfriends, for what can only be described as one of the most ridiculous, fun and challenging weekends I’ve ever had. A group of us got to our hotel at about 10:30 pm, threw down our bags, and headed straight out to a bar to meet up with one of JC’s colleagues and his friends. Turned out it was a going away party, and we walked in mid speech, just in time to participate in my first ever “three cheers for Mike,” we’re talking the full three “hip hip hooray’s”, and a slurred version of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”. We had a lot of catching up to do.

Enter bottle of Jose.

The night was incredibly fun! The expat community in Chengdu knows how it’s done, and is so incredibly welcoming. It is also extremely good at keeping water polo players out until 5 am before their first 8:30 battle against perhaps the strongest, fastest 90 lb girls in the world. Needless to say, when got to the pool that next morning, the 5 out of 9 of us that had been out were still fairly intoxicated, which only added to the fact that our huge men vs. their tiny women was not an even match-up (in the opposite sense than what you might imagine). We actually scored a fair number of goals, but lost due to the fact that, well, they scored more. After the game, we all chatted up the girls in each of our own levels of Chinglish, and found out that several of them had actually played on the national team in Beijing, including the goalie and the “one that looks like a boy,” both of whom I bonded with more than the others.

At about 11 am the hangovers really started to kick in. Four of the boys headed out with the Sichuan coach to a golf club for the afternoon, while I led the three couples and my friend Coley on the afternoon alternative: the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center. We grabbed lunch at an amazing Sichuanese restaurant called Gingko, enjoying classic Sichuan delicacies like Dan Dan Mian and Ma Po Dofu (filled with mouth-numbing spices), and then headed north.

Pandas are probably some of the laziest, most uninterested animals around. Don’t get me wrong, they are beautiful creatures and so cute that I actually really enjoyed seeing them, but they really just don’t do anything. They don’t even stand up to poop. The panda base was pretty empty, especially for China, and we were able to make it to pretty much all of the enclosures in just a couple hours. The babies were, of course, my favorite, and I probably spent about 45 minutes jealously glaring at the vets who get to play with them and watching fearfully as one tiny panda attempted to clumsily navigate its way down from a tree. How it got up there, I’ll never know.

Ps. Red pandas … foxes in disguise?

Saturday night ended tamely. I don’t think any of us would have had the energy to go out if someone had suggested it. Of course that meant we played worlds better on Sunday morning than we had the previous day. We still lost, but the scores were much more reasonable, esp considering we played the second half against the Chongqing team, who was fresh from warming up when we were already exhausted. After saying goodbye to the girls, who were still giddy over the presence of a bunch of hunky western boys in Speedos two couples headed out to Le Shan to see the giant Buddha, while the rest of head packed up our stuff and headed to a bath house for the afternoon. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of public nudity, but well, after that somewhat invasive full body scrub, my skin feels like a baby’s bottom, and I rather like it.

After several hours of getting waiting on hand and foot, it was time for dinner at Yu’s Family Restaurant – what some of us had been looking forward to even more than the water polo. My own descriptions of the food at this place will not do any of it justice. When I tell you that, among other things, I ate a tea smoked duck, pork pastry disguised as a calligraphy brush, an omelet supported truffle garnished with real gold flakes, and a dish made from the ovarian fat of the rare snow frog, you will probably just shake your head in confusion, and maybe even disgust. So instead I’ll let the linked review and it's pictures do the talking, and just conclude with a firm, confident two thumbs up for Chengdu, China, and say that there is no way I will ever miss a Shanghai Sea Dragons team trip in the future.

Welcome to Year #2

I was 22 when I moved to Shanghai, exactly one year ago this month, and had been offered a job as a "Research Analyst" at a small American investment firm headquartered in China. I knew nothing about finance, and despite having grown up in Hong Kong and being confident in Chinese, at the time the decision felt HUGE.

A lot has happened in one year. Shanghai is a massive, fast-paced city, and I feel like everyday I encounter something new and exciting. Often puzzling. I've started taking a lot of things for granted, as well, which is in large part why I have decided to start blogging. In August my sisters and I decided to start a joint blog with the goal of trying one new thing every week and reporting back. I wrote one entry entitled Due Diligence: No, I will not eat the dog that gives a little more background on my life here and describes an action-packed 4 day business trip to Yunnan province, but after that all three of us lost interest.

So I've decided to give it one more go.

I am completely settled now, have an amazing network of friends, a growing list of activities, and more ridiculous stories from this past year than I can even begin to recount.

This year, I promise to let all of you come along for the ride.