Crazy weather!

Well I succeeded in my mission to get a laptop cooler today.

I was determined to get a 'bargain' and only paid 65RMB for it. Oh, btw, it only lowers the temperature by 2-3 degrees. Still, better than nothing! But it's good in that it also stops the laptop from touching my legs and burning them, and the fan also cools my legs - bonus!

I went to Metro City in Xujiahui 徐家汇 and also Best Buy. It was really hot outside but the funny thing was, I got used to it. After a while it didn't even feel *that* hot anymore. And luckily the humidity wasn't that high so it was more of a dry heat (like a sauna), rather than a muggy wet sticky heat (like a steam room). Inside, the air conditioning in buildings and taxis did not seem to be working or coping that well.

I left just before 10am and didn't get home till 1pm because of my walking back and forth to compare prices, and just general wasting time window shopping. Also went to my fave mall Grand Gateway for another peak and checked out the basement supermarket, Lianhua, 联华 for the first time.

At around 3pm the city plunged into darkness. It was strange, one minute the sun is coming through the window, the next there is no light, as if the sun has gone down, except that it hadn't.

I look outside and it's foggy as anything and pouring rain. I am forced to turn on the lights in our apartment. But after a few minutes the rain stopped and the sun came out and everything was back to normal again. Weird weird weird.

This photo from ShanghaiDaily.com is what it looked like.

Only black clouds can be seen from the 38th floor of the Shanghai Daily's newsroom in downtown Shanghai at about 15:12pm today. The heavy rain which poured down cooled the city which had received its second yellow hot alert of the year in the morning. The temperature was predicted to surpass 35 degrees Celsius after yesterday's high of 36.3 degrees.

PS - See? I told you my Chinese was improving! On Tuesday this new friend and I went to a road called Lianyou Rd 联友路. I only saw and wrote the words once. Last night I was 'studying' my Grand Gateway map booklet and noticed there was some kind of supermarket in the basement. However, I didn't know what it was called (but I could read the world for supermarket). But I thought to myself - What is that word? I have seen it before! And realised it was 'lian'. Then I already knew the word hua 华 too which is so common.

I also only knew the English name for Metro City (the building which looks like a giant dome or sphere) and wanted to tell the taxi driver where to go, so I consulted my Lonely Planet book and found out the Chinese name, Meiluocheng 美罗城 (lit. Beautiful 'net city). Best Buy is called Baishimai 百思买 (Bai-shi (sound for Best) Buy).

PPS - Yay, I have more visitors! Since I installed Clustrmaps the other day I only had visitors from Sydney (home), Shanghai (me probably), and somewhere in south-eastern USA. Now I have visitors from Singapore or Malaysia? and France? Yay! "Zoidberg has friends."