Massages and Genji Japanese restaurant

Sunday 16 March - Genji Restaurant

A week ago we had our fortnightly massage at the place we always go to. Once again we have very interesting conversations with our masseuses (that word looks funny typed out). Hubby's Mandarin is getting better and can have a decent conversation with them too although I still need to translate a few things for him, and also I don't understand everything they say myself!

They are interested to learn about our lives back in Australia and we are interested in learning about theirs.

We pay 60 RMB for a 1 hour massage (either full body or foot (which also includes a back massage done sitting up)). From this they are paid a measley 16 RMB per hour (that's around $2.50) but they get an extra 5 RMB if we specifically ask for their number. Ones that we like are 8,16,17,27,37. Every time our list of numbers just grows because often we can't ge the one we want, then we realise we are pretty happy with the new person/people we get! Maybe it's because I'm not so fussy but maybe it's because I realise that back home in Australia it costs more like $60-90/hour for a massage and they aren't nearly as good.

I also learn that they work 12 hours, every day of the year. They are allowed to take time off (most will take a couple of days off during Chinese New Year only though) but choose not to because they are so hard-working and intent on making more money. However, they don't actually work for all of those 12 hours. (they work in shifts either 10am-10pm, 12noon-12midnight or 2pm-2am). Usually they only work 5-6 hours but they still have to be there in case they are called upon. During their time off they hang out in a little room next door where they either watch tv, play mahjong or sleep. The guy I spoke to (no. 27) says it's really quite boring and he doesn't like it because he's sitting there and not getting paid.

Most people have horrible calluses and protrusions growing on their knuckles from using their knuckles so much. They say it doesn't hurt anymore once it gets to a certain stage.

While they were telling us their 'stories' I almost felt like crying. Well, I was crying on the inside. That they work so hard, and make so little money, and they still seem so happy, cheerful and cooperative.

Hubby got a lady, no. 37 last week. We hadn't seen her before but she's seen hubby plenty of times. Mostly because he is tall and fair-haired and stands out easily amongst the sea of black-haired people! (most customers are Japanese). At 30, she would be one of the older staff members although she is still younger than me! She has a 4 year old son, who lives with her inlaws (as is the case with all traditional Chinese families). She says she misses him heaps but what can you do?

All of the staff members come from poor country towns and different provinces, noone is actually from Shanghai. The scary thing is that although the pay seems so low to us, the pay in Shanghai is actually the highest in the whole country! (Shanghai also has the highest cost of living, even moreso than Beijing). No. 27 - the guy I've had 3 times now says he is 25 and already feels a bit 'old' because he's not married yet and most of his friends are. Most of these country people marry in their late teens or early 20's and have had at least one kid by the age of 25 or by 29 at least. Also, in the country they can get away with having more than one child, especially if the first is a girl.

If only all of us Western brats (and yes I admit I am one) could learn something from these poor hardworking people who have hardly anything...


Congen Massage Healthcare Club

兴义店 - 兴义路48号新世纪广场1F

XinYi Branch - 1F, New World/Hong Kong Plaza, 48 XinYi Road

(they also have branches in Gubei, Jing'an, Pudong, etc..)

Ph: (021) 6209 3813 / 6209 6615




OK onto dinner!

Instead of going to our usual place we tried a new one. This place is usually very full but we never went in because it was usually full of lots of smoking Japanese men. Erk. I HATE SMOKERS! Anyway for some strange reason it was kind of empty so we decided to give it a try.

The waitress asked us if we wanted ala carte or buffet. We weren't sure but decided to go for the buffet. Of course the Chinese/accountant side of me took over and I had to calculate if we were getting our money's worth. The Japanese buffet offered here (and at many other places) isn't like Sizzler's or your typical buffet. It's still ala carte (in that you have to order off a menu) but you can get as much as you like!

It was 145 RMB per person and we ended up eating about 450-500 RMB's worth. So a total bargain! We totally stuffed ourself with as much as we could take. It also included as much tea, coffee, juice, water or beer as we wanted. Anyway enough about the rave, on with the details!












源氏

新红桥开发区兴义路48号新世纪广场

Genji

48 Xinyi Road, Hongqiao (next to the massage parlour)

(also at 1414 Huaihai Middle Road)

Ph: (021) 6208 7910

Mandarin and Spanish

Well it's been almost a month since hubby started his Mandarin lessons and I'm astounded by the progress he's made. I said that in a few months time he'll probably be better than me! (and no, I'm not joking). My main problem is just learning new vocab, words I never used growing up but need to know now for my adult life. So while he is having his lessons I am secretly eavesdropping hoping to learn a thing or two ;) :)

Meanwhile, I realised I have fallen off my Spanish learning wagon and need to get back into it. For those who are learning it I really recommend Coffee Break Spanish. My friend was using it and I decided to try it too. For something that is free it's pretty good! They are podcast lessons. The only thing is if English is not your first language it may be a bit hard due to the hosts' Scottish accent and also they teach the Spanish Spanish, which is a little different to South American Spanish (which I was used to and found easier). But anyway, like I said, it's awesome for something that's free!

I just did a quick search about language learning blogs (to add to my Bloglines of course ;) ) and there are soooo many blogs written by people currently learning a 2nd, 3rd language. It's great to see so many people embracing learning another language because we all know how hard it can be the older you get and the excuses people come up with: "I am not good with languages", "I'm too old", "I won't ever get a chance to use it", "I don't need it" etc etc. Bah humbug! Languages are one of the most useful things to learn. So you can play tennis or piano - so what? They are great skills to have but not nearly as useful as another language. Not that I'm brilliant with languages myself. I struggle just like everyone else and I admit I procrastinate, forget, become lazy, etc etc. But I think it's one of those things you don't realise how rewarding it is until you have accomplished it and understand those around you. To me you don't even need to be fluent enough to write an essay or to pass IELTS, or HSK or whatever. As long you can have a decent adult conversation and read books, magazines and newspapers, the web (even if you don't know every single word) I think that is a big accomplishment.

I mean, when someone whose second language is English speaks English to me, I can immediately pick out their faults in their grammar, pronunciation or whatnot but really, it doesn't matter because I think to myself, geez, their English is still a heck of a lot better than my German/French/Italian/Spanish/Japanese or whatever!!

It's funny though. I find myself noticing people's mistakes and the same ones are made a lot of the time. Some mistakes I notice friends and family members making are:

* "There have" instead of "There are/is" or "There were/was" because in Chinese it's 有 (you).. it sounds strange in English but if I translate it back to Mandarin in my head it makes total sense.

* "A.M. 11:00" instead of "11:00 A.M." My stepmum writes me notes (when I used to live at home) and she would always put the AM or PM before the time. I pointed this out to her, and to my dad, but she just keeps doing it. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

* Plurals where there shouldn't be any. eg Softwares, furnitures, jewelleries (jewelries),.. These words don't have s's on the end! (not that I know of anyway).

Anyway, I just found this blog commenting on this article about Mandarin being a 'fad'.

"...In a few decades China may indeed overtake America as the world's top economic power. Will Britons who make the effort to learn its language be rewarded with better careers? Barring some kind of sea change in global language learning, the answer will almost always be no.

With its tones and horribly complicated writing system, Mandarin is much harder to learn than most European languages. The Foreign Office, for example, gives its officers four times as long to get from beginner to operational level in Mandarin as it does in Italian, French or Spanish—and only those with the greatest aptitude for languages are selected for it. The vast majority of Westerners who travel to China to study Mandarin give up, go home and forget what they have learned. Undergraduates at British universities find it hard to adjust to a workload heavier than that for other subjects, and many drop out...."

Someone on the blog commented:

I do think a lot of the current craze around Mandarin is similar to that which surrounded Japanese during the 1980s, where Japanese was considered ‘the’ language to learn due to Japan’s booming economy and their increasing presence in foreign markets.

I can definitely relate to this as this was one of the reason's I learnt Japanese (well it was the 1990s but still...) and it's funny how this focus has shifted onto learning Mandarin. I don't regret learning Japanese for a second. I still shocked myself that when I went there recently I could actually understand a lot of what people were saying, despite not attaining a very high level (only crappy high school level) and not using it for 12 years. I really wonder if Mandarin is a 'fad' and in 10 or so years it'll be another language we are told we 'must' learn?

I do have a lot of respect and admiration for anyone who can master Mandarin, especially someone with no prior knowledge of any language apart from their mother tongue. It really is a very hard language to learn but in saying that, I think the reading/writing is a lot easier than Japanese and the grammar is easier than English!

When I go to coffee shops and cafes here I often see 'foreigners' with laptops and a whole stack of text books studying Mandarin. Not just any beginner type of Mandarin but bl00dy hard HSK level type stuff and I think to myself - How the heck did they get that far? Wow, I'm really impressed, amazed, jealous even.

On another topic, hubby and had a debate about which was easier to learn out of Mandarin and Japanese. On that same blog is an interesting discussion. Another thing about Japanese though is that if you learn Katakana (48 characters) and you know English you can read a lot of the signs because they are just English words written in Japanese characters (and read funnily).



Actually I have a funny story to tell. I love reading Katakana and I find that reading it regularly (on food packets for example) helps me remember it and never forget it. Anyway, many years ago I was at home with my sister watching "The Simpsons" on TV (or 'terebi') and it was the "Mr Sparkle" episode (one of my favourites!) When I saw the packet (written in Katakana) I put on my big sister all-knowing show-off voice and said, "Hey I can read that!... Mi-su-taa Su-paa-ku-ru... Mister Super Cool!" But it turns out it was actually "Mister Sparkle" and I felt a bit stupid so sometimes you can 'translate' Katakana incorrectly but most of the time it is pretty easy. :)

OK, back to studying for me...

Yaohan Next Age BaBaiBan and Roberto Cavalli for H&M

(to make up for lack of photos in a lot of my previous posts there is a bit of a photo overload in this entry!)




Well I went to Yaohan Next Age today and was pretty disappointed. For the supposedly second biggest department store in the world and largest in Asia it didn't seem that big nor exciting. The cosmetics and kids areas were great but the others were pretty blah. I went into the stationery section hoping to find some nice stuff but after being in Japan I was of course sorely disappointed. It was about as boring as stationery in Australia 10 years ago. Bland. Manly. Blue, black, grey, plain. No bright colours, no cutesy cartoony figures.. I will say though that I found glue tape there though. I have been looking for it everywhere in Shanghai to no avail. I bought 2 of them in Japan. I hate how other types of glue warp the paper and don't stick that well. The saleslady said to me, "You do know that is glue and not correction tape?" and I was thinking, "Uh..yeah... because correction tape is everywhere and I have searched high and low to find this!!" It had Japanese packaging and said Made in Vietnam. The one I bought in Japan was made in China. Weird.

To get some more of my Japanese 'fix' I went to a Japanese restaurant in the top of that building and it was pretty good. For 40 yuan I got a set meal, didn't even finish it all and was totally stuffed. The noodles were fantastic, as was the tempura but they gave me some eggnog type thing with a prawn in it and I thought that was totally gross. The tea was nice though and the salad was OK too. The funniest thing I noticed was that the lady standing at the front of the restaurant was wearing a kimono, socks and sandals. However, she didn't have the proper Japanese tabi socks and had normal socks. You can't wear normal socks with those thong/flip flop sandal things! Haha.




After being disappointed I decided to go to the Super Brand Mall. On the way there I took some photos of the Pearl Tower and construction workers near the station. The Pearl Tower never ceases to amaze me. You have no idea how big it is looking at a photo. You really need to see it for yourself to see how mammoth it is! I was quite impressed and shocked at the station's interior - it was pristine and almost empty! What was going on? Was I really back in Shanghai?









Then I caught a train to Zhongshan Park and went into H&M (even though I had already gone into the one in Super Brand/Pudong, but didn't really look at anything). I looked at an interesting looking black trench coat and then looked at the tag and realised it was part of the long awaited Roberto Cavalli collection!

I got so excited about taking photos that I actually stopped looking at the clothes. Not sure if I like them or not. They are all either black, gold, or animal print. The dresses all come in their own sheer gauzy organza type fabric bag which was nice and different. The pieces are fairly reasonably priced, I think. The stupid security guard wouldn't let me take any photos but I got some.







There are some better ones up on Flickr too.

The island of Okinawa

(above: the sunset that greeted us when we arrived in our hotel and checked in. The two pictures were only taken minutes apart).


Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan encompassing hundreds of islands, the biggest and most populated of which is... (funnily enough), Okinawa.

We flew into Naha, the capital, from Shanghai which took only 2 hours. Love a quick flight (living in Australia everywhere is a mega long flight). Since we had planned to go to the amazing Churaumi aquarium we needed to hire a car. The reason is because it is at least 2 hours away from Naha and the buses don't run that frequently. Also Okinawa can be a difficult place for non-Japanese as there isn't much English signage or international tourists around. It took me a bit of effort but after extensive searching on Google and getting nowhere I actually emailed the Australian consulate in Shanghai and they told me how we could apply for an international licence whilst not being in Australia so I sent off the forms, photocopies and photo and a few weeks later we got our international driver's licence in the mail, which enabled us to drive in Japan. Too easy!

So anyway, I thought it would be best to stay closer to the aquarium so we could get there from our hotel easily. I researched and researched, which was a hard task given most websites were in Japanese and most of the hotels were luxury resorts which were out of our budget.

In the end Mike agreed we could splurge and the hotel I chose was about halfway between Naha and Churaumi. We could also get a great rate with them and they were by no means one of the top end ones! So we ended up staying at the Renaissance Okinawa. We had had a great experience with the Renaissance in Kuala Lumpur (which by the way is part of the Marriott chain) and were in no way disappointed with the Okinawan one.

The resort was out of this world gorgeous. The room was spacious and we had a balcony overlooking the sea. We unfortunately did not have a room on the 'nice' side of the hotel but nevertheless we had a gorgeous ocean view and saw brilliant sunsets. The hotel seemed to be quite full and they did not have any double rooms left so we got a twin but they ingeniously put the beds together and it actually felt like a king size bed.

There were so many restaurants to choose from I don't know where to start. We ate at 3 of them and also had room service. Since the resort is located in a fairly isolated area there was no point looking elsewhere nearby to eat so we just ate, slept and played in the hotel grounds.

One of the main reasons for choosing this hotel too was because I had seen pictures on their website about helmet diving or sea walking. It looked like the coolest thing ever as I can't do scuba and it seemed like a cross between snorkeling, snuba and diving. Mike agreed that I should do it as he likes to get me to do anything sporty because I'm usually so non sporty.

As well as giving us each free buffet breakfasts they also gave us each 3500 yen credit to use towards any of the many water activities. Since the sea walk cost 6000 yen we used both sets of credits for this. Mike still had 1000 yen to use but didn't because he actually fell ill on our very first day in Okinawa!

The next day we woke up and had one of the most amazing buffet breakfasts I have ever seen. The variety was endless and covered Japanese food, Chinese food and typical Western/American food. There was also a cute little low stand for the kiddies. They also had freshly made pancakes, any kind of eggs you wanted, and delicious dessert treats.



(Part of the amazing hotel. There are two restaurants inside the hut.)

After that we headed back to the room for a short rest (we both hate early mornings but had to be up so we could have the breakfast which finished at 9:30am) then I went out to do my sea walk.

Then, I realised that the Japanese are extremely punctual and although I thought I was on time I was in fact late. Major embarrassment! They were still polite and helpful as ever and quickly got me to sign the waiver form, gave me a wetsuit and told me to put it on. The others had left and were on the little floating pontoon thing already.

I was personally escorted by boat to the pontoon. I felt really special. I also had my own personal instructor and demo with his very limited English. On the pontoon we were also asked to take off our thongs and put on the booties.

All I knew was that I had to equalize the pressure inside my nose and go down the ladder slowly. I actually started panicking on the inside thinking what if I missed some major thing and didn't know what to do if something went wrong?

There were 7 in our group including me (they allow up to 12 people per time slot) and one by one we descended down the stainless steel ladder. At the top of the ladder I actually started freaking out. I am actually scared of deep water and it was 3 metres deep.

I took the ladder really really slowly and when the water was around my chin level they plonked the 30kg helmet on me. Due to the buoyancy effect the helmet didn't feel anywhere near that heavy though!

I went down the ladder one rung at a time, each time letting my ears adjust. It was a really weird feeling. My breathing also sounded really slow and loud. Like that moon walk. In fact when I got to the bottom the effect was exactly like the moon walk!

You cannot walk normally. You can only walk really slowly and you sort of 'bounce' along barely even touching the floor. I really did feel like Neil Armstrong for a while. You breathe normally and your face and hair are actually completely dry. Amazing! Anyone can do it and the only discomfort you feel is the pressure in your ears constantly changing but it's by no means painful just a little weird and annoying.

We fed the fish and saw some Nemos and sea anenomes. Our guide had a waterproof magna doodle type whiteboard which he used to communicate to us, and even wrote in English just for me (I felt special!)

After around 10 mins our time was up although it felt much much longer than this and I wanted to stay down there forever. It was just so much fun I really recommend it to anyone who wants to experience the underwater world but can't scuba dive.

Back from Japan

Well I'm back from Japan and had an absolute blast. Where do I even start?

I have now visited almost 20 countries and have pretty strong impressions about what makes a country good to visit and travel in, and what makes it bad.

After 2 weeks in Japan I can honestly say I can't really think of too many negatives.

First of all the people are amazingly humble, polite, helpful and seem happy to help/serve you. OK maybe not all of them but most of them.

Second of all, the information signage is out of this world. I find myself in some sort of mental pain when I'm in a country where I don't speak the language and the signs are extremely inadequate. Even in my home town of Sydney where I DO speak/read the language and have visited certain places thousands of times I can still find myself getting lost. Nope, I'm not stupid. The signage is just seriously lacking and what little signage there is is not exactly that helpful.

Most of the signs are pictorial so you don't even need to know how to read anything and self explanatory.

Eg 1. In the airport coming back to Shanghai near the waiting area there was a sign outside the public toilet with a map of the layout! That's right. The walls and little toilet stalls were illustrated. Also, it had a map pointing you to the next closest toilets should these be closed for cleaning.

2. In most places where there are public toilets it tells you on the door if it is a "Japanese style" toilet (squat) or "Western style" (seated).

3. If you find yourself lost you will sooner or later find a sign telling you which direction to go, and in addition if it's a popular touristy place there is probably also a human directing people.

4. The Japanese are big on safety and there are cute little cartoony illustrations everywhere telling you not to do this or that, or we apologise for ... etc.

Enough about signs. At times I felt like I was a child and the Japanese people were my parents.

1. In our first hotel whenever we were directed somewhere they didn't just point to it or tell us, they actually took us there personally and if there were stairs they pointed them out to us seconds before we hit the stairs.

2. When a staff member took a photo using my camera they handed it back to me and put the strap back on my wrist for me.

3. When I went into the water at the beach they asked me if my camera and watch were both waterproof. I can't imagine anyone else asking or caring. In fact, I have ruined a perfectly good watch when I forgot to take it off one time whilst boating.

4. When I bought something in a shop and was carrying other stuff, they put the handles of the plastic bag into my hand for me... etc.

People in Australia seem to think that Japan is an expensive place to visit. It's been ingrained into everyone's heads. I don't what started this or how it came about but everyone is like "Ooh Japan is SO expensive" and the majority of those people have never even been!

Well I can say for a fact that many things are cheaper than Australia - food and clothes for example. The food is amazing - healthy, tasty, quick and nutricious. and about the same price we'd pay in Australia for a food court meal.

The clothes, shoes, bags are so beautiful and stylish and made to fit Asian bodies - my ideal of heaven (as nothing in Australia ever fits, the sizes seem to get bigger year by year and even the smallest size of clothes and shoes are too big for me now). The quality as well as the design is superb.

The homewares are similar - beautiful, stylish, small and neat, just perfect.

If you are a craft / DIY lover, it is simply heaven. There are about a billion amazing illustrated craft books covering every topic under the sun and there are many shops which sell all the bits and pieces you need. Some rare/hard to find things too - like a t-shirt screen printing kit, leather work and stamping, resin ornament making, anything your heart desires!

I could go on and on... I am dying to get back there soon! :)

I'm in Okinawa! Yay!

Loving it here. The weather is perfect. Approx 23-27 degrees all day and the water is even warmer. The sky is always blue and the water a gorgeous aqua colour (my favourite). It is so different to China. Geez - where do I start?

For one thing, hubby and I had forgotten all about wearing seatbelts! We never wear them in Shanghai and realised that people here wear them (like back home in Australia) - haha.

Secondly, the people are mega polite and helpful, cheerful and friendly. If they don't know something they:ll ask someone else and find out for you.

Everything is so clean, orderly, efficient, user-friendly, yadda yadda yadda.. need I go on?

Right now we are staying at the Renaissance Beach resort on the main island of Okinawa, about an hour:s drive from Naha, the capital and the airport.

Yesterday we drove up but it took longer than expected because

1) We had to stop for lunch (in KFC where we had chicken wraps with bits of seaweed in it)
2) We passed a 100 yen shop and spent ages there. Well I spent ages there, Mike had to practically drag me out. Here they sold so many cool things ALL for 100 yen. I don:t know how they do it. I am not talking crap either, but quality goods. Some things I had looked for in China and could not find easily, or found and they were bad quality. eg
a) toe nail clippers where the cutter bit is straight and not curved
b) tongs for when I cook pasta (could not find in any supermarket in Shanghai)
3) plastic shield to prevent scratches on LCD screens on mobile phones, cameras, etc (yes I know they are common in Shanghai but I don't trust the quality and they are not THAT cheap)
4) hair collector for the shower so it doesn:t plug the drain and I don:t get told off by the plumber
and more..

All these niggly little things that only I would be searching high and low for, and wanting to buy.. such a chore to find in Shanghai at a good price and know it is good quality - it was ALL there in the 100 yen shop! They sold ordinary stuff too like bowls and cutlery, cosmetics, underwear, stationery, DIY supplies (hardware and crafts) etc ... Amazing!

I didn:t just get ordinary tongs either, they actually sold "spaghetti" tongs, I couldn:t believe it!!

Then, Mike and I have never actually used GPS in a car before. Imagine our accelerated learning curve when we had to use one in Japanese!! Hahaha. We were like two crazy contestents in the Amazing Race show - scolding each other when one of us pressed the wrong button and didn:t know how to get back to the previous screen! However, eventually, we figured the thing out. We ended up accidently setting a new destination which was rather frustrating but thanks to my very forward planning and actually printing out a good map of Okinawa before we left with our hotel:s location marked on it, as well as trying to read a map in Japanese we figured out the location on the GPS and pressed that spot on the screen. I thank my lucky stars I can still read some Japanese from studying it in high school 12 years ago!!

So, 3.5 hours after landing at the airport we finally arrived at our hotel! What an achievement.

The only bummer here is that noone really speaks English so there is a lot of miming, smiling, nodding, etc, involved. I can understand some but not confident enough to make out full sentences. A sumimasen, arigato, ohayo, konnichwa, hai, iie is all about I can manage at the moment!

This morning (our second day) I went on a 'helmet dive' which is where you put on a big white heavy plastic helmet with glass window and walk on the ocean floor (3m deep). It is for people who can:t or don:t want to scuba dive or snorkel. I can:t manage scuba (asthmatic who can't swim 200m!) so thought it was perfect for me. In fact, one of the reasons we chose this hotel! It was so much fun. I can:t even begin to explain what it felt like. It was seriously like walking on the moon. The deep heavy breathing that you can hear inside the mask (where your face is completely dry), the bouncy, slow steps that you take.. all really surreal! And I saw two Nemo fishes!

This afternoon Mike and I watched dolphins. Our hotel is the location of a dolphin research centre and there around five of these beautiful creatures living here. They swim, and jump and do tricks in the air - totally awesome stuff.

Tomorrow we are going to Churaumi aquarium, the second largest aquarium in the world to see whale sharks!

Breadtalk AnpanMan

I was going to write about this before but I'm glad I've left it till now because I just discovered something new.

It all started when we had been in Shanghai for a few days and were still staying in our hotel (JinJiang on Maoming S. Road). My mother came and met us and the three of us walked to Huaihai Road. We went to the underground supermarket at the basement of Parkson's department store. At the front of the supermarket there was a Breadtalk store (A Singaporean bakery chain I believe).. Mike got an Anpan Man red bean bun because he was attracted to the smiley face.

Many days passed and Mike was on a quest to find every Breadtalk in Shanghai. I found the list of stores but then he made a discovery. If you don't get there before 3 or 4pm, then all the Anpanman buns are gone! And they don't make anymore after that.

So we are always on a quest for the Anpanman.

Just then I found out that it is actually based on a Japanese cartoon character.

According to wikipedia, Anpanman (アンパンマン) has a head of a bun made by Jam Ojisan. His name comes from the fact that he is a man with a head made of bread (Japanese: pan, a loanword from the Portuguese word meaning "bread") that is filled with bean jam (Japanese: an) called an anpan. His weakness is water or anything that makes his head dirty. He regains his health and strength when Jam Ojisan bakes him a new head and is placed on his shoulders. Anpanman's damaged head, with Xs in his eyes, flies off his shoulders once a new baked head lands. He was created when a shooting star landed in Jam Ojisan's oven while he was baking. He has two special attacks called: An-punch and An-kick. When Anpanman comes across a starving creature or person, he lets the unfortunate creature or person eat part of his head.

Here is more about how Anpanman was born:
http://mboogiedown-japan.blogspot.com

Here is someone else who likes to eat him:
http://www.joelwesleyrose.com/2006_07_01_archive.html

And there is even a flickr group dedicated to him!
http://www.flickr.com/groups/anpanmanland/

Metro City and Grand Gateway again

On the weekend I finally got better - Yay! All that drinking of garlic in hot water every day/night coupled with taking disgusting Chinese herbal medicine did wonders and 9 days later I finally got rid of this damn cold.

On Sunday I decided to venture out and Mike and I went to Metro City to get his Smiley Face red bean buns from Breadtalk.

After that, we had lunch in the food court in the basement of that mall. It was the first time both of us had been there. I had been in that building before when I was buying my laptop cooler, but not down to the food court. We were both pleasantly surprised. It is the same chain of food courts that we had already tried in Gubei Carrefour and Zhongshan Park, called "Megabite." You must purchase credit which is put onto a thick plastic card a bit like a credit card and use that to purchase your meals. Most meals cost about 18 RMB (Less than $3 Australian or US$2.50). However, we decided to try a Japanese restaurant inside the food court. I have been a lover of Japanese food since I was a young child and I can tell the difference between the authentic and non-authentic stuff. This place wasn't exactly 100% authentic, but nevertheless the decor was fab and the food looked even more fab!

We were not disappointed. The presentation of the food was amazing and it was delicious and came in fairly large portions. The decor of the restaurant was wonderful too, fitted out in a modern meets vintage style with mirrors and neutral colours like grey and camel, but with striking modern looking chandelier lights on the ceiling. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me but you weren't permitted to take photos there, or else I would have! The total cost came to under 60 RMB (or about $9 Australian).

After that, we went across the road (underground, via the subway. You cannot cross the huge fiveways intersection unless you want to be squashed flat) to Grand Gateway. I wanted to check out the supermarket with Mike.

Every expat talks about and goes to Carrefour in Gubei because it's one of the biggest supermarkets in Shanghai and also stocks most foreign goodies. However, after going there.. what.. 10 times?.. I am soooo sick of it and dying to see and 'try out' new supermarkets. Well I had been last time but didn't look at much and didn't stay long. This is Lianhua 联华.

We didn't bring with us a shopping list (oops) so we didn't end up getting a great deal since all the necessities (meat, fruit, veges) we like to buy fresh and our 'ayi' (maid/cleaner/cook/housekeeper, nanny too if you want) also buys them for us.

After that, Mike went off to play basketball with his work colleagues and I went home in the taxi with all our groceries - including the cool mug Mike found and bought for me!





Taxi etiquette - First to push in, first served

There is a queue right outside GG for the taxi but unfortunately, most people in China don't understand what a queue is. With this in mind. I've taken to becoming a "push-er in-er" too.

So anyway I see this middle aged well-dressed couple waiting in an orderly fashion so I queue up behind them. They get impatient and walk off... A taxi comes along and stops right in front me so I'm about to get in, then the couple come BACK and at first I think they are just another Chinese couple pushing in, then I realise it was the exact SAME couple so I thought should be nice to give it to them since they were waiting longer than me... Out of the taxi comes an American(?) businessman with all his luggage and he says something about the taxi waiting for him and then taking him to the airport. Noone knows what he is saying except me.. and I tell the couple in Chinese.. and they start saying あそうですか in Japanese. D'oh! OK so I'm still waiting patiently for this taxi and I see one coming up the driveway into the mall. Then this stupid girl out of nowhere comes out of the mall and the taxi stops in front of her! ARGH! Of course she wouldn't have the decency or politeness to give it to me. So I wait. Again (kinda getting fed up by this stage given I'm carrying heavy bags of groceries!) Well finally, after what seems like an eternity I get a taxi - Yippee!

While I was out and about I thought to myself, "Hey it isn't even that hot" (remembering the last time I was out in the same place) but then when I got home I was so exhausted and realised the heat had zapped my energy once again!

(PS - put up my Weather Pixie today).