Silver Bells... It's Christmas time in the city

Like most of my posts this should be backdated...

On Saturday 1st December I had an awesome time with people I barely even knew. My father had arranged to meet up with his old college classmates from National Taiwan University (NTU) - the most prestigious university in Taiwan (yes I had to brag cos my dad is a brain, and I'm not half as brainy as he is :( ) anyway.. it turns out that after almost 40 years they are still in contact. Can you believe that? That is pretty cool. Not only that, a fair few of them are now living in Shanghai (but previously living in the States).

So he arranged to meet up with them and dragged Mike and I along for the ride. First we stopped at friend #1's house. They live fairly close to us, near Shanghai Zoo. We stayed and chatted for around an hour before they drove us to Pudong, all the way to Zhangjiang, what I like to call 'woop woop' and where, unfortunately, my husband's company is moving to next year :( There, we met up with another former classmate and another who was in town visiting from from San Francisco.



Then, we had lunch at the restaurant/cafe place near Zhangjiang train station called "Shanghai Legend". We went to the 'green looking one with funky big Buddha inside'. Great description huh? I don't recall the name of the place but it had Shanghainese Chinese cuisine. After that, the first friend drove us to the fabric market for my dad to pick up 2 pairs of pants he had made.

While we were there, I also picked up the jacket I had made a few weeks back (remember?) Well I won't say I am 100% happy with it but it does look good in photos, in fact, much better than it does in real life! so I can't complain.




Also while we were there, dad and I convinced hubby to get his suit made at the same place that dad got his pants at. So he ordered 2 suits in pin-striped wool fabric. One dark dark blue and one dark grey.

After that, it was still light and amazingly not that cold at all. There was no wind and it was really pleasant outside. I suggested a walk along the Bund. It was a little further than I thought but still a walkable distance. I said that I was there with the 'two most special men in my life' :)

Soon after, it got dark and the twinkling lights came on. The Bund is absolutely nothing special in the day time but come dusk it is magical. I said it looked almost like Hong Kong harbour and my dad agreed.

Unfortunately, I had left the house with my camera battery uncharged and only managed to take a handful of photos before it died on me.





Then, we crossed the road and walked all the way down Nanjing East Road (Nanjing dong lu) which was exactly the same route I had walked not long ago when hubby's friend was in town. We also stopped at exactly the same building/mall and had dinner at... Waga's.

After that we were all exhausted (it was a LONG day and we did walk a lot and it was now dark and getting cold rapidly) and decided to high tail it home. As the taxi drove around Nanjing Dong Lu, Fuzhou Lu, People's Square (Renmin Guangchang) and various others places I felt eerily like I was in a movie (as I described in an earlier post). All those twinkling lights had me mesmorised. But not just the normal every day neon lights but... the Christmas decorations were now in full force! They were everywhere and were beautiful. Especially the big ones outside hotels and department stores and malls. It was awesome. Of course I have no pics since we were zooming in a taxi driven by a crazed lunatic on drugs, and my camera battery was dead ... ;) (OK OK slight exaggeration!)

Cut to last Friday, 7th December. Feeling like death and freezing like anything. Had dinner in Grand Gateway (Element Fresh) and took a couple of quick photos all whilst freezing. We had to take the bus home (yes, slumming it - haha) because the taxi queue outside GG was massive (and not moving) and there were no available ones on the road either). So on the way I passed lots and lots of pretty lights but it was hard to take anything decent because 1) I felt like crapola 2) I was freezing* 3) I was holding a bag of groceries 4) I had no tripod and didn't want to use the flash which would be useless anyway. But all in all, not too bad. Take a look for yourself.









Compare this...



... to the photo I took before...



And finally, this one I took on December 5th (from inside a taxi) of Jiuguang/City Plaza near Jing'An Temple



This is what it looks like lit up at night (beautiful!) This photo is taken from the very funny Shanghai blog, ispyshanghai.com




* That night I was wearing 4 or was it 5 layers of clothes, 2 layers of pants, socks, 3 blankets, heater on high and I was STILL freezing. Whenever I get sick I get these horrible cold chills that run through my body that nothing can get rid of but thank God it only lasted about 24 hours.

Eating habits, food, swimsuits, and underpants!

I think too much. I spend all day and all my life constantly thinking. I read too much which leads to more thinking. I'm fascinated by psychology and have read quite a few psychology related books. I am interested in the correlation between eating habits, health and body weight/size, and the mind.

One of the topics that is constantly on my mind is food, and eating habits. Like all women, I have a strange relationship with food. I have a very strange one, in that I've never met anyone with the same characteristics!

I've never had a problem with weight. I can eat what I want and never gain weight (bet you all hate me now). That being said though, I have a small appetite. I get full quickly and hungry quickly. I am a fussy eater. I will only eat something if I like it or want it. Otherwise I just won't touch it (even if I am starving). No, I don't have an eating disorder.

Growing up as kids, we could have whatever food we wanted. We could have McDonalds, oven fried items, snacks like potato chips, soft drinks, the works. Couple this with the fact that I was always a quiet indoors sedentary sort of kid I am still amazed I was lighter and thinner than the average kid. Maybe I just got 'good' genetics, who knows? Friends would always come to our house and be amazed at how much stuff we had in our kitchen. I have to admit I think my mother liked to hoard food. However, my sister and I both have small appetites and not much interest in food so a lot of went to waste, unfortunately. We barely even touched anything. I mean we ate it, we just didn't wolf it down like most kids would after school.

Now, I am a fairly healthy eater but I quite often indulge in chocolate, potato chips and other common snack items. I hate soft drink. I hate the bubbles, I hate the fizz, I hate the sweetness and artificialness. I never touch the stuff. I think my brain was already wired from a young age not to like unhealthy stuff. Even as a child I would pick the fat off meat and not eat chicken skin. I hated anything oily and didn't eat fried stuff often.

I love to eat out and when I do I tend to pig out as I hate wasting food that we've paid good money for. But when we eat at home I don't enjoy the aspect of eating so much and my family and husband roll their eyes at me when I take 3 hours to eat my dinner.

So, as you can see I am pretty screwed up food wise! Haha

I found this article which was interesting.

"In less developed countries in Asia, people are primarily intuitive eaters," said Hawks. "They haven't been conditioned to artificially structure their relationship with food like we have in the United States. They've been conditioned to believe that the purpose of food is to enjoy, to nurture. You eat when you're hungry, you stop when you're not hungry any more. They have a much healthier relationship with food, far fewer eating disorders, and interestingly, far less obesity."

Hawks says that "normal" dieting in the United States doesn't result in long-term weight loss and contributes to food anxiety and unhealthy eating practices, and can even lead to eating disorders.

"What makes intuitive eating different from a diet is that all diets work against human biology, whereas intuitive eating teaches people to work with their own biology, to work with their bodies, to understand their bodies." said Hawks. "Rather than a prescriptive diet, it's really about increasing awareness and understanding of your body. It's a nurturing approach to nutrition, health and fitness as opposed to a regulated, coercive, restrictive approach. That's why diets fail, and that's why intuitive eating has a better chance of being successful in the long term."

I have noticed this since coming here that people are snacking all the time. And not always on healthy stuff either! I guess for most Asians eating is a pleasurable activity to be enjoyed whereas in the West it's looked down upon. Getting back to the psychology thing I think that's why people binge eat or starve themselves or end up with eating disorders. Their mind is all screwed up because they have been told that such and such is 'bad' but then they crave it so they buy it and eat it, feel enormous guilt, etc etc. Then there are the people who 'comfort eat' who use eating and food as some sort of morale booster (definitely not me!) Also stress... what I tend to find is that those who are overweight will put on weight when stressed, and those who are underweight will lose weight when they are stressed. It's as if the body is going into "stop, you are being stupid!" mode, "stop stressing! see what you are doing to yourself?"

Anyway that's my little essay for the day!

Zzz...

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In other news - Despite being fairly thin (I think?) I have a fat bottom!!

I decided I needed a new swimsuit and went shopping for it on Sunday night with the hubby. Boy oh boy was it hard work. It took me about an hour to get one. First of all, I am totally pear shaped and noone believes me when I tell them I need a bigger size. The salesladies in the fashion department frustrate me to no end. I say I want to try on "this" and hold up the item and they go, "Let me take a look... nah, this is too big for you. Here is an M." and I'm smiling and trying to be polite but deep down (after it has happened a billion times) I want to strangle her, "No, you don't understand, I have really big hips. I know it doesn't look like it..." and well, basically they don't believe me until I step out of the change room and the size LARGE pair of pants fit me perfectly. I have one in a size M and one in a size XL but most of my pants are size L.

So anyway, I wanted to buy a two-piece tankini (because I don't like one pieces and am too chicken to wear a skimpy bikini) but it appears you have to buy it as a set. In Australia (and US and most Western countries I'm sure) they sell them as 'separates' so you can not only mix and match colours and patterns you can mix and match sizes (great for us pear people). Hmm..

Anyway, this lady was trying to get me to squeeze into a pair of size M pants. Umm.. I literally could only get them on over my knees. I couldn't even fit into the L. There goes my morale!! In Australia I have to buy the smallest size possible and here I have to buy the largest size possible!!

So after an hour of exhaustion and almost pulling my waist-length hair out and getting myself, my hair and the swimsuit all knotted up whilst in the change room - I finally made my choice. Let's not forget the salesladies yelling "Xian sheng" 先生 rather comically, and other staff and customers looking at me when I stepped out of the change room (ugh). Luckily they let me get two different sizes though. So I got a top in size L and bottoms in size XL.

Hubby also got some men's swim trunks.

So it was exhausting but worth it. I can't believe I got the little overskirt, the cap, and a beachbag for free too. You never get any freebies in Australia. Last night we took our new gear out for a 'spin' in our gym's pool. :) Whilst I was in the change room and pool I noticed some very familiar patterns - of swimsuits I had considered.

Another thing is underwear. I have had to buy size L underpants and hubby who usually takes a L in Australia has to buy XXL ones. One time he bought some XL ones and they were too small for him. I put them on for a laugh and amazingly they fit me like a glove. I can't believe I am admitting to wearing men's underpants! hahah.. I've gone from wearing size S undies in Australia to size XL men's ones in China - C..r...a...z...y !!! :D

Our sixth month wedding anniversary...

Last night we celebrated our 6th month anniversary. We were to-ing and fro-ing about which restaurant to go to. It is always so hard to choose because they are just SO many here! We were going to go to a fancy one but it was raining and a bit horrible so we decided just to go to a cheapish one, more like a cafe, serving Western-style dishes. We already have their menu in a home delivery booklet so we knew the types of dishes they had and it seemed to have good reviews online.

We decided to go to Wagas on Huaihai Rd (not the one in the picture)

As soon as we walked in I was really happy because 1) it did not reek of smoke (in fact the whole place was non-smoking, a rarity and a treasure in China!) 2) there were lots of people on laptops (free wireless?) and it just reminded me so much of home. The only thing that gave it away that we were in China was the bilingual menu and all Chinese staff.

There were 4 people with laptops and 2 of them had macs (a fairly high ratio I would say!) that made me feel like it was even more like 'home' haha.

I was very impressed and humbled when a guy sitting next to us, typing on his Mac laptop, was speaking to the waitress in fluent Mandarin. But not only was it fluent, it was quite complicated business-like jargon. I actually didn't even really know what he was saying as it was far beyond my level of comprehension. In that precise moment I felt ashamed and embarrassed that I, with my Chinese background, and him with his American or wherever (Western country) background could speak such great Mandarin! (and not to mention read and type it too).

What better way to console myself than going across the road to the Pacific department store (gotta love the 10pm closing time every night) and going shoe shopping! It was packed as usual and the sales are so great. Eg 50% off then another 20% off. And beautiful soft leather, both inner and upper. My size is also right in the middle of the range and very common (whereas in Australia I can hardly ever buy anything because they just don't make my size or have sold out of it). They were 890 RMB (AU$140) down to 350 RMB ($55) which is freakin' expensive for China but the quality is so good, and leather so soft, like Italian shoes.

Oh btw the food was absolutely scrumptious and now I have read more from the site I just posted, I had a good reason why it felt so much like 'home'. Because the manager is Chinese Australian and there is definitely the Australian connection there... :)