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."

The Expat Wives Club and pesky mosquitos

If I say that too quickly it almost sounds like 'ex-wives club' - of which I certainly don't want to be a part of! Haha.

Yesterday I met another expat wife for the first time. She showed me around her house, made us lunch, and walked her dogs. Then her driver drove us around town. It was a lot of fun :D

We have a lot in common. We are around the same age (her 29, me 30) and she was recently married (2 years ago) too. She likes scrapbooking, which she does in their amazing 'office'. We both hate smokers and are petrified of heights, hate mosquitos and love to swat them with our mosquito racquets. Ah - the sadist in me comes out. I love to see sparks fly when I 'zap' those suckers who make my life hell! We live on such a high floor (31st) but they still come in so now I have to keep the windows closed for most of the day.



I've discovered a few things about mosquitos recently.
* Yes they can fly up high floor levels. Don't know why or how, they probably come up in the lift or get blown up here by the wind.
* If you have the air-conditioning on cold they fly much slower. So slow the other night I caught one with my bare hand. It was so slow it looked like it was drunk or something, flying around in slow circles.
* If it is really hot, they fly really fast, so fast that I can't even catch them with my racquet.
* Apparently Avon Skin so soft is a good lotion which is a moisturizer, sunscreen and insect repellant in one. But I have to find some!
* The ones that are outside near trees, plants, bushes are far more deadlier than those little ones that fly around your house. The latter only gave me a small bite but the former gave me a huge red thing!
* The standard Chinese house does not have flyscreens. These are a good way of preventing the pesky buggers from coming into your home.
* Do you try to catch a mosquito (even with a racquet) when you are tired and falling asleep. You'll exhaust yourself and won't succeed.

Overheating and overheating!

My poor little laptop is overheating. It reached 51º at one time. I have been meaning to buy a laptop cooler stand for it, and wanted to do that today except if I ventured outside I would have overheated.

(Right now it's 8pm (not 7pm) and it feels like 39º)


Earlier today, at around 3:30pm, the mercury reached 36º and Yahoo said it 'feels like 44º.' Yuck yuck yuck!

I have had the air conditioning on all day (set to around 19º). I turned it off for a while and couldn't stand it even after just 5 minutes. The heat was horrendous. I went outside briefly too and it felt like a sauna.

I brought my trusty laptop cooler (which my Dad got me from Taiwan) with me, but the fragile delicate parts inside broke during my many airport and taxi trips. :(

It looks like this:



I plan to accomplish my task tomorrow. The problem is figuring out what is the best time to go outside. 11am-4pm is the hottest part of the day so I have to go before this. Problem is, most shops don't open till 10am. And if I go after 4 it is too late because peak hour is imminent and I won't be able to find a vacant taxi to get home. So I think I'll try to leave at around 9:30 am to get there just before it opens. And that way, I'll beat any crowds too. :) And hurry home before I fry.

Hello Summer!!

Every single person I had spoken to about Shanghai, every book I had read about Shanghai, mentioned the horrible summer that exists here. So I got scared. I got really really scared. I don't mind the heat but the humidity gives me a rare type of intensely itchy eczema that doesn't go away until it starts to become cooler and and drier pretty much (probably September at least - aaarrghh!).

Anyway, I had been marvelling to myself at how lucky I was that the whole time we had been here (from May 6th) the weather had been really nice. Sure there were some hotter days but overall, it was comfortable and especially in the late afternoons and evenings it was nice and breezy and cool almost - down to the low 20s or high teens. I even had to wear a long sleeve fleecy jacket at night! It was so breezy and cool.

Well I guess all my friends and books were right. Summer just hits you in the face here in Shanghai. One minute it is nice (all of May and around half of June) say the guidebooks, but then it's humidity city.

HOT. HUMID. WET. RAINY. That is what summer is like in Shanghai!

The week started to get hotter and hotter starting from Monday and today was the hottest it had been. Yesterday was pretty hot too but nothing like today. Today was the first day I had to use the air-conditioning since we moved into our flat. I tried to tolerate the heat but it was just unbearable, plus my poor computer couldn't cope either.

Earlier it was reported to be around 34degrees on a site, but I went to Yahoo and it said 32deg, 70% humidity, feels like 40deg. I thought - Wow, I'm not imagining it. Even Yahoo tells me it feels like 40deg!!

At around 7pm there were some massive thunderstorms complete with lightning. Since we are so high up, it felt like the lightning was right outside our window! Incredible (and scary).

Now, at 9pm, according to both Yahoo Weather and Shanghai Daily it is 26deg, 89% humidity, feels like 29deg.

I suppose there is no point hoping and wishing it would cool down. This is Asia afterall, and this is summer!

I suppose I should be thankful, though, I am not in Taiwan, Hong Kong or southern China where it would already be this hot in April or May.

The funny thing is, everyone back home in Sydney had been complaining about how cold it has been there. Down to 6 degrees some nights. Brrr...

Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 One of the world's greatest directors

Mike and I both love films by Zhang Yimou. They are so beautiful, inspiring, and show the undeterminable strength of the human character.

My mother introduced us to his films a few years ago. She said, "I borrowed this video tape from the Chinese video store. Here take a look. I bet you'll like this movie." I watched it, and I was hooked. I bawled my eyes out. The film was The Road Home the film that launched Zhang Ziyi's film career.

(NB: In English their names should be Yimou Zhang and Ziyi Zhang but I feel so weird saying that because I'm used to calling them by their Chinese name which puts the surname first).

No matter how many times I watch that film I am reduced to tears. When Mike and I were in Kuala Lumpur (just before we arrived in Shanghai), it came on television and I was already bawling my eyes out because I knew what was going to happen.

I thought that movie was 'bad' for making one cry.. that was until I saw To Live, starring Gong Li.

I bought the DVD For Mike as a Christmas present. I got some 40% off DVD vouchers at Borders and figured it was a good idea to use them for Christmas presents. I also bought my sister a DVD from there for Christmas. Anyway, since I know Mike loves foreign films I went to that section and ummed and erred for HOURS about which ones to get. I ended up getting him To Live and Pushing Hands by Ang Lee.

We finally got around to watching To Live only in April (due to all our wedding planning, wedding and honeymoon in Jan-March).. and OMG it was the most beautiful, sad, gut-wrenching, amazingly emotional film I have ever seen! If you have seen the trailers you get a vague idea of what it's about. Apart from the story lines involving family relationships there is the backdrop of the historical changes throughout China in the turbulent times of the 40s, 50s ,60s and 70s.










In terms of pulling at one's heartstrings it is along the lines of the wonderful Life is Beautiful (La Vita è bella) by the wonderful Roberto Benigni. I also find those two films similar because the backdrop is based on real events through time and history. I love how you get a sense of what it must've felt like to be in that situation. Just amazing.

Another one I should mention is Not one less. A low budget film, it reportedly stars no actors. All of the people in the film are just normal people that Yimou found. It is such a simple story, but so sweet, and lovely. It is one of my sister's favourite films.

Of course then there are the recent blockbusters Hero and House of Flying Daggers. It's so easy to compare the two, as they were released so close together and both star Zhang Ziyi. I'm not sure which one I liked better but I absolutely loved the way that colours were used in the landscape scenes in House of Flying Daggers. The way it was filmed and done with the frozen water and everything, it was breathtaking.

If you have never watched a Zhang Yimou film, you should. You won't regret it! :)

NB: The beautiful film To Live, which won a prestigious award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994, is banned in China which is ironic given it was made here and starred Chinese actors/actresses. But if you have seen the film you can understand why. There is the sensitive issue with the cultural revolution and that tumultuous era.

PS: Under no circumstances should you go and look it up on imdb. Unless you want to know pretty much everything that happens!