Recently there’s been a huge scandal (note: scandal = not true, obviously) revolving around Oh-chan that made me soooo worried after Adeline, Erfa and Atikah told me about it and after reading the news from several fan sites online. The thought of it makes me feel disgusted at the publisher and its stupid objectives. (I guess nobody cares about the scandal at the point of writing this, wheee) And here’s what makes me happy.. sketching Ohno! Especially for Atikah, who requested it =)

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I can’t believe we dined at Olive’s again – for the 3rd time in a week? Wow, we must like the food too much. In another vcd/dvd shop, I asked if they had Death Note anime and Battle Royale, which the man handed to me after a mini search through the pile of single DVDs in plastic covers. DN anime complete series for 48 rmb.. how could I refuse such an offer?? BUY!

Sigh, life (at home) without internet is like a vacuum cleaner; it sucks. Hence for the need to quickly find a solution that would put an end to this temporary misery. Hah. After dinner Sean and I cabbed down to Metro 美罗城 where we passed by these gigantic Olympic billboards and posters, accompanied by countless spotlights and lamps that brightened the area so much so it felt like daytime.

Evidently, the brightness was more than adequate, that I didn’t even need flash to take this pic. I can’t imagine the amount of energy generated to sustain this level of usage everyday…

Part of Metro was like an IT mall, they sold a great variety of electronic products. We inquired a salesman (not the kind of salesman, but an average guy in T-shirt) about the thumbdrive like device which you could plug into your lappy, connect to the internet and surf on the go. In short, it works like wireless, but the major shortcoming would be the extremely slow speed at which it receives signals. Gosh, we waited like 5 minutes for the Youtube page to load when they demo-ed on the laptop. On top of that, it wasn’t cheap, so was the normal modem =P Hence we gave it up in hope of Linda being able to get internet access for us, paid of course, so that we wouldn’t have to fret over the irregularity at which there’s internet and that Sean is able to skype with Dawn daily :D LOL.

Sean was also looking for a new phone with basic functions that’s cheap but good since his Sony Ericsson one spoilt in the office that day when he replaced his sim card with the local sim card. Bad luck huh, lol. We went around to different stalls asking for the cheapest phone available and after comparing prices and considering for a while, he bought a 300 rmb phone (Motorola I think?) and tested it immediately.

In the mall there was a large food court downstairs:

but I wanted to walk around a little more, and in the process, we saw more restaurants serving Italian cuisine, local food, Swensens and Singapore cuisine! Not sure if it was authentic though, we didn’t browse through the menu. Just when we were unsure of what to have for dinner, I spotted Hoi Lau San 许留山, the very famous café in Hong Kong that Angie and I fell in love with while we were there. I think it’s because Leslie loved mangos too ;) It’s like, a MANGO (Sean told me Dawn will love it :D) shop; almost every item in the menu has mango as its ingredient.

Back home. After a long day at work, we needed some form of entertainment… so I suggested to watch Battle Royale!! Oh the sound system plus the big TV screen is SO GOOD I don’t even want to pay to watch a movie at the local cinema okay.

Bad day. Know why? When the very first line of subtitles appeared, I burst out laughing at how ridiculously ‘unlucky’ we were.. the subs were in Korean =.= and the remote control to the DVD player was spoilt, there was no button on the player to control the subs. *pulls hair and bangs head* So we had to watch on Sean’s mac for the English subs, the cheap DVDs couldn’t play smoothly on windows. ~~ Nevertheless…. BR was awesome, as usual. My 9th / 10th time watching? :D

[ Expenses ] :
48 rmb (Death Note), 4 rmb (drink), 11 rmb (cab), 46 rmb (lunch at Olives), 56 rmb (contacts colution)

It was raining again in the morning. Directly in front of the door of our apartment, if you bend over the window, this is what you’ll see:

This day was good, ‘cause there wasn’t much for us to work on. All of us had lunch at a Chinese restaurant that took about 8 minutes to walk from our office. The picture can’t show it very well, but we were at a road junction and they simply walked across. Like they own the road, lol, ignoring the traffic light and zebra crossing. I’m amazed, and I strive to be as pro as them soon =)

As we went upstairs to the second storey of the restaurant, I noticed they had placed several pots of cactuses along the stairway and windows. I wonder if it had to do with superstition or anything?

The first dish they served was some kind of veggie with this cute tomato cut into the shape of a bunny right on top. Looked good, but I didn’t touch it anymore after tasting it.

These are two of my favourite dishes, the better of the Chinese food we’ve had before. On the left was scrambled/boiled egg with tomato pieces, and the dish on the right was called “水煮牛肉” (boiled beef slices?)! The meat was sooo tender and delicious, soaked in some spicy gravy and topped with chopped garlic, chilli, sesame and spring onion (I think).

We also had tomato soup and pork or something to go with the rice.

For the rest of the day, Sean and I continued with the Johnnie Walker wallpapers and attended an informal meeting in the meeting room downstairs. I forgot what the meeting was about, but clearly remember we were all treated to Coffee Bean =) Then in the evening, we decided to meet up with Sam for dinner. On our way, via a different route from where we walk out of Red Town to go home everyday, to Hong Qiao MRT, there was a club by the name of B.R.B. in the area. In fact, there are lots of other bars and clubs in Red Town, just that we’ve never been to one here before.

Just like what you have read about or heard; the security in China has been beefed up considerably, with guards constantly on duty at MRT stations because of the upcoming Olympics. They would check anyone whose bag looks bulky before he enters. We hung around for a long time waiting for Sam and thought we could have even missed him… cos with his looks, he blends in with the crowd. Officially, Mr Yao Ming lookalike, LOL!

We had dinner at Olives, sat at our usual spot and used the two 10 rmb vouchers from the previous visit. For the first time, Sam visited our apartment and was wow-ed by the size and condition; we haven’t seen theirs, but according to Sam, his house was smaller and older still. He was very reluctant to leave, so we told he they’re welcome to stay over during the weekends.. Either him or Macson could share the bed with Sean, and the other person could sleep on the sofa. Our sofa’s comfy, so it wouldn’t matter.

Very abruptly, we found that there was no internet, it seemed like the owner had switched the modem off and there were no other available connections. Having no internet was the worst case scenario.. at home there’re still things I could do, but right here, when there’s no internet, there’s no drive. I just didn’t feel a need to stay up. Oh well, at the end of three months, I hope I won’t end up too unproductive.

[ Expenses ] :
22 rmb (lunch), 5.5 rmb (cab, split), 52 rmb (dinner at Olives), 135 rmb (DVDs)

Has it occured to you how did Sean and I manage to come online when we’re not in the office? We got internet, yeah! But that’s not the point, the thing is – we tap into our very ‘kind’ and unknowing neighbour’s open connection, hence, free access. Thanks for sharing, Mr/Mrs/Ms linksys123!

To upkeep my style of writing and the length of the entries, I might very well take a couple of years to finish documenting these 80+ days in Shanghai. I’m changing approach, cos I’m lazy and tired after work everyday. Let’s start with a bit of statistics.. the distance, according to google map and Sean, from our apartment to our workplace = 1.2km. WALKING DISTANCE =) Make it everyday, to work and back. We leave the house at around 9.05am and on the average reach there at 9.30am. This video below I took documents the path we take from the entrance of Red Town to our company’s doorstep. Welcome, Mr Tan will show you the way.

For lunch, we ordered takeaway food through phone from another stall. It came literally as a container of rice, a ‘饭桶’. A really huge serving you got there, though I can’t say I like this more than 便当. In the days to come, thankfully we stuck to ordering lunchboxes and eating outside.

On our way back in the evening, I spotted a CD/VCD/DVD shop and went in to look for some titles. Japanese dramas and anime took up one corner of the shop and as I scanned through the rows, I picked up Fireboys (60 rmb. Takayuki Yamada, Tsukamoto Takashi, woo), Manhattan Love Story (60 rmb. This one’s hard to find! Tsuka Takashi tee hee) and Letters from Iwo Jima (15 rmb. NINONINO)! At the same time, I asked if they had Death Note anime and Battle Royale movie; both were sold out currently but they said it’s possible to replenish the stock in about 3 days, so we said we’ll check back again. It was probably from a handphone, if not the CD player, the introduction of the song “千娇百美” from Leslie’s last album Gone With The Wind played. Ahh, I’m so certain there’re lots of Leslie fans here in China.

Just when I happily took for granted we’d be clear of all sorts of troubles if we avoided streetside food, crossed the road carefully or stayed away from clubs (lol……), we ran straight into it. None of us saw this coming, like LITERALLY. That evening, we were headed for the Carrefour at Zhong Shan Park station on a cab and there happened to be a jam along the way. Nearby, a delivery man was on his bike and we realise, it’s Macdonalds. Didn’t feel the same as ours, but I can’t remember how different. I took some pictures anyway, tried to, but they turned out bad because it was pretty dark.

The driver drover further along the side of Cloud Nine shopping mall because there were traffic police behind so he wasn’t able to drop us at the entrance. Sean, because he was on the right and the doors of most cabs can only be opened from the right, opened the door wanting to get out, for a moment he sat down again to retrieve the change from the cab driver. Then CRAAASH !! We immediately turned our heads to the right – a man of about 40, and his bicycle, fallen to the ground right in front of us. I don’t know if you can visualise this; a whole lot of bicycles were parked at the spot we alighted at such that the space between the cab and the bicycles was only a very narrow part the road and then the eleviated pavement. It took some time for our heads to process and make sense of this situation and realising it could have very well been our fault, the driver and us hurried out of the cab and to see if the man was injured. The driver helped him up, and in a moment, he very volubly complained about painful sensations in his legs and rambled on and on. Faced with such a situation, Sean and I were at a loss of what to do as even passersby stopped to watch the drama.

I reviewed the situation again with Sean, he said that the door was already open for several seconds before the man crashed into (did he even have contact with the door?!) it and that why would a cyclist riding behind not stop or take another path when a cab has already stopped right in front? It was senseless, knowing that passengers alight only from the right side and doors could be flung open ANY TIME from the point the cab stopped.

Meanwhile, the driver negotiated with him and concluded that he wanted 200 rmb as a compensation, or else off to the police station we go. 200 rmb? You mean EFFIN DAYLIGHT ROBBERY huh. Immediately I was doubtful, and called Sin Yew. An aunty ‘joined in’ and tried persuading us to just hand him the money, let the matter rest because it would be a whole lot of trouble if the police were to intercede.

Sean was telling me, “Just give him the money lah..” but I think otherwise! Go ahead and call the cops, why should we simply use money to settle this without clarifying? But still…. very reluctantly, I prepared to take a 100 rmb note (split with Sean afterward) from my wallet. Then, it was like a 360* change of attitude; once the man saw me opening my wallet, his tone immediately changed and randomly said, “你们是哪里人？Ahh, where are you from?” With which, Sean replied deliberately “香港人。We’re from Hong Kong.” Fuming, I stared at him as he took the 100 rmb note with an almost smiling face.

I have never been so mad for a long time! I turned around and stalked off, thinking how terrible those folks were, to just want to let a LOUSY and UNREASONABLE man get away with it just because they were not the ones handing him money. If this were to happen to them, I BET they would be the first to pick a fight, in three counts. I was very sure the man, on the ground, stared at us for a full 5 seconds and having heard our “Sorry”s and “Are you okay?”, he then clumsily got up, brushed the dust off his pants, felt about his legs and started complaining. You basket! If a person was injured after falling off a bike, he would reflexively feel for the ‘pain’ with his hands – not this.

Ask me, what do I label this sort of people as? — 见钱眼开的烂人。A person whose eyes open up so wide, that the sockets have become so huge with this recurring muscle reflex action that his eyeballs are bound to fall out one day and dangle on his face, at the sight of money.

Shanghai oh Shanghai, she isn’t at all like what you and I imagine it to be. ~

Sorry I digressed. Just jokin’ =D

I had to move on. We went to Macdonalds for dinner and then headed to Carrefour to get the rest of the things we needed. Our house aircon has been working really well since last weekend, Sean had to buy a blanket because his room temperature is so much colder than mine. For me, a cheap bath towel and my denim jacket was sufficient to keep me warm at night. We looked around further for scissors, utensils, pencils (for me to do sketching) and so on.

Just nearby our house, there is a convenience store called the “C-store” which has a red tomato for its logo, and adopts the colour scheme and branding of 7-11. Yes, red and green. Eeek, I think there are more than one imitation of 7-11 around here. In a corner, they sell food like sotong balls, fish balls, sausages and stuff on skewers kept warm constantly. Sean would complain everytime we enter the store that the cooked food stinks the place, but I don’t find it as offending. This was okay, sotong balls in spicy sauce:

[ Expenses ] :
8 rmb (lunch), 135 rmb (DVDs), 50 rmb (BASKET), 17 rmb (Macs), 177 rmb (at Carrefour) ++ misc

I made bread with philadelphia and had half a cup of plain yoghurt in the morning. They said China’s yoghurt is one of the best dairy products… I ABSOLUTELY AGREE to that. Just to have a taste, I bought a whole bottle of it at Carrefour the other day along with milk, sweetened condensed milk, peanut butter and a loaf of bread for breakfast. To a small extent, I dislike the yoghurt we have in Singapore because they’re mostly mixed with chunks of fruits or nuts and they taste too sweet and bleah. The one I bought was sour and darn good I must say. It brings yoghurt to a whole new level omg! :D Instant favourite!

You must have heard, the air here is indeed polluted and so bad that I’ve been getting a lot more pimples in the past few days than any other time. It’s like we expose ourselves constantly to the super large amount of dust and whatever for a whole day before taking a shower. And the air dries my skin so bad that the lack of moisture causes it to peel. If you have dry skin like mine, you had better bring along moisturizer or else I don’t know how you’re going to go out looking like that.

During work, we continued the LG screensaver, doing a demo of the effect in flash so as to better explain our concept. There was a meeting where everybody gathered and brainstormed for the project for Paypal, rather intensive as they all threw in ideas for the best features to include in the website. We were lightly briefed on Johnnie Walker and were assigned to design the wallpapers.

Work apart, all of us went out for lunch today and we had a chance to pass by the sculpture of this man which looked a wee bit creepy under the lighting.

Following our colleagues, we walked to a Chinese restaurant where they ordered several dishes and plain rice. There was the tofu in soy sauce topped with century egg (which was extremely salty unless eaten with rice), barbecued fish, some kind of pork, shredded long beans (I think), kang kong (or something like that) in sesame oil and shredded chicken with vinegar. I hardly managed to find anything to talk to them about, but at least at the round table, I got a better view of each of their faces.

Red Town is just located along Huai Hai Xi (west) Road which extends to the Huai Hai Zhong (middle) and Huai Hai Dong (east) Roads.

On our way back, I saw an entirely different side of Shanghai through the ruins of a particular house that had become the rubbish dump for others, the traditional houses worn by age, dark and uncomfortable looking shop houses selling fruits and vegetables and semi naked old shopkeepers resting in the shade under the hot weather.. All these wonderful sights that bring out the essence of China, I hope they’re here to stay for a long time to come.

In the afternoon when everyone’s gone down to the meeting room, only Sean and I remained in the office. I told you, it’s really quite small and I’m sitting at the corner of the room, with a door leading to another area where the accounts and projects people work, and then one end would be the boss’s office and the other end the entrance. So in all, there are only 8 desks here, for the creative (including the copywriter Vincent, and maybe Ella and Joe for production) department. Here’s how it looks like, and also my desk:

Our favourite topic for the day would be – What’s for dinner today? Then we brainstormed (yes it required so much usage of our brains…) for sometime before deciding that we should visit Olive’s again! Italian cuisine YEAH! Even though Fan Yu road was within walking distance (it would take about.. 20 minutes?), we were so lazy and chose the better alternative – to cab there. A little before the vehicle turned into the road where Olive’s was located at, guess what, I spotted Venexia! You just can’t miss the wonderful sight outside the restaurant, and the idea of dining at such a posh restaurant was impossible to resist.

After watching Bambino! (starring Matsujun, loll. The most awesome Italian cuisine Jdrama!) and taking Italian language for CDS, I made up my mind to dine in an authentic Italian restaurant at least once. So we’re here! In the drama, there was a scene where Eri (Ban’s girlfriend) visited the restaurant he was working at and was seated at the best seat that overlooked the whole dining area. From my seat, I had a good view of the entire restaurant, too.
I thought about what made the ambience of the restaurant at night so different from when we visited in the day and concluded that much of it must be attributed to the beautiful chandelier and lamps. The friendliness of the smartly dressed waiters and waitresses too, in black and white, luring me into the world of Bambi :3 There wasn’t any notice about photography but I went ahead anyway.

Working at such a fine restaurant would be grand, I thought. When we talked about part-time jobs in Shanghai, Sean suggested either I work here or become a translator for them… uhh he was referring to the three Japanese men at the other side of the restaurant. Yeah as if they would need one =.=

Reading the menu was like reading our textbook, hehe. Since the prices were high though affordable and we weren’t compelled to order a full course meal, we both ordered lasagna and dessert. Before any of our orders arrived, they served warm bread and two biscuits that taste SO GOOD I could eat them as a meal! I fully expected the main course to be of a relatively small serving; with Italy’s traditional meal structure with many courses, it was only reasonable. One bite of the lasagna was more than enough for me to assume that everything they serve in the restaurant would be as delicious as this =)

My dessert was ‘Pannacotta ai frutti di bosco e salsa ai cioccolato bianco e caramello’ (cream pudding filled with berries served with white chocolate and caramel sauce), with an undescribably nice vanilla and berry taste that slowly works its way up your tastebuds without being too sweet.

Sean’s dessert: ‘Torta di mandorie e noci con gelato alla vaniglia’ (Almond and walnuts cake and vanilla ice cream).

After we cleared the bill, I was pleasantly surprised as the waitress served us two complimentary shots. Since it’s a shot, Sean said we’re suppose to drink it at one shot. So I did. We couldn’t get the name, but it had the taste of lemon and was really nice. For a moment, Sean tried to be funny and pretended to be drunk =.= what he didn’t see was the waitress secretly grinning.

Aye, just look at the difference between the amount we spent for lunch and dinner: 22 rmb (lunch at the Chinese restaurant) and 146 rmb (dinner at Venexia). *Faints* Mustn’t upkeep this habit of running to expensive restaurants whenever we feel like it. Tee hee.

[ Expenses ] :
22 yuan (lunch), 146 yuan (dinner) = 168 yuan

In order not to oversleep, I set 5 alarms on my handphone: 7.45, 7.50, 7.55, 8 and 8.05. It’s the day we’re starting our actual internship, which makes life pretty exciting, just for that day. Although we are not expected to wear formal clothing to work everyday, Sean and I decided that we should go to work looking really formal since most of the clothes we brought here are meant for that.

Sin Yew kindly offered to wait near our apartment and showed us the way to AKQA. We began walking at 8.50am and saw more of the neighbourhood through the residential areas, the bustling morning streets, across the roads weaving among dangerous vehicles (lol). It’s a long long walk under the hot weather, and we reached Red Town in about 15 minutes.

Based on my impression of the word “Red Town”, I had thought it to be a high-tech and happening kind of town in a very developed part of Shanghai. On entering the gates, past the security guard, is lovely place that I would also describe as an eye-opener. One noticeable feature and probably the reason for the name is the countless red bricks that made up most of the buildings’ walls.

Red Town, covering a relatively huge area, is dedicated to the Arts and is a new ‘world’ itself. Bars, cafes, design companies, art shops and such are located within the premises, with the most prominent being the Shanghai Sculpture Space.

Along the outdoor paths and a grassy area, we found a variety of sculptures, some in a series while others are a piece of art on their own. Sin Yew also walked us through the indoor sculpture space, where so many more sculptures created by a huge range of artists stand.

We’ve been to the very grand Grand Gateway, in the concentrated CBD, where Sam and Macson will go to work (wearing really formal clothes haha) everyday but so far if I’m not wrong, I haven’t been to anywhere like this. Red Town sends off an entirely different vibe; its quiet, modest and down-to-earth feel is reflected mostly in the architecture. Rather than solid concrete whitewashed walls, we found even more bricked walls as we further walked through the alleys and maze-like paths. I like the buildings because being not so modern, they somehow evoke a certain kind of feel, as though they’re from a different time altogether.

From now on, we’ll have to climb four storeys to reach our company, in addition to all the walking from the point we step out of our apartment.

Three of us were the first to arrive, Sean and I got our company pass from the receptionist, a young lady. Afterwhich, we went upstairs to the office area and got our own workspace. The first thing I noticed was that hey, the company isn’t as big as I had imagined it to be, but more like twice or trice the size of our IMD studio. On this level, they’ve sections for the creative team, the media, projects management, accounts etc and downstairs, the meeting rooms, washrooms, reception area, refridgerator and more office cubicles. Sin Yew gave us our usernames and passwords for the individual accounts to use on our computers. I’m surprised they use PCs not Macs; I was 101% sure (and mentally prepared) that they’ll be using the latter.. but I feel good, being able to still use PC :)

We had a brief introduction with our boss; a lean bespectacled designerish man who looked and sounded like a Taiwanese with a heavy American slang. And he talked way too fast, whether in English or Mandarin, all the time. Soon, other colleagues began coming in, then at a corner of the office they held a short meeting they call the WIP, held every Monday morning, to update everyone on the progress and updates for each project. I tried matching their names to their positions, but failed terribly after the informal meeting when everyone went back to their seats =.= Oh, if you are wondering, they speak Mandarin during the meeting.

We then got our first task – to design a new Olympics-related screensaver for LG. Not to say that we were fully assigned the project, but just so to have another concept to present to the client. I wondered and wondered about how our lunch break was going to be like: an hour of freetime? half an hour? Then the answer finally came! We were handed a sheet of paper, on which was printed the menu of Kuai Ke Lunchboxes (快客便当) with a variety to choose from. I ordered a beef tendon rice lunchbox that only cost 15 rmb while Sean got his fish fillet rice lunchbox. The serving was so huge, but I ate most of it anyway.

For some time, Sean had been observing this colleague Ryan whom he claims looks like Jay Chou, so he’s keen in ‘making friends with him’. (LOL don’t be disappointed, you imd guys) Towards the end of the day, Ryan came over and asked for our msn contacts. I remember in a conversation that night, he asked us in Mandarin, “How come you guys didn’t go on msn at all?” Well, how should we know? It’s the first day of work ;)

Our official working hours are from 9.30-6pm, and were too happy to knock off exactly at 6. Tired and hungry, we cabbed down to Raffles City in search of GOOD FOOD. The basement was similar to Plaza Sing’s, with lots of food stalls and restaurants, especially packed during the peak hour period. We went upstairs to find a food court and settled for teppanyaki. The entire meal tasted so salty, just like how we were forewarned about how the Chinese add alot more salt and seasoning to the food they cook, but tasty nevertheless.

On closer examination of the serviette, it says ‘Food Republic’! Kinda cool.

All that salt was making my mouth dry, and before that I already planned to get dessert after the meal. There was a stall selling crepes downstairs, since I haven’t tried one before I made Sean try too lol. The crepe, on the other hand, tasted like tasteless flattened dough with icecream and whipped cream for its filling. It sure tasted like crap, but for some reason I kept on chewing at it, maybe I found it addictive like gum or something.

Our first day working in a foreign country, kinda rocked =) Though there’s still a long way to go.

[ Expenses ] :
59 yuan (teppanyaki), 15 yuan (lunch), 18 yuan (crepes), 23 yuan (cab) = 96 yuan