More Notes on Shanghai

It was raining in this city before Stefanie arrived, and while she was here, we had the most beautiful weather. Now she's gone and the rain is back. Sux.

Here's a brief roundup of my time with Stefanie (read more about her visit here) and her BFF Ting (who is very funny in a vulgar, lack of self-censoring sort of way and speaks Mandarin with a charmingly bizarre accent):

1) Do not even look askance at the zebras at the Shanghai Zoo. A few reasons why this is a bad idea: 1) the Shanghai Zoo has decided to install only the most minimal barriers between the animals, which results in animals being in much closer proximity than one is used to. 2) The zebras at the Shanghai Zoo are NOT. MESSING. AROUND. Ting was just casually talking to one of them, when he approached curiously, and then BUM RUSHED her, only to stop short of the fence and say, "Psych!" "Dude!" I exclaimed to Ting. "Your ass just got CHARGED BY A ZEBRA!"

1a) Another note: the lions at the zoo are quite the show. In the space of five minutes, we got to see: pissing, stretching, roaring, and (so adorable!) cuddling. And as always, red panda > black panda.

2) According to some of Stefanie's buddies from USC who spend a lot of time in nightclubs in Asia, Chinese girls will only hold hands for the first fifty dates, but Japanese girls will give up the anal on day one. Note to Japanese women: call me. Just kidding - before I start getting the hate mail, let me just say that the very amusing individuals in question are not exactly what I would call players, in the strictest (or even loosest) sense of the term, so your mileage may vary. A LOT.

3) Speaking of USC, Stefanie managed to actually drag me to - the horror! - a USC alumni event. "I am not a Trojan!" I said. "Stop saying that!" said Stefanie. To be fair, the event was staged at a nice restaurant, with plenty of decent food on hand; not to mention that my former graduate school gets style points for even holding events in Shanghai. But no matter how good an alumni association USC has, there's simply no compensating for the fact that the University of Texas at Austin has a better football team, and that Matt Leinart is a complete tool. And I can write that because Stefanie is in Xian now and she can't smack me! Yay! (PS. UCLA is really the better school, by the way. I couldn't get in there, so I had to settle.)

4) If you want to get someone pregnant in Shanghai, a good place to start is New Heights on the Bund. It's a stylish rooftop bar/restauarant located on the top floor of an elegant 1920's building on the Huangpu River. There's a gorgeous view of the river and the Shanghai skyline, and you get a nice breeze up there. The food is very decent. The best thing about the place are the elevators, which are shrouded in darkness, with only a slight hint of accent lighting. You can barely see the face of the person across from you, and the elevator is intimate in size to begin with. It is dark, mysterious, and as sexy as elevators can be, which is usually not very.

5) Stefanie had her hair Japanese straightened in Shanghai for the absurdly low price of about $30. And yes, it looks quite lovely. The usual price in the states is in the hundreds, and Stefanie also received treatment from two stylists at the same time. The procedure took a few hours, and Stefanie had to sit very still for all of it, which pretty much guarantees that I will never, ever have my hair Japanese straightened. Oh wait - I'm Asian. I've got Japanese straightened hair FO' LYFE. I get this for free, ninja.