Semester 5 Chapter XII: Plants & Ads

Yo, so here we go again. For whatever reason, the temperature got slightly up and we are back on pretty comfortable autumn vibes. Thanks god for that. Matterfact, scratch that.... Shout out to the party for that... Hehe... Life is still good over here, lotta shit happening, I’m continuously pushing forward all of my responsibilities... Just as I supposed to...

So let me give y’all some highlights from the last week. On Thursday, I met up with a friend of mine and we went to check out a botanical garden. It is actually called Shanghai Botanical Garden and it’s close to the Longyao Road station. Haven’t ever been to one in Shanghai before and it turned out to be a pretty good idea. The weather was awesome, everything was green, colorful, bunch of different plants blooming, reasonable number of people in... They have these massive greenhouses with tropical trees as well.... We did a bit of a picnic over there... Definitely can recommend...

On Friday, my Lithuanian friends hosted a movie night. This time the theme was ads... There’s this annual Cannes competition, where the pick the most interesting ads from all over the world, screen them and choose the best ones. Some of them were pretty dope, some of them were ass... But the important thing was that the whole evening was awesome as usual. Pretty big crowd of pretty great people... We’re just killing shit over here...

On Sunday, me and my friend did a dinner at Vegan Hotpot – the spot I went to couple weeks back. It’s really fucking impressive. We had some mock shrimps and bacon, tons of veggies... Loads of great dips... If you are into veganism, good food and hotpots, you gotta try that one... Seriously... After that, we continued to this bar named Barules at Fenyan Road. We passed it once before and looked interesting enough to check it out at some point. Pretty high-end place with dimmed lights and quite broad selection of cocktails and real good alcohol. The prices kinda reflect that – cocktails will cost you around 80-100 RMB. But man... Totally worth it tho... They categorize them by decades when they were introduced. I got some New York Sour shit that dates back all the way to 1880s, it was a combo of some aged whiskey, port wine and bunch of other shit and it was beautiful. And I’m not even a cocktail guy...

I also got a memo that we gonna have something like a dissertation pre-defense by the end of December, so I’m gonna have to switch gears a little bit quite soon. I initially expected this thing to take place in March but whatever... If everything goes well, at least I’ll enjoy my winter travels with some peace on my mind. So yeah, that’s about it for now... Shout out to all 3 of my readers! Have a great one!

Highlights:

• Used some OFO bikes after a while and I gotta say. They kinda gave up. It usually takes like 5 tries to find one that is not fucked up beyond usability. And even those that work are pretty fucked like 9 out of 10 times. They gotta step their shit up a notch...
• I wasn’t stopped by a cop on my board for the whole fucking week. Let’s keep it like that.
• New Dipset album. Dope as hell!

Semester 5 Chapter XI: Pizza & Low Battery

Hello world, here we go again. Still on the regular blog shit, ya dig? Shanghai is getting colder and past couple of days have been augmented with fucking rain which really gave all of us over here a taste of shit that’s coming. Today, the sun is out again but when it’s not, you can feel the cold deep down in your system. Brace yourselves!

Aight, so what did I do... On Wednesday, I got to try out this Pizza Street place at Aomen Lu. It’s kinda hidden but at this point, it might be the only spot around offering quite broad variety of vegan pizza. They got some non-vegan as well but those vegan ones... They do vegan cheese, they do mock meat, it’s a real thing. And it’s pretty good. After that, me and my friend took our skateboards and went to the West Bund for a bit. That evening was probably one of the last outdoor hangout friendly ones. After that we did some beers in Liquid Laundry. Apparently, the last time they gave us some e-coupons which entitled us for like 6 free super small beers the second time. Kudos! We also did some mulled wine in a bar nearby. Super chilled evening.

The next day, I met my vegan friend in Knowing cafe in Xinzhuang for a lunch. She introduced me to her friend, we had some veggie dumplings, did a tea ceremony, some great coffee. Like 4 hours of talking shit... Every time we hangout, it turns into this long ass spiritual conversation... Love it. In the evening, I met up with my favorite Monte Negro girls in Papa’s... Life’s good.

On Friday, I decided to put my phone to sleep forever (r.i.p.). My very first smartphone I got just before moving to China. I changed battery like 3 times, I also changed the whole screen once, as well as the charger input... Got to a point when you had to wiggle both charging and headphones cables for like a minute to make them work. The phone had been through a lot and it still worked. However, the battery life got close to zero. I’m talking like 4 hours if you didn’t touch it. If you did, you got to about 2 if lucky. Factory reboot and new battery didn’t cut it, and I was turning into a slave to my charger. Just carrying it everywhere and plugging it in bars, school.... Made me miss dumb phones with battery life of a week or so... Anyway, got a new one and not having to deal with that shit at least for a while feels liberating. Oh, and I ordered it like Friday midnight, and got it delivered Saturday around noon. They don’t really play about delivery in China.

After I was done with setting all the apps and the other shit up on it, I went to my friends’ spot for a dinner and a movie. Even though, I’m the only vegan in the squad (and that evening, I totally managed to go on one of my vegan rants), my friends are fucking awesome and made me some salads, hummus and other good stuff... Love ya!

On Sunday, I went to Hengshan cinema for this Venom movie. Didn’t know much about it, apart from the fact Eminem did (a very mediocre) title song for it. For a superhero movie, it was quite alright. I always wonder how many scenes were cut for the Chinese release.... And the cinema is quite cool. My first time over there... I guess I just really appreciate when you can just go check a movie without dealing with a big ass mall. The movie theatre building itself is there since 50s, and even though they obviously killed all the old-school vibes with generic modern interior renovation, it’s still okay...

Other than that, it’s the usual. School, workouts, skateboarding.... Vegan shit... Can’t really complain about much. Hope you’re doing aight as well... Talk to you in a week!

Highlights:

• Anderson Paak – Oxnard. Yes lawd!
• Chinese. I’m so tone def to all these tones, it hurts... But yeah, still going to those lessons.
• Got myself a metro transportation card. After more than 2 years in Shanghai. Yay!

Semester 5 Chapter X: Make it Rain

What’s good everybody, your boy t31 is back with some more adventures from the city of Shanghai. The very first installment of international import expo is over so I honestly hope that cops will stop asking me to get the fuck off my board while cruising round the town... Let's get things back to normal.

Last Wednesday, I paid a visit to Yuz Museum at the West Bund which marked my first visit over there. I know, ridiculous. There was this rain installation that was pretty surreal. You get to a dark room with this rain pouring from the ceiling. Now, when you enter the rainy area, you quickly find out that the rain avoids you. It’s still raining everywhere else – you and like half a meter around you are a dry zone tho - wherever you go. So you can hear the water, you can see the water, you can feel the water in the air, you just don’t touch it in any way. That’s it. That and two strong spotlights making their way through it all. The experience is quite crazy. Taking something as natural as rain and totally flipping it into 100% artificial thing. After that, we went to Funkadeli and Parrot at Donghu Lu. And spent some mula on cocktails and beers. All good.

On Friday, our little gang met up for a KTV at this spot at Hutai Road. It was as bizarre as you would’ve expected. All polished, flashy, lotta neon lights and countless rooms with mics, comfy couches and flat screens. There was like 8 of us, we brought some alcohol (they apparently don’t give a shit if you bring your own) and had some fun for couple of hours. I got reminded of my gaps in knowledge of 80s and 90s music. I mean those songs everyone seems to know – I usually don’t. But still... You got Pharrells, you got Kanyes – there are some common denominators. Turned out to be a really entertaining evening.

The day after, two of my friends celebrated their bday. We started off at Papa’s Beer and after that moved to this party organized by Elevator guys (Elevator got apparently closed recently) at Jiangning Road. Some hard ass techno. Even though booze usually doesn’t keep me up for long, I ended up having a pretty good time all the way up until 4am or something. Hadn’t been clubbing for a while and I gotta say... Kinda missed that.

Outside of that, I started taking Chinese classes. On Friday, I took my first one at this training center in Xujiahui so fingers crossed. If I’ll be able to have some basic small talk in couple of months, I’ll be good. Let’s hope my brain is capable of that. As a person who really enjoys to mumble while speaking, all these Chinese tones give me serious headache.

Highlights:

• Dark – pretty amazing German TV series.
• On Saturday, I ended up in Anting town all the way down in Jiading which was the closest I got to village experience in Shanghai. Found this park with no security nor rules so I managed to read on the grass with no fucking people around... It sounds basic but you don’t really get to experience that downtown...
• Wayne released some bonus tracks to C5. Flames.