Semester 6 Chapter VII: Slow Life In The Fast Lane

Back on my bullshit y’all. This time it won’t take long. Over the past couple of days, I got on my anti-social shit a little as my schedule got kinda packed with different kinds of stuff, and I also felt like not going out much. Sometimes you need a bit of a mental hygiene and stay with your thoughts for a bit. So without further ado, let me give you bits of shit I actually managed to do in those past seven days.

On Wednesday, a friend texted me to join her for a street food dinner at this legendary spot at South Xiangyang Road. I hopped on my bike, got some beers on the way, and we got some grilled snacks. Good old oily spicy shit. After that we took it to Taphouse, got joined by two more of my peers... The spring vibes in the air, beer in our glasses.... All good.

The weather is getting better but it seems almost like it can’t fully decide which way to go. We had couple of days that were pretty springish, but then the temperature dropped back to winter jacket state... I just want that shit to be over with, you know? Fingers crossed for this week...

Oh yeah, and of Friday, I went to another veggie potlucks. Made some purple beans with my signature mix of veggies and tofu and met up with my vegan squad for a feast. I try to keep my diet nice and clean lately, but when it comes to the potlucks, all of that shit goes out of window. Got back home feeling like pregnant. Oh well...

On Saturday, I had my one and only day off and I decided not to socialize at all. It was kinda cold, but it was sunny too, so I took a book and got the fuck out with no particular direction in mind. Ended up in Tianshan park, Zhonshan park, and roamed random streets of Shanghai. Can’t wait for the weather to get better so this can become a regular thing again. Didn’t even realize how much I missed that.

What else is new... They started renovating my stadium. Pretty much ripped the whole football feel out the ground and closed that shit up for like 3 days. Then they made the running track and bars accessible for public again so I’m good. Talked to my Chinese gradpa squad over there, and apparently, they are gonna work on that for the following two months. After that, I’m gonna have a brand-new stadium. Awesome. On top of that, I already booked my tickets back to fucking Europe. So all you motherfuckers back home reading this... I’ll arrive to Brno June 27^th in the evening. So brace yourself!

And since this was a slow fucking week (even though I somehow had shit to do like literally all the time), let me give you an update on something I find pretty interesting. Some of you already know that China is like a cycling superpower. The culture of cycling is crazy here. Everyone does that. Like two years back, the whole shared bikes business exploded around here and flooded Chinese streets with extremely affordable bikes for everyone to use. Many people pointed out that this is a bubble that’s gonna pop – I mean, at one point there were at least 20-30 different companies providing such service – and they were absolutely right. Some months later, most of these companies are well bankrupt and resting in piece. I initially used Ofo bikes (the yellow ones), and even though there are still some standing around here and there, you can easily tell there’s zero maintenance going on over there and when you go on the internet, you find out that the company pretty much doesn’t exist anymore, has no employees, and angry customers are waiting for months to get their deposit back (which they probably never will – I pretty much gave up on that). It basically got down to two reliable players to my knowledge – you got one of the originators, Mobike, and a relatively new one, Hello Bike. The latter is provided by Alipay, so there’s a good change, it’s here to stay too. And since I move around Shanghai by subway quite a lot lately (meaning, not taking my personal bike with me), I made an account with Mobike and got reminded how fucking cheap and convenient this thing is. Paid 50 RMB which gives me 3 months of unlimited free rides and unlike Ofos, the bikes are in a pretty decent condition. So don’t believe everything you read about this shit online – the system still works pretty smoothly in China – it just settled down I guess.

Highlights:

• New Rich the Kid album and Yelawolf’s singles so far. Trunk Music 3 might be fire.
• Tianshan park. Never been there before but it’s super cool and it has Shanghai Art Collection Museum too. If you have some spare time, give it a shot.
• Went to some areas I haven’t been to in a while just to found out they extended subway line 13 and there’s a construction of new lines going on at so many different spots. They don’t really play around here...

Semester 6 Chapter VI: Screenings & Increases

Good morning from the sunny Shanghai. It seems I have finally wished my spring vibes into existence. It's still not nearly as warm as I would hope, but it's continuously getting better. There’s less rain, there’s more sun, winter jacket is becoming redundant throughout daytime – we’re on the right track here.

Aight, so let’s jump right into it. Last Monday, I met up with some of my peers at Alimentari – not the one at Anfu Lu tho. I had no idea they opened up another joint at Wuding Lu, just around the corner form my compound. One more cheap beer spot in the area. After that, we went to Chair Club for some more jams. We’re pretty much regulars at this point.

Two days after, I met up with a friend in Minhang, we cooked us some dope ass vegan dinner (mostly Turkish cuisine topped with some veggie cheese) and hung out for a bit. On Thursday, I met up with a friend I met at the last years’ Dragon Burn. We hadn’t seen each other in months... She picked this event of one of other theme camps which is participating in this years’ burn. They did a movie screening at this hostel close to People’s Square. All about downhill mountain biking. It was pretty cool.

Since the weather is all nice, the gang did the original Alimentari on Friday. It marked the first time this year sitting outside at least for a part of the evening. Again, I would appreciate temperatures getting to around 20+ for good but we gotta be grateful for what we have, I guess. And the day after, I had a chance to meet up with one of my classmates who wanted to discuss a possible collaboration on a paper. No idea if that shit materializes at some point, but we have some ideas. And it would be pretty dope pushing some of the uni stuff a bit forward.

And that’s about it. Running in shorts has become an option, I’m still on my Chinese classes, I still have my schedule kinda packed, life is still good over here. Time flies like crazy tho... Again, I’m slowly realizing that in about 3 months, I’ll be heading back Europe for the summer. The good thing is, I already got my tattoo sessions booked. Fucking yay!

Highlights:

• Leaving Neverland. Yuck.
• Megan Thee Stallion. Awesome female rapper out of Houston. Love her.
• That fucking bartender at the spot where the screening took place. There was a complimentary drink coming with the ticket and since he obviously had no idea how to serve Jameson, he poured me like triple one. Kudos to you, good man!

Semester 6 Chapter V: Alcohol & Fakes

Good morning world. It’s the time of the week. The time for some fucking news from your boy taeb, the time for the new Shanghai Czech-in. You know what it is, let’s get down to the shits... To be honest with y’all, adjusting back to Shanghai after my Hong Kong adventure wasn’t the most pleasant thing... I totally need spring to start like now. I’m sick of winter jackets, I’m sick of grey sky, I’m sick of all of that. Just get it over with, would you...

Aight, so on Thursday, the gang met up at Abbey Road for another trivia night. We had some vouchers to spend from the last week and some more knowledge to drop. This time we didn’t place anywhere close the first three spots but I honestly couldn’t care less. Guess I don’t really have a competitive bone in my system. Since my bro had a birthday, we followed up for some more drinks to Tap House. He got a cake, we did lots of beers and shots and then we took it to Revolucion. Revolucion is a pretty renowned bar/club literally across the street from where I live (meaning across the street from where I’ve lived for 2 and a half years), but I’d never been there before. It has a reputation of pretty generic basic expat shit. Which is exactly what it is. Basic music, basic people. Revolucion is a real fucked up name for that shit íf you ask me. But I was drunk enough to survive for a bit. Don’t really remember the bike ride from Tap House over there... All and all, a nice little evening....

I eased back a bit after that – a motherfucker doesn’t have to drink every day, right? On Saturday, I met with a friend for a short afternoon hang out in my area, and the day after, our Dragon Burn squad met up at WeWork offices on Changping Lu for the first discussion about our camp. WeWork is this global company providing corporate co-working space, and I have used it like 2 years back as one of my flat-mates used to have their card and she lent it to me when she didn’t need it. I’m not really a fan of the concept but it’s 2019, and most importantly, they do free flow of beer at all their venues. And since one of our camp’s member has a membership (which is expensive as fuck btw), she booked a conference room and we took it there. We also used the opportunity to do another of our little potlucks. So yeah... We shared bunch of vegan food (I brought brown rice with mushrooms, tofu, rice cake and tons of veggies, but there was salads, brownies, noodles, different dips – table full of amazing stuff), we brainstormed, we welcomed some new Chinese members... I think we kicked it off nicely....

So there you have it. Listening to the new Gesaffelstein, we got another week in front of us, I hope y’all doing well, be good, be safe, and I’m gonna talk to you next week!

Highlights:

• New DaBaby and Juice WRLD. That shit don’t stop.
• Went to the Qipu fake market after a while. Needed new jeans and while I was at it, took some pajamas for my nephew who’s coming in June. Gonna be the coolest uncle in the world.
• Adjusted my diet a bit. And I feel good as a motherfucker. If it wasn’t for that feast yesterday, which left me painfully stuffed, last week would be fucking perfect. Gonna stick to that.