Semester 5 Chapter XVI: Make That Bread

Yo, how’s everyone doing? We are back at it, back at it, like a motherfucking drug addict.... Sky is mostly sunny, days are longer, air is cleaner than usual, Shanghai is blooming. There’s one month separating me from reuniting with my EU crowd too. Everything is on track, everything is just the way it supposed to be, and your boy 31 is back with some fantastic adventures...

Overall, it’s the same old. Workouts are still there, biking is still there... My running got a bit derailed, as they are entering final stages of the stadium renovation, and they closed that bitch down for couple of days. It seems they gonna reopen soon tho, so I don’t even stress about it. When it comes to evenings, it’s usually meeting up with friends or chilling with new music – there’s still lots of that.

 

On Tuesday, I went to this vegan egg thing at Hunter Gatherer in Huangpu District. They are basically promoting new liquid mix - a plant-based alternative to eggs - and for promotional purposes, they organized this event, providing visitors with cooking equipment to let them make their own "scrambled eggs". It was real good and I ended up having a pretty cool talk with the chef of the restaurant. More of shit like that!

A friend of mine also notified me about this event on sustainability in a mall by East Huaihai Road in that financial district full of glass skyscrapers and big ass stores. I told some of my people, and on Friday, we went to check it out. The whole thing was kinda small and the fact it was literally in a mall didn’t really help much. There was some brands making clothes and accessories form used materials, there was some snacks and free wine... And also couple of people I knew. The absolute highlight was the terrace tho. It took place on the 5^th floor, and the terrace gave you a view on all those illuminated buildings reflecting street signs. Just picture the most stereotypical “big city” background, most basic music playing out the speakers, and bunch of hyped up young people drinking out of wine glasses. It looked like a fucking commercial on capitalism.

Later on, me and my Montenegrin girls went couple of blocks East to grab a dinner at this veggie place (absolutely awesome), and then we took it back downtown to grab a cold one at Alimentari. From there, I proceeded to meet up with some of my Burn peers at Bites & Brews. All and all, pretty cool night.

The next day, I ended up visiting this bread making workshop. It was held by this Czech guy I met at that zero waste event couple of weeks back. It was pretty awesome. There’s so much things about bread that make it unique in the realm of food, it really blows your mind. The dough we used was derived form a culture that’s been alive for the past 100 years, we had some top-notch ingredients on deck, there were pretty awesome people... The whole thing felt more like vibing out than educational session. We ended up having a big ass lunch together (fresh bread, hummus, salads...) and bringing an unbaked loaf of bread we made home. Took one of my favorite people with me, seems everyone enjoyed it. I spent the most of day hanging out with my loved ones, and in the evening made it to Alimentari for a beer.

Sunday evening, I grabbed my bike and went to my Montenegrin girls apartment. We had some deep personal, social and political talks – just the way I like it. The weekend overall was pretty awesome. 

It’s Monday early morning, got a cup of fresh coffee in front of me, just finished some dope ass baozis from across the street, got that boy Moneybag Yo bumping in the headphones, and a new week ahead. You know what time it is – stay safe, stay positive and keep shit real. One!

Highlights:

• New Flying Lotus’, YG’s and Moneybag’s albums.
• Booked tickets for a hike by the end of next week. Can’t wait for that motherfucker to happen.
• Bread I baked home. It was fresh, it was awesome, I think I wanna do more of that in the future.

Semester 5 Chapter XV: Bikes & Talks

Yo, how’s everybody doing? Greetings from Shanghai – another week has passed and that means another chapter of your favorite blog. We are keeping our summer vibes over here, everything is going pretty well, lotta new music got released, some events went down... And this is exactly the place where to get some updates on all that.

On Tuesday, I brought my bike to the Chains bike shop to do some major maintenance. Even though it worked quite well, the rear wheel was a bit bended and there was some fucked up noise coming from the central part. Additionally, when I put more pressure on the pedals, the chain was just dropping down. So I felt it would be neat to make it all nice and smooth again. In the evening, I managed to meet up with some Burners. It was basically a goodbye party for one of our fellow campers who came all the way from Netherlands. I missed the dinner but I joined for some drinks after. The whole family vibe is still present.

The day after, the guy from the bike shop texted me that I should get a new fucking bike cause according to him, repairing mine would cost about three times as much. Since I have used this motherfucker for the past almost three years, I really didn’t like the news – bikes are among very few things I tend to get emotionally attached to. I agreed on picking it up the next day. Later on, I grabbed a dinner at Jen Dow with a friend  I met at the last year’s burn whom I hadn’t seen in ages, and after that we went for some drinks to My Place where we got joined by one of my favorite Burners from this year’s Burn. The bar was empty so we ended up hanging out with the bartender, playing some games and taking it easy.

On Thursday, I picked up the fucking bike and took it to this small bike shop on Hefei Lu. This lovely Chinese guy fixed my wheel for like 10 RMB. The next day, I took it to my favorite neighborhood bike shop to change the chain for another 50 RMB and the bike works like charm. I have no fucking clue what the Chains shop guy was on, but from now on, I’m staying the fuck away from poshy spots. The street solutions work just fine. Thursday evening, I met with my Lithuanians for a trivia night. We flopped real bad but we managed to win a round of shots at some point. We wrapped the evening up at the beer shop at Changle Lu.

On Friday, the gang met up at Taphouse for some beers and later on, we ended up at Changle Lu again. That spot is the shit for summer evenings. Lively, cheap, ran by locals, generally awesome. Saturday afternoon, I met with a friend for a hangout around Xujiahui park. Shortly after that, another friend asked me to join her for this talk on polyamorous relationships. Sounded interesting enough. The thing took place at this Park Tavern bar at Henghsan Lu and it was not bad at all. I mean, I have not really experimented with any of that before but I totally subscribe to lot of things that are obviously being considered essential to keep situations like that afloat. Starting from radical honesty all the way to firm belief of not owning or controlling your love ones. There was a lot of food for thought, and there were bunch of Burners in the audience too. When I was done with that, I went to meet up with the gang to - you guessed it – Changle Lu.

So here we go. I’m still doing really well over here, my peers seem to be amazing as well... Got a bit over a month before going back home for a bit, booked my tickets to Lithuania for August for couple of days, gonna take it via Berlin while I’m at it. My summer is slowly shaping up. So yeah... Take it easy, keep that shit positive and be safe. One!

Highlights:

• New Tyler the Creator & DJ Khaled.
• My bike. The fact I found a way to make it work makes me extremely happy.
• Summer. We are all the way there. No random temperature drops anymore – it is happening!

Semester 6 Chapter XIV: Decompression

Yo, what the fuck is up y’all! Checking in from the beautiful and sunny Shanghai, we got summer vibes all over the fucking place, the city is glowing, life is good. Salute to my dedicated readership - I do hope you guys are doing amazing. I still feel I’m feeding off all that Dragon Burn positivity which just doesn’t seem to go anywhere. And you best believe I intend to keep it like that. So let me take you through part of last week I feel like sharing. Getting back to the regular shit was not actually as bad as I expected. And even though hopping on a subway and watching the whole train of our zombie smartphone generation snorting bullshit content off their displays was a bit of a reality check, I managed to stay above it. 

On Monday, I caught up with my favorite girls from Monte Negro at the Tap House, and on Wednesday, I met up with some more people at the Changle Lu beer shop. I kinda feel I spent quite a lot of time explaining the Burn vibes to people who had not been there which is not exactly the easiest thing, but I feel I got the message across. I also randomly ran into some people from the Burn couple of times over the week. If you know, you know!

On Thursday, the gang met up at the Tap House again, and the day after, we did a dinner at one of our favorite spots – the restaurant by Huaihai/Wanping Lu. I had not been there in ages and they still don't fuck around - everything on point.

Even though, I was super busy over the whole fucking week (I even went to our magnificent campus in Minhang after a while), my Saturday turned out to be free. And since the weather was absolutely gorgeous, I linked up with one of my peers who also enjoys biking, and we did a bout 30km around the city, stopping by at the Powerstation to check the current exhibitions (dope as usual) and doing a dinner at Jen Dow. Words cannot express how happy I feel about the weather. I was built for temperatures around 30. Miss me with anything below that.

Sunday evening, I made my way to the Okura Garden Hotel on Maoming Lu for this Beernanza festival. Basically a beer fest. For 70 RMB you got a ticket and a voucher for a ridiculously small beer. I didn’t feel it much in the beginning. There were several stages with DJs and live music which was mostly basic, there were bunch of young motherfuckers who gave me American spring break vibes, jumping around to that shit being all drunk (that really made me feel old), plus I was tired as shit. But I had my loved ones around and on top of that, I ran into almost all of my favorite Burners over there (had no idea they were coming). So I ended up staying till they closed the motherfucker down, having a great fucking time. One!

Outside of that, it’s still lotta biking, lotta workout, some lyrics writing, tons of new music listening... Since I managed to destroy yet another headphones, I had to get new ones and this time I went for wireless ones (I apparently have a gift of fucking up cables). So I’m on that train now, being all 2019 and shit. Anyways, thanks for keeping checking for this blog (we got over 6000 views last week), stay safe, stay positive and keep in touch! Love y’all.

Highlights:

• New Quando Rondo, Jamila Woods & Ari Lenox. Some dope shit right there.
• Summer vibes. I can’t stress enough how much I enjoy this.
• My nephew is almost here. I’m like two weeks form being an uncle – fucking surreal!