10 signs of becoming Chinese

1. Getting up at 6AM 5 days a week. (and getting woken up on the weekends by the noise- see number 8 below).
2. Stuffing yourself to 3 different crowded subway trains every morning to uni (and back), and owning a subway card you charge every time you've used all the money in it.
3. Being on the trains for more than one hour each way (eating your breakfast on the train and studying too).
4. Having lunch (usually Chinese food for less than 1 US$) at NOON (12:00).
5. Sometimes even buying one of these Chinese food boxes in the small places that sell really really greasy food, and obviously carrying that box all the way home. Or:
6. Eating in the university's cafeteria. Buying coupons in the entrance for about 1.5 US$- than using the notes to buy some dumplings or whatever Chinese food they have. Then obviously getting change back from something like 10 cents- in the shape of small coupons that look like the note I just wrote to my classmate in class.
7. Having Dinner around 6PM. Sometimes at the nice lady's booth in the corner. She sells fried noodles for less than 0.50 US$. Or: cooking in your own Wok.
8. Becoming deaf- from all the noise around you all the time (big roads, honking horns, building and destruction of houses and buildings - 6AM to 6PM, 7 days a week, renovation in the apartment above when you're trying to rest from your day etc. etc.) Then starting to yell on your cell phone- coz you can't hear a damn thing.
9. Buying lots of DVD's in the store downstairs. Watching Veronica Mars episodes in a raw- until you've seen them all and there's nothing next to the DVD player to tempt you.
10. Going to sleep before midnight. At the only hours there's actually some quiet- meaning- the only hours you could have used to study/read/have a decent conversation with someone.

Back in Shanghai!!!

So it took me about 26 hours door to door to get here... How exhausting... But a bit after I landed I met Rob... And we went to our new apartment... It's so great! It's a great place, great location (very close to the metro station and the big supermarket- how convenient), and the area is really nice.
Today I signed up for uni- took me a bit more than an hour to get there from home- which is fair enough- coz it's gonna take Rob about an hour and a half to get to work every day...

I find it a lot easier to deal with the Chinese ppl here now- coz I've been here before and have been through all the bureaucracy shit. I really don't get excited, plus my Chinese is not great- but still a lot better than what it was the first time I got here. Rob still gets annoyed sometimes. I guess I will get annoyed at some point- but my annoyance bar is a lot higher now...

I really feel at home. It's amazing how I feel comfortable in this huge city. Even though I haven't been to a lot of the places I used to know before. It still feels familiar.

So- expect more stories from the prostitute of the east (=Shanghai- if you've never heard the phrase).