Shanghai (12/29 - 12/30): Catching up on Sleep and Shopping

The first thing we did after arriving in Shanghai was go to my travel agent’s office to pick up my tickets for Seoul and Hong Kong. There is something about actually having the tickets in your hand that makes a move to a new city seem just that much more “real”.

But then, after our marathon of sleeplessness and fun in Xiamen Peter and I were both a little out of it. We each in turn managed to take turns sleeping through a fair part of Friday. I did manage to get some work done and take care of a few odds and ends, but for the most part we took a bunch of naps. We also ordered some Pizza Hut and watched some DVDs. Zhu Wen Jun also dropped by for a bit with a taiji friend of hers.

By the way, he’s leaving to go teach at Omei in San Jose on January 4th, so if you see the new Shanghai taiji guy at your local wushu school you can tell him “Hey! I know Mark. You hung out at his home a couple weeks ago in Shanghai. Remember him? You don’t? Oh … okay. Nevermind.”

The next day we woke up at a semi-respectable hour and then took off to do some shopping. We decided to hit up a new shopping market in PuDong that Tam told me about. We didn’t really buy anything specific, but we did get some lunch at a ramen place and noticed that there was an all-you-can-eat Brazillian BBQ and Buffet restaurant there with some pretty decent prices. Just 68 RMB — only $8 USD.

We got back on the subway train and headed to nanjing lu to do a bit of weapons shopping at the Shanghai Wushu Yuan shop. Peter picked up a bunch of swords and then we caught a cab over to Shaanxi Lu so I could run to the bank. Then we dropped by my hair place on Wei Hai Lu and got some hair washes and massages.

Peter getting his hair washed by A-Ying

Liu Li Li - the person who usually washes my hair

But then it was time to meet up with everyone at Jing An Si for dinner. We had arranged to meet with Zhu Wen Jun, her friend Yo Yo, as well as Tam, Lisa and Tam’s friend James. We all gathered next to the big X-mas tree near the temple (except for James who would meet us there) and then grabbed the subway and headed out to some Brazillian BBQ.

The food was pretty good and we filled up on more meat than should people should legally be allowed to eat. During the day my ankle was hurting a bit too. I figured I must have turned it the day before or something and not realized it, but slowly through the course of the day and evening it was getting worse and worse. It reminded me of my knee swelling/pain from the year before.

Lisa, Tam and James

Yo Yo eating dinner

Zhu Wen Jun and a big hunk of meat

After eating we decided to do some KTV so James, Tam and James’ girlfriend (who met up with us after dinner) took James’ car and the rest of us grabbed the subway and headed back to Jing An Si to do some big-time singing. It was pretty fun. We ended up going to KTV for a while. My ankle was REALLY hurting by the time we left KTV. In fact, I could barely walk at all. Definitely not a good thing.

Zhu Wen Jun, Peter and I went back to my place and I took some of the anti-inflammatories that worked really well for me the previous year. But they take a while to take affect so I had to deal with the horrendous pain in my ankle. It was a good thing I just needed to sit at my computer and work on Jet Li Blog stuff.

But then when I went to bed it got really bad. There was just no comfortable position and the pain kept waking me up. I hobbled to the kitchen and put some ice on it (getting a pillow wet in the process) and then wrapped up my ankle and tried to sleep. Fortunately by the time I woke up the pain had subsided considerably. That anti-inflammatory works great, but it just takes a while to help. Although .. it did have a lot of stuff to do for me …

I had also tried calling Yang Laoshi several times to arrange for Peter’s taiji training, but to no avail. His phone was “away” so I couldn’t get ahold of him. I would just have to keep trying …

And that’s pretty much the first two days back in Shanghai. Tomorrow is New Years! My birthday too … which is scary since I’m turning [insert age that I don’t want to say here]. Meh … can’t turn back the clock. So is the way of life …