jessibelle

Feeling peoples eyes staring at you wherever you go at all times can sometimes feel a bit daunting here in Shanghai. But today, not even that can make me feel less excited about…. Well just about everything. See, I have had a “cold” for the past few weeks. The year of 2010 has been a rollercoaster in so many ways so being ill in Shanghai made me feel a bit worse than just a little down which in turn ended with a visit to a Chinese hospital; an experience quite different from that of a Swedish or English one. Let’s just say that there is no such thing as privacy, not when they take blood tests and not when you describe your symptoms to the doctor. I left with 4 boxes of antibiotics as well as “medicine” for flu, a sore throat, and general cold medicine. As I’ve started to feel better I also feel a lot more like myself again, and here are all the good things that has happened lately.

Yu Garden










Photo exhibition and Beijing Opera.

Our former teacher in the UK, Li RuRu, came to Shanghai to participate in a few events commemorating her mother Li YuRu who was the first woman to sing Beijing opera. We met her at a photo exhibition and she introduces us to some people working at the shanghai art conservatory who might introduce us to some art students here in order to do some language exchange which we all have realised is a really good way to get to speak more Chinese.

We then went to see a Beijing opera which was quite interesting. 

Here´s an article in the guaridan about Li YuRu.:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/jul/21/classicalmusicandopera.china        

New Job

I went to meet this man who wants to learn English today. I was quite nervous as he is a bit older (around 30) and normally I only teach children. However, it went really well. He wants to meet 3 times a week, Monday Tuesday and Thursday during daytime and 2 hours each time. He doesn’t work at the moment  and does this because he wants to travel more. We´ll meet at Starbucks in a new shopping mall about 20 minutes south with the metro from me which means it´s not very far. For me this means; easy job, flexible times (he is free every day so we can reschedule if needed), free coffee and quite a bit of extra money each month….. sweeeet.I went to meet this man who wants to learn English today. I was quite nervous as he is a bit older (around 30) and normally I only teach children. However, it went really well. He wants to meet 3 times a week, Monday Tuesday and Thursday during daytime and 2 hours each time. He doesn’t work at the moment  and does this because he wants to travel more. We´ll meet at Starbucks in a new shopping mall about 20 minutes south with the metro from me which means it´s not very far. For me this means; easy job, flexible times (he is free every day so we can reschedule if needed), free coffee and quite a bit of extra money each month….. sweeeet.


King of Sweden
On Friday I met the Swedish King, Carl XVI Gustav, and Christer Fuglesang as they visited Jiao Tong University during their trip to china for the Royal Technology Mission.

 





Put on the ice ice.

So the weekend ended with a house party at our friends B&J´s place for a party themed; BlingBling. We put on the ice, mixed mojitos all night long and around 1 the police came to throw everyone out as we were too many and too noisy. Headed to M1NT but before the long island ice tea was even finished people were hungry and wanted food so was they went to get food I went home and made some very good pesto-feta cheese- parmesean-pasta and watched modern family.

Isabelle xx