After the freezing cold jan, I thought that feb should better. Its still cold… after feb I thought that march should be better. I was wrong again… The temperature still cannot break out of the 15 degree ceiling. Fifteen days after the Chinese New Year, its referred by the locals as 元宵节. In the morning 6am, Shanghai turned into a battlefield. All throughout the day, the serene silence was pierced by the irritating loud song of firecrackers. In the night, it was worse. The night sky was lid up with countless fireworks. The fireworks basically works on a simple logic.
The thicker and larger the box is, the higher and bigger the explosion will be. I stayed at the 17 storey. My bedroom was on the 18 storey. Guess what? Some asses set off one box right outside my lobby. And it exploded right outside my window. By the way it was around 12 am ++. My whole bedroom lid up like kena camera flash like that. And the sound was damn loud. I knew something was wrong. I drew the curtains and this was what I see. I must say that I was inches away from an exploding fireworks.
In shanghai there is a building which sell books… total of seven storey selling nothing but books… and of cause talking about book, how can we miss out on the famous little red book. As I flipped open the book, inside is all the quotes by chairman Mao. Cool… A tiny book no bigger then a notebook cost around 80 RMB. Cool…
The start of March also marks the start of school for me. Fridays 8.30am to 4.30pm and Saturdays 8.30am to 1150am. Good thing is I no need to work on Friday, and I can sleep in class.
Bad thing is I cannot wake up late on Saturdays if I want to be a good student. But I shall try to be a good student at least for one month. The school is 上海交通大学. Located at one of the prime district of Shanghai, we no need to travel very far to find entertainment. The school is very old… if such a school is to be found in Singapore, tomorrow you will find bulldozer coming liao. We were like damn sian when we saw the buildings. I really scare the water will drip from the ceiling when it rains. Our building is at the international corner of the school. Here mostly you can find many students from Japan, Koreans, and Europeans. Its quite surprising that the girls can wear short skirts while I am shaking in my thick overcoat… either their acting skills very good, or they are really “hot”. I have to say, some of them really is those “nose bleed” standards. Anyway, as we walked up to our classroom, the building never fails to confirm my fears of dripping water… 
The corridor lights only managed to light up 1meter of air around it, the walls are peeling, and the look of it really makes the hair stand. I really cannot imagine what goes on in the building at night. However, as we open the door to our classroom, first step into the classroom, I thought the 10 thousand year old cement turned into brown color. I cannot believe I was stepping on parquet.
The windows have automatic blinds that will come down when the teacher wants to show something on the projector screen. The room was so finely furnished that its like we have entered into another world when we step through the door. I was lost for words, partly because the room was really unexpectedly nice, another reason was I was late for half hour. I try to appear as sorry as possible. From the side of eyes I remembered seeing the teacher smiling at me, welcoming me into the class… The teacher told us that in the school, the direction is very clear- student comes first, teacher are just here to be of a service to the students. I was amazed… we had 5 modules in all. I had seen 3 of the teachers so far… and I must say, the teachers are really damn blardy nice la… the history teacher even tell us to go see which place we wants to go and tell him he can go with us. The 汉语 teacher pass one cd ,which consisted of the different methods and routes to travel China, to the class rep. The food in the school is cheap and good, one big bowl of hand made ramen (really is make before your eyes) cost 6 yuan. And one sandwich consisted of ham, vege, mayo, egg, tomato when paired with a hot fragrant milk tea, cost 5 yuan. The calling card is also cheaper then outside. I was lost for words… if there is one word I have to force it out to express it all, it would be “wow…”
How can we forget about food? Recently we went to this steam boat restaurant call 小肥羊.
One look at the name of the restaurant you know what to call for… Not only the lamb was nice, the beef, vege, mushrooms, all the different kinds of balls we eaten, all taste good. The service was not too bad, and the most important thing is that its not very ex… Basically everything made in china is cheap. What comes from outside is ex. For example, we went to this Japanese supermarket. Inside all kinds of jap food you can also find, along with all kinds of prices… like this fuji apple in my hand… 128 RMB.
Talking about apple, to most people, there is sure to be an apple of their eyes… be it the sleek nokia phone in their pocket, or the bright red metal on 4 wheels parked in the garage, or the only kid in a china family… for me, I found my apple. It looks nicer than a fuji apple, taste sweeter than a fuji apple and most importantly, she loves me…
