SHANGHAI - I woke up at around 8 in the morning. A quick shower later and I was headed to the bar for some breakfast with the team - 20 yuan for toast, egg, bacon, banana, and juice. I squeezed in a bit of typing and chatting with the folks back home in Manila while I waited for my friends to get ready for a walk around the block; I needed to get to a bank to have my money converted to yuan - Hong Kong dollars are not accepted here.
It's a very different world here in China. Everyone speaks in Mandarin, which is a confusing and unintelligible mix of sounds for someone who grew up speaking English and Filipino at home. The written kind is impossible to read; at first glance it looks like random squiggles and scratches. In English or Filipino or German or Spanish we only need to remember around 26 letters and then mix and match them to form words. In Mandarin, each word is represented by a single character - you have to memorize literally thousands of characters to be able to write anything.
The people here range from very friendly to just cordial. Maybe it's the language and culture barrier - the more friendly people here understand and speak English well, although we met some Chinese who did not let language get in the way of hospitality.
As we walked around we started to look for something to eat. Every restaurant we passed didn't have anything in the way of English menus, even menus with pictures. We just didn't want to go pick something only to find out that it was something that we wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole if we knew what it was - fried bullfrog, anyone?
Anyway, we finally found one place which advertised its wares out front with appetizing pictures. We walked into the quiet and deserted restaurant - it was late afternoon - and approached the smiling waitress who immediately engaged us in rapid Mandarin while we tried to communicate using English and hand gestures. After a frantic five minutes we agreed to go out of the restaurant and pick our meals from the poster outside. This turned out to be a good idea, and we were soon stumbling our way to lunch. The waitress was smiling all the time - it must have been difficult for her to take our orders and at the same time explain what the Chinese characters and pictures on the poster were all about - there really was fried bullfrog on the menu - in halting English. She was very patient and friendly towards us - as one of my friends put it, pinagtiyagaan niya talaga kami.
Lunch was simply delicious. We had beef, pork, and tofu. The beef dish was the best - it was sweet with just hint of spiciness, served with juicy onions and green bell peppers, and drenched in a sweet brown sauce. We gobbled up everything. After our meal, we even had our photos taken with the friendly waitress. Unfortunately, we had already left before we realized that we didn't get her name.
We returned to the hostel for a team meeting where we discussed what we were going to do during the eclipse. I'll have more details on that later. As for myself, I would be taking videos of the team and other people around us during the eclipse itself, as well as taking notes for an article which I plan to write when I get back to Manila.
After the meeting we grabbed our equipment, unwrapped our tarp which screamed "UP Astronomical Society", unfurled our organization's flag - a caricatured telescope on a white background - and headed outside the hostel for a photo-op. Hahaha. All the pedestrians outside were staring at us as we posed for pictures in front of the Blue Mountain Hostel.
For dinner, we returned to the restaurant where we ate for lunch. The people there appeared to have recognized us; even though the restaurant was full of customers at that time, one of the waitresses led us out to the back of the establishment where there was another - classier - dining area. There was only one table there, made of wood and ornately decorated, with enough chairs for our group. The room was air-conditioned, with its own cooking area and what looked like a porcelain sink.
This time, we were served by someone who spoke English. She introduced herself as Chris, and she started to explain the menu written in Chinese. We only had a small sampling of the restaurant's food that morning; now we could check out everything they had. Chris told us all about the food they had there - no need for pictures this time. We decided on another plate of the beef dish we had that afternoon, plus the house specialty, braised pork, along with shrimp, haretail fish, cucumbers in soy sauce, and clams.
One of my friends was celebrating his birthday on that day, and when Chris heard of this - we asked her how to say "happy birthday" in Chinese - she told us about a Chinese tradition where the birthday celebrant would be given a plate full of noodles. That lucky person must then scoop up as long a strand of noodles as he could and hold it. This was supposed to show how much longer his life will be.
When our food started to arrive, Chris said goodbye and started to leave. It was only then that we found out that she didn't work at that restaurant or that she owned the place (as we originally thought) but that she was also a customer there. She only stayed to help us get our meal. Wow.
Dinner was even better than lunch. The beef dish evaporated in a few short minutes. The rest of the food lasted just a little while longer. Eating exclusively with chopsticks turned out to be more fun than using a spoon and fork; getting the food into your mouth with the two thin sticks is just as exciting as tasting the appetizing delights on the plates in front of you.
On our way back to the hostel we decided to get some snacks at Buddies, the Chinese version of Mini Stop back in Manila. Nearly everywhere we looked there was a Buddies store. I got a chocolate bar while my friends got ice cream. The chocolate cost only 4 RMB (renminbi = yuan) - cheap, until you convert that amount to pesos. 4 RMB x 7 PHP = 28 pesos. Not bad, roughly comparable to chocolate sold at Mini Stop or 7-11.
I spent the rest of the night typing and chatting with the folks back home. More updates coming soon, as fast as I can type them and as soon as a laptop becomes available. Hahaha.
