Shits Ain’t Shits

Still remember my previous emo post on when I first landed Shanghai? Well, as mentioned in the post, I had never shared a single shit here – which is what I am going to do now. You would not want to know about it but I am still going to post it. You might learn something.

Before I came to Shanghai, I was given two choices on where to stay for my first two weeks in Shanghai due to accommodation issues. One, to stay at my colleague’s friend’s place. Two, to stay at the trainee house. I took the cheaper route – to stay at the trainee house. Was told that I would sleep in this small room with this Japanese girl. Also, I was told that I am arranged to stay somewhere near to my workplace.

Mana tau, they are all lies! I was not arranged to sleep with this Japanese girl in a small room. If you had read one of my posts in month August, you should know where I slept in that two weeks. If not, you can just click here. It wasn’t that bad except for it being really hot to sleep there during Summer. Anyhow, move on to the next lie – I was arranged to stay somewhere near to my workplace. In fact, I was not! Again, if you had read one of my posts in month August, you should know how sucky it was to travel to and from my workplace. If not, you can just click here. Still, it wasn’t that bad either.

All you need are willingness to adapt a new place, new culture and keep in mind, always be tough!

And eventually, shits ain’t shits.

Anyway, there are more shits story coming up soon so, stay tuned…

Fumo Update #08

Thought I could have my favourite food in Shanghai for dinner, green curry beef/chicken/pork. Unfortunately, green curry was out of stock that night and it was replaced with yellow curry. Sad. Definitely go back there to have my favourite green curry! Rawr!

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Rakki’s farewell dinner at Hot Pot. It seems to me that that is her favourite place. I’m just guessing. However, no doubt, Hot Pot is definitely the best choice of food during winter.

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Szu’s unofficial house warming party and Windows Scoreboard after to meet up with Sam’s friends who came to Shanghai for vacation, Dave-O (far left) and Nick (next to Dave-O). No doubt, it was a great night and that’s the night that I got myself really drunk!

Company Bonding: Futsal

It was Sunday, one month ago, when we had to work. It sux to work on Sunday but, things turned out good when we had futsal after work with everyone in the company. As shown in the picture above, these are the people that I will be working with throughout my whole one-year internship in Shanghai.

Basically, it’s The International Team vs The Programmer Team. I’m from The International Team, obviously. And guess what? We only had six players, including me (yes, me!), and two cheerleaders lol! I can make a good goalkeeper, you see. Anyway, we were supposed to earn one point more than our opponent but due to some sort of unreasonable reasons, we had a tie.

Anyhow, no matter which team won the game, we still had free dinner that night lol! Though Szechuan Cuisine is not my kind of food, I did not have to pay a cent for it and that made my day as well. See! We all looked so happy!

And let me introduce the Chief Executive Officer (right) and the President (left) of the company that I am currently working at. And the real boss of our team is the one on the left. He was an AIESECer and did AIESEC Traineeship as well. Pretty cool, huh?

Mission: In Search of Football

It was around three in morning when I went to the toilet and checked on my laptop. At that moment, I went to chat with one of my colleagues. Yes, freaking three in the morning! But because of that chat, I had something to do the next day other than buying purchasing train tickets.

As stated in the title of this post, our mission for the day was to buy a football. Why? Stay tuned for the upcoming post. I know I had been updating backdated posts lately and I really am sorry about that. It still far better than no updates, ya?

Met up with Billy and Ellwyn at the designated location, got on a bus and off we went to our destination. Ellwyn brought us to this street that is near to where he’s currently studying. It’s really cheap to spend here.

I bought a facial cleanser (The Face Shop) for only 20RMB! The Face Shop products sold in Malaysia ain’t this cheap! I was so tempted to but fortunately, I managed to control my spending so, I bought only one. What a surprise, ya?

We didn’t get our football there but instead we left the place empty handed, we took a model picture somewhere along the streets. We did get our football at the end of the day so, yeah, it’s still a nice day especially I got to explore a bit of Shanghai during the day. I mostly go out at night, you see.

Team Bonding: Karaoke

Our manager is leaving to Beijing soon so, we had a karaoke session as her ‘farewell’. I could imagine the karaoke here being different from the ones that I went in Malaysia.

Oh boy, I was right! They have those music instruments lol! It was so much fun to play around with them while singing along.

Since we went there straight after work, we had the karaoke’s buffet as our dinner. The food wasn’t that great but it wasn’t that bad either.

And this was the best part: boozes! See that barrel over there? That’s hell lots of booze! XD Our manager’s treat.

We had ‘Cheers!’, ‘Gan bei!’, ‘Otala!’, ‘Gadai!’, ‘Yam seng!’

It was a great night! I really love my team a lot. It is very international lol! This is what I want to do. Oh, the lady on my left is our manager. She paid for the whole thing omg! Trust me, it ain’t cheap!

Lewis’ and Rakki’s Farewell@Barbarossa

Wanted to post this up ages ago but, I was really busy so, I didn’t get to do it until now. Lewis and Rakki, great mates as well as my housemates, had their farewell at Barbarossa a week before they left Shanghai.

I feel blessed for knowing them. They are fun to be with and we always had good times together especially when we got to spend more time to know each other during our trip to Nanjing.

Much to my surprise, the turn up was good. There were a number of local AIESECers as well as the interns who are still in Shanghai. What’s best was my colleagues were there with me.

We really had fun together ie. posed ‘L’ when taking a group picture, much to Szu’s and Ellwyn’s surprise when seeing drunk Sam, capturing pictures of secretbetweenszuellwynandi.

It sucks when you got to know a number of cool people ever since you landed a new place and before you knew, they’re leaving really soon..

Blue Frog Bar & Restaurant

It was my first time there. Apparently, they have this promotion every Monday—buy two burgers with one burger’s price. It costs 80RMB for one burger. Why is it freaking expensive?

This tells you why. Just look at it! Can’t really tell it?

Well, look at this again. Damn big and filling, mm-kay? Will definitely come back for it again. It’s just worth it.

Fumo Update #07

It does feel good to have lunch together-gether with your colleagues :)

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Had all you can eat buffet at Origus Pizza Buffet with some of my colleagues.

Round #01: the pizza at the far right is my favourite

Round #02: the ones with the sticks are my favourite as well

Round #03: ewww.. disgusting!

Round #04: except for Tiramisu

The rubbish!

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Had dinner with our bosses as well as our client, a CEO. Another free (and great) dinner, yay! And guess what? We had Malaysian/Singaporean cuisine and it was really good! I really miss Malaysian Food now :(

Headed to Windows Scoreboard later to meet up with Rubens. It was his birthday. And, ladies and gentlemen, the tequila above was his birthday treat. It’s good!

‘Angelina’

It has already been two months since I started a new life in Shanghai. Truthfully, that is the biggest and hardest decision I had made in my life – to leave my home country! It’s totally different from you making a decision to study abroad. When you had decided to work abroad, you are totally on your own. And what’s worse, I’m now working in Shanghai. This place ain’t a laid-back place to stay. Worse than Kuala Lumpur, I dare say (except it’s a lot safer here lol). They pay you peanut and the living expenses here is really high. It’s definitely a concrete forest! Skyscrapers are everywhere! It’s as if the buildings are competing with each other on who’s taller and whatever there is to compete with. It’s a very challenging place to live in and that’s the reason I’m still struggling to survive here.

To be honest, a lot of shit happened ever since I landed Shanghai and yeah, I realised that I had never shared a single one of them here. It seems to all of you that I have been leading a great and happening life here. Yes, I will not deny that but, the problem is, leading a great and happening life here does not mean there ain’t shit going on! You see, the concept is that the greater and the more happening your life is, the more shit that are going on as well! It’s ironic I know, but that’s how life is. That’s how it works.

I have to say that I do learn and change a lot during my stay here. Change for better or worse? I have to find out. I’ve been really different from who I was before I left my country. For better or worse? That’s another thing for me to find out as well.

One thing I do know for sure is that I grow tougher and more independent. I am really proud of what I had done here. Shit happened and I managed to solve it my own. Never shed a single tear. But well, I moaned and that’s it!

I’m really complicated, or am I not? I don’t understand myself! Hopefully, I can know who ‘Angelina’ is. Not today. Not tomorrow. And definitely, not the day after tomorrow. Perhaps it may take me years or never for me to discover who she really is!

Who is ‘Angelina’? How is she?

It’s not an easy task to understand her but I’ve got to do it!

Shanghai Jing’an Sculpture Park

Went to this park with a close friend of mine. The name of this park sounds great. It gave you the impression of ‘Wooo! There are going to be numerous of sculptures in the park!’

But honestly, it isn’t as great as its name. Above are the only three sculptures in the park. Still, we had a few sources of entertainment for the day.

One, poor Ayi, who must have had worked her ass off. Is that a rubbish bin beside her? O.o

Two, interesting kid with an interesting pose :D

And three, a douchebag that we encountered when we were leaving the park lol!

Prem’s Farewell@LAN Bar

Okayyy.. I should have posted this up one month ago. Due to terrible proxy and China blocked every website that does not end with ‘dot cn’, it’s almost impossible for me to update my blog as frequent as I could back in Malaysia :S

So yeah, Prem is a very cool Australian guy I met in Shanghai. And cool people always leave Shanghai sooner than you could have imagined! I first met Prem at LAN Bar and coincidentally, that is where I’m going to see him for the last time in Shanghai.

They are my housemates, The Palace’s representatives. They are leaving soon though. In fact, one had left and another one is leaving tomorrow.

So, here’s the picture of me with the great people I met in Shanghai whom had left and is leaving me alone in Shanghai.