The Chinese Pharmacy

well, i knew it was inevitable that I would get sick again, (thankfully, I don't feel awful...yet) and as you all have read I will NEVER set foot in a Chinese hospital again.

Symptoms:

Cough

Stuffy nose

Sore throat

Again!

Nothing a little Amoxicillin can't fix! And you can get it in China without a prescription. Sounds easy, right? Well, do you honestly think if I went into the pharmacy and said "Can I please have some Amoxicillin, 500 mg, 30 pills please" (haha, i did my research online about doses, mgs, etc. im pretty much a doctor now too). Nope, it's not that easy.

So, using the ever so wonderful nciku.com, i looked up the word Amoxicillin, wrote it in characters and pinyin (the English way to pronounce the characters, and the number 500 and 30. Also, 250mg just in case.)

It looked like this -- 

yes, its backwards and hard to read but there it is. how i survived my chinese pharmacy experience and successfully got what i wanted!

that's not to say there wasn't a lot of laughter, charades and confused faces involved. for those of you who know me, i talk with my hands a lot :) so this is always super fun for me.

i was curious about dosages so i literally said... (in chinese obvi)

*throwing my hands in the air"Good Morning! 2 pills."

She nods and laughs!

*putting pretend spoon in my mouth "Eat food later. 2 pills."

She nods again and laughs more.

*did motion such as folding my hands under my head and closing my eyes "2 pills".

"For 10 days?"

My interpretation of the dosage schedule got her laughing pretty hard, and she even repeated the story to her co-worker which came out and laughed some more with us.

It was great i wrote this stuff down though in the characters because the entire box is in Chinese and I know I am getting the right stuff :)

let's hope this stuff works some magic in time for new year's tomorrow.

i refuse to miss out on new year's in this city.

Gambei!

Tonight was another Wunan dinner for the entire faculty. This time, it was at a very nice hotel about a 15 minute walk from the school and for the celebration of Christmas and the New Year "Xin nian kuai le!". I wasn't really looking forward to it since I am starting to get a cold, but ya know, you do what you gotta do.
I walked with some of the Chinese teachers there, and even did a little "window shopping" with Tina and Leann. No joke, Tina called me to invite me to "window shop" with them. SO cute. They asked me all about where I get my clothes, what kind of clothes I like, etc. It was fun. We then made our way back to the hotel where the dinner was. The entire restaurant was full with all the teachers and staff, as well as those from the branch schools.

To skip to the interesting part,
First , there were dishes such as duck tongue, octopus, wasabi shrimp (totally good), snails and "chou doufu" translated to "stinky tofu". I have never had it... and I never will again. It was so gross. I did not try the duck tongue or the snails, which were huge by the way!

Second, on to the title of my blog.
"Gambei" literally means "bottoms up" where you are supposed to finish your glass of alcohol. It is basically Chinese tradition to "gambei" your drink when someone says it, but mostly people don't, unless everyone has alcohol. Well, it was only Gene (another foreign teacher) and I with beer at the table. Per the usual, people are coming to the table every 5 minutes toasting the entire table. So, you are drinking A LOT and going to the bathroom A LOT :) As we had sat down after about the 5th visitor to the table, Shirley, one of the Chinese teachers starts to tell us about the "real" way to gambei. I had heard this before, but I never really gambei-ed because I didn't want to seem like... well.. an alcoholic/crazy American partier! But really, they don't see it that way! They see it as respectful. Soooo, Shirley challenges Gene and I to gambei a glass of beer.
You know I was up for the challenge.

Yep- I gambei-ed that glass.
Only in China do your coworkers cheer you on while you chug a beer at a New Years dinner celebration and then ask, "Do you want to get some more beer and do it again?"
Needless to say, I was feeling pretty good after dinner.
I love China.

gravity

by: sarah bareilles
one of the most beautiful songs i have heard in a long time.
pinpoints the very emotions i am going through right now.


Something always brings me back to you.
It never takes too long.
No matter what I say or do I'll still feel you here 'til the moment I'm gone.

You hold me without touch.
You keep me without chains.
I never wanted anything so much than to drown in your love and not feel your rain.

Set me free, leave me be. 
I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity.
Here I am and I stand so tall, just the way I'm supposed to be.
But you're on to me and all over me.

You loved me 'cause I'm fragile.
When I thought that I was strong.
But you touch me for a little while and all my fragile strength is gone.
I live here on my knees as I try to make you see 
that you're everything I think I need here on the ground.
But you're neither friend nor foe 
though I can't seem to let you go.
The one thing that I still know is that you're keeping me down
You're on to me, on to me, and all over...
Something always brings me back to you.
It never takes too long. 


tonight, becoming jami means... memories.

Sheng Dan Jie Kuai Le!

Christmas here in Shanghai fully exceeded my expectations! My whole attitude towards the holidays this year had been substantially scrooge-like. I wasn't even looking forward to Christmas these last few days due to our apartment basically falling apart a little more every day. I love where I live, don't get me wrong, but the place really isn't up to par.
To start off, we hadn't had heat in our bathroom for almost 2 weeks (and no lights pretty much either). Talk about a cold shower... yikes. A window fell out in the kitchen and when we tried to put it back in, it wouldn't fit on the tracks. So, a nice frigid breeze flies through our kitchen at all times, and there is no heater in there. And lastly, most importantly, our internet had been out for almost 5 days. We were mad enough about this, but it being the holidays we weren't able to communicate with our families.
To top everything off, on Thursday night, all the power went out. As I was walking out the door at about 8pm to head to Starbucks and use the internet, I am mid-sentence expressing my anger towards the no internet situation when -- "zhhoooommmmm" (that is the sound of all the power shutting down). We are standing there in the pitch black.
We sit down on the steps with our head in our hands and just... well, sit. Once its turned back on, we try and not worry about it until.... 5 am. Christmas Eve morning.... "zhooooooom". No power again.
Make a long story short, and a less drama-filled, boring-for-you, too-long-to-type-out-for-me story line, all our power and internet were fixed by Christmas Day at about noon. (Yuvie to the rescue again. She was our Christmas angel! Oh, and "shuai ge", meaning handsome, Terry :)

Now, to a more exciting and sweet Christmas Eve and Day story --

Christmas Eve
I worked all day with my kids, and kept everything pretty laid back. The kids even had a gift exchange. They were lovin opening the presents :) And I only had 7 kids that day... bonus!

In the eve, Mackenzie and I met up with our friends Amanda, Alice and Kate at Boxing Cat Brewery. We had such a great time with amazing food and wine. We even were able to sit by a beautiful fireplace and sip on our drinks and enjoy some fabulous desserts.

 It totally felt like Christmas Eve. I was so thankful in that moment for where I was and who I was with.



Christmas Day
a.k.a Christmas Eve at home.
I woke up early and Skyped with my mom, my Aunt Connie, Maggie and my sister. We talked for almost an hour. I also was able to call my dad as well and wish him a happy Christmas Eve. I also got to see Sarah and Emily, my 2 best friends from back home!
After the Skype dates, Mac and I needed to run to Tesco (grocery) for eggs, elaborate bacon (thats literally what it's called)

and milk. With Starbucks in hand we braved the Chinese supermarket. It was quite a Christmas morning. Looking back at my life a year ago, who would have thought I would be walking through a Chinese grocery store watching a lady man-handle a raw slab of meat while walking by fresh fish heads.

Wild.
After Tesco, we stopped by a fresh fruit stand and picked up some amazing strawberries, bananas, oranges and an avocado :) We kindly and excitedly used our Chinese skills to say to the fruit guy "Sheng Dan Jie Kuai Le!", and began to leave. He summons us back and hands us 2 free oranges and returns the greeting. It was so sweet :)

We came home and prepared a breakfast FEAST! Included in the menu was: pancakes, bacon, eggs, fresh fruit, toast, banana pudding, orange juice and milk.

It was the BEST breakfast! I was so happy. We  decorated the table, listened to Christmas music and just had a great time talking together. Well, we didn't really talk that much because our mouths were so full!

That afternoon I relaxed in my bed for hours. I caught up on some blogging and uploading pictures. Heavenly.
At night, we dressed up again and went out to a restaurant called Whisk with the same girls.

Amazing food (clam linguine). Amazing wine (Chardonnay).  

      

Amazing desserts (warm chocolate pudding, tiramisu and coffee with Baileys).

Again, such a great night full of so many laughs. We toasted to, 

"Here is to a holiday away from family, but still being with family"

It's crazy how much these people really have become my family.

 Mac and I made our way back on the subway, wishing everyone we ran into a Merry Christmas (in Chinese) and even found a guy selling cotton candy.

How lucky is that?

I skyped with my mom and sister, opened presents via skype, talked to my dad and some more family and friends. I ended my night at about 3 am this morning. I got an extra helping of Christmas this year!

Sadly, there was one item that didn't survive the overseas journey...

I am glad the holidays are over actually. They were spectacular though!
Bring on the Chinese New Year!

my chinese tutor

here is a picture of mackenzie, amanda, jack and i (his chinese name is Huang Xiao Ming. :)
He chose Jack because the name "Xiao Ming" is very popular in China, kind of like Jack. Therefore... Jack.
he is such a great guy!
my mandarin is improving so much!
i was even able to mess with a chinese telemarketer who wouldn't quit calling my apartment this morning!!
:)

Old and New

To celebrate the 10^th anniversary of Shanghai Jazz English school, the staff took all the English teachers to a small river town called Zhujiajiao in the morning and then to the tallest building in China later that day. It was SUCH a nice gesture of them to let us have a day off and take us to do touristy things in our city.

Old

At 8:30 we all loaded a big bus and made about an hour journey to the river town. Zhujiajiao is known as the “Venice of Shanghai”. I was so excited to get out of Shanghai and see more of China. (Fun fact: Last season on the Amazing Race, the contestants went here! Obviously, I was excited :) My mom and I are Amazing Race nerds).

At Zhujiajiao we had a ticket to do everything in the city. It’s amazing that this little city is now a tourist attraction where you have to pay to get in! We had an English-speaking tour guide named Tony who gave us a bunch of history about the town and places. We visited a large garden, an old teahouse, a temple and were able to take a boat ride down the canals (my favorite part)! We also did quite a bit of walking through the city streets looking at all the shops filled with food and trinkets.

pictures from the boat ride

The city was so beautiful! The only sad part about it was that it was very “foggy’ that day. I like to be polite about the “fog” which in truth is smog aka pollution. Yuck.  After our tour we had a very nice lunch. This building was reserved for government officials and such, but the owner of our company was able to get us to eat there. It was some pretty crazy food. One of the dishes being snails, which the Chinese girls were calling them “screws”.

 

Hmmmm To eat these guys you had to stick a toothpick in the opening of the shell and pull out the “meat”, being careful you only pulled so far so that the “poop” separated from the body…. Awesome… haha I had Cissy, one of the Chinese teachers make sure I didn’t have the “poop”. And then, I ate the snail! I will try anything once. It wasn’t too bad. It really didn’t taste like anything.

group picture!

the classic jump picture, but BETTER!

New

After lunch, we made our way to Pudong to see the Shanghai World Financial Center. It is the tallest building in China. 

the SWFC

When Jennifer was here, we visited the second tallest which is right next to it, the Jin Mao. The view of the SWFC would have been incredible if the “fog” wasn’t so awful that day. You couldn’t see anything! Nonetheless, it was so amazing being up that high. 

They had a glass floor again, but nothing compared to the Pearl Tower floor. The girls and I took some funny pictures.  I want to go back one night when the “fog” isn’t bad to see the view, but I don’t know if it’s worth the 150kuai (equiv. $25. By the way, the school paid for everything!)

obviously, we were pretending to be falling :)

Overall, it was such a great day seeing some more of China and being with all my friends. It was way better than being in the classroom all day.

And on this episode of “Another Shanghai Holiday”…

The Christmas party was a huge success and way calmer than the Thanksgiving party, not to mention, less of a mess. The appetizer and dessert party was basically a sugar induced coma laid out on a table. It was full of cookies, Hi-Chews, Pocky, cakes, chocolate covered strawberries and bananas, etc. loooove!

 the christmas spread

got pocky?

what party isn’t complete without some ugly sweaters?

We ended up doing a power hour full of great tunes! There was everything from K Ci and JoJo, Toby Keith, Journey, Chumbawumba, Nelly, BSB, Christmas music and Jay Z. Everyone had a great time singing and … obviously, drinking. Afterwards, and obviously in a great mood we exchanged gifts from the Secret Santa!!! Guess who had me? None other than the great Aussie, SHAUN! The first person I met here  in China from the group. We got me a very beautiful purple silk robe. Very Asian. I LOVED it. I might have even screamed :) He also got me 2 grape candies. Perfect gift. Shaun is the best!

The best part about this night was that everyone was SO HAPPY and running around with their gifts like 5 year olds, trying to show everyone their gifts and making each other jealous.

I might not be with my family this year, which is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with, but these friends have become my family. Looking around seeing everyone so happy with their gifts and laughing with friends made me feel at “home”.

The night ended with some Aussie drinking songs, heading out to the best dive bar in Shanghai called I Love Shanghai and a late (early morning) bed time.

Success. :)

The Uyghur Restaurant

due to my lack of internet, i have been blogging through microsoft word: so here are about 3 blogs in a row!

Oh, Natalie, lover of all things adventurous, fun and different, decided that for her going away dinner (noooo nat please don’t leave shanghai!!!) she wanted to try this place called the Uyghur Restaurant (pronounced wee-gur). Uyghurs are a Turkish ethnic minority group who I like to say live around the 'Stans (Pakistan, Uzbekistan, etc..)

She had heard great reviews about the food and wacky atmosphere (think over costumed dancing waiters, gaudy decorations and singing employees).

 Well, we got that and much MUCH more. We walk in to the place and right away notice the waiters dressed somewhat like Aladdin. Nat had done her research and ordered everything for us. Plus, these guys speak NO English and her Chinese is amazing! As we waited for the food and enjoyed some beer we had quite a few laughs.

 I think pictures speak more than words sometimes…

Yep, this baby was letting it all hang out, and on the table where people will possibly be eating that evening. I won’t even show you the front view :)

Not to mention, Alice was going to steal this baby. How beautiful is he?

Once the food came you would have thought we hadn’t eaten in years. I would say this food is closer to Mexican than Chinese. It was the BEST food I have had here in China so far. My favorite would be the “tacos”. Haha I don’t remember what they were actually called, but wow! The lamb skewers were a close second. Once eating had commenced we were basically pulled on stage to dance with some of the locals.  The guys were crazy hilarious dancers, shimmying everything they could, doing some type of sneak attack move every once in awhile and just jumping up and down. 

Talk about live entertainment. I was laughing so hard. I laughed all night actually.

It was one of those moment where you are like… “Wow, I am in China. Why would I ever want to leave this place? It was a wonderful night full of friends, food and waaaaay too manyy laughs. Wait, you can’t laugh too much.

Bon voyage, Natalie. You definitely are going out with a bang. I love you! You have made my China experience even more amazing than I thought it could be.

            

thailand, here i come!

it's official! i bought my ticket to Thailand this afternoon!!! i am heading there on January 22nd through February 5th. 2 full weeks!!! :) I am going with my friend Jacqueline and we could NOT be more excited. We even had a celebratory frozen yogurt.

Details:
We fly from Shanghai to Guangzhou, and then from there to Bangkok. We are going to take either a train or bus to Chiang Mai from Bangkok. We will stay in Chiang Mai for a few days and then either train or bus it to the Krabi area to head to the beach of Koh Lanta and some other gorgeous places. :)

  

I am spending more money on the flight than I had originally planned but this is where I have ALWAYS wanted to go. Like I have been thinking of this year, there is always an excuse to not do something. Whether it be money, time, etc. I am not letting money stop me from going, even though I will have to live on bread and water for the next 5 weeks. At least I will look good in my swimsuit :)

5 weeks till Thailand!

"a very shanghai holiday"

pilot episode 1
synopsis: in this pilot episode, the jazzers throw their first holiday party: thanksgiving. there were churkeys, varieties of alcohol, apparent handstand contests between alice and jami and... a missing bottle of windex? tune in this season to see how things turn out!

episode 2
synopsis: on this episode of "a very shanghai holiday" the jazzers will attempt to not break anything and find the missing windex. a power hour will take place and secret santas will be revealed. who has who?

i love shanghai holidays! as much as i am missing home right now, my life literally is so amazing! it's like a tv show.

Ràng zhè xuě! Ràng zhè xuě! Ràng zhè xuě!

(translated Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!)

last night, i was on twitter (@missjamilee, follow me :) and i was looking at my normal tweets and the shanghaiist (a shanghai feed) posted an article that said we should be expecting the first possible snow of the season, tomorrow! let me begin by saying this, it has literally been in the 60s and high 50s, even some 70s these past few weeks. glorious! christmas has felt so far away due to the weather. i could NEVER live somewhere it's not cold for christmas i've decided. anyways, the shanghaiist said "winter hasn't just come, it has kicked your door in"
it was so right.
i woke up this morning to 32 degrees and now it's 28!
and guess what... IT STARTED SNOWING around noon today.
seriously, i was in the cab with gene and jacqueline repeating "it's snowing!!" ... five seconds later... "guys, it's snowing!"
i LOVE snow so much. and i REALLY love it now because i am missing home.
Snow in Shanghai? dream come true.
my walk home from work was my best walk ever. i listened to christmas music, stopped for pictures and i swear i caught myself skipping a little.
a few of my 3 year olds had NEVER seen snow before. during my lesson they kept yelling "xuě! xuě! xuě!" for snow :) one of my parents told me that the last time it had snowed Nakita (her daughter) was asleep so she didn't see it and when they live in Brazil, obviously they hadn't seen it. She was so excited to go outside.
I think i was just as excited.

snow on the astro turf in front of wunan

snow on my street

bundled up

one of my 6 year olds started yelling at his mom "take a picture with the iPhone 4g!!!" haha

and... here are my babies so soooo excited about the snow.

the love my my life. jia jia

ming ming

wen wen

sean and ian.

you can't help but smile when you see these faces.