Day 21 8 RMB DVDs

So work today was great- Wednesdays usually are. We had a hilarious showdown at about 2 pm (2 pm-3pm is probably our funniest hour. Anybody remember how hard Candace was laughing at the Reptile Man birthday party last year? That’s me from 2 pm-3pm, no joke) between James and Evan over Evan’s
Google doc summary of an article on DBS Asset Management and some joint venture in Malaysia. Honestly, I still don’t know exactly what they were disagreeing over, but it was possibly the funniest interchange I have yet seen between these two. Then we headed home early (it being Wednesday and all) and went outside to blue skies again! This is the second day in a row of this welcome change, and gives me hope that maybe the rest of the summer won’t be so gray. Unfortunately, with the sun came our first 90+ degree weather, which was less than pleasant, so I guess you can’t win them all. Goodbye rainy season, hello hot, humid, grouch-inducing weather.

So after a little nap and a frustrating episode with my Ethernet cable, Evan, James and I went to our favorite alley to try a new dinner place. I’m not really sure if this alley has a name, but it’s kind of tucked away behind our hotel and hidden from the four other tourists who stay in Pudong (literally, I think there might be four other white people in our area of Shanghai). It has lots of little, fairly unsanitary restaurants that make amazing, delicious food for under $1.50. So we tried a new noodle place tonight and were shocked by how good it was. The noodles were made as we watched, plopped into a pot of boiling water, and then pulled out a few minutes later and served to us. Talk about fresh. We deemed this place a new “money” restaurant to go with the dumpling place we always go to. After dinner we headed across the alley to one of Shanghai’s many DVD shops to scope out the illegal DVD scene here. Best decision ever, this place had a really fun collection of movies and TV shows for 8 RMB per disc. Translation: I bought “Young Victoria” for barely over a dollar. Of course, there’s always the risk that they won’t work or will be in Chinese, but I just watched Young Victoria and the quality was perfect (and I would definitely recommend the movie in general). So there is a good chance that I will be coming home with 50 new DVDs and a new addition to my “Things I Love About China” list. Woohoo!