Celebrating Christmas

Today's weather:  High = 7  Low = 2

Sunny

 

Apparently I wasn't the only one who had this idea on Christmas Eve.  Some of the worst traffic I've seen as locals packed the restaurants, bars, clubs, stadiums, and other venues downtown all evening which turned all the streets into a parking lot until the wee hours.  Thanks to my new white gas scooter, I was unaffected, having learned from my mistakes on previous Christmas Eves in this city and Wuhan.  Good luck getting a taxi, that's all I can say!  Fortunately I blew past the whole mess, both going to and from various parties, and there were no issues with that.  It does, however, bring back a nightmare of 3 years ago when I lived in Songjiang and actually tried to get a taxi home that night.  Ever since then, I've been adamant about riding scooters on nights like this, even though all my friends thing I'm crazy for doing it.

 

What amazes me is how the locals have taken to celebrating Christmas Eve as there were more young people out on the streets than with a major Chinese festival.  With that, the police and security forces were are also out in droves to keep order.  You'd think it was Chinese New Year or something.  But no, it is not, they are merely imitating western holidays with a passion that is frightening to say the least.   

 

Anyways, despite all the crowd ruckus, I still had fun.  Started the day off with a nice sleep-in, and put a dent in the huge pile of marking I'm saddled with as the end of term approaches.  Since one of my colleagues is out 6 weeks for surgery, I ended up taking over her classes, in addition to my own.  It means a surge in the marking load, and this was a good weekend to do something about that pile.  After that, a nice and relaxing Christmas Eve church service in the daytime, for the expats.  Later on that night, they had a massive series of church services for the locals, one every hour, which contributed to all the traffic jams that night in the French Concessions area.

 

Later on, I pounded treamills in the gym and skipped lunch, in anticipation of a big Christmas Eve feast later that night, which certainly turned out to be true.   I've been pounding the gym every single day now, since last week, to try and lose weight and get in shape for my upcoming bicycle trip in Thailand.  Unfortunately I'm still gaining weight as this season is nearly impossible to exercise, but it makes me try all the harder.

 

The Christmas party itself was really great, celebrated with a bunch of the young people from the SCF church  (Shanghai Community Fellowship) and also in conjunction with a house warming party for someone who recently moved into the French Concessions area.   It is of course a favorite area for expats, but the rents are astronomically high.  The apartment I went to was in an old-style house, and rather small, but she was paying 3 times my monthly rent.   Basically I live out in Minhang District which is a little far away from downtown, but nothing compared to where I used to live in Songjiang.  Still I could never live in th city center, as it's too expensive.  

 

Anyways, at the party, I got stuffed with salad, German dumpings, lamb, turkey, and all kinds of other food and desserts.  Secret Santa gave me an electric blanket which is much appreciated.  In turn, I pawned off a gift of assorted chocolates that the Chinese school administrators gave me the day before.  Having no need to get fat off expensive chocolates, I re-gifted this, and put it in the Secet Santa pile at a non-work related social event.

 

Another unexpected bonus.  While riding the scooter to the party in the insane traffic, I stumbled on a cake shop.  The shelves were totally cleared of cakes as locals had bought them all out.  There were a few nice pastries, cookies, and lemon bread still there so I brought in a massive pile to the cashiers.  This would be my dessert contribution to the Christmas party, and was expecting at least 100 RMB to pay, but I got an insane discount for only 28 RMB.  The shop owner spoke perfect English and said it was a Christmas discount.  I didn't even have to bargain.