chaos EXPOSED

I finally got a new VPN and can I just say that VPNs are a miracle of life when you're living in an internet prison.

Anyway, I am a working woman now, slaving my days away at my corporate cubicle facing the bathroom (at least I'm close to it!). The 36th floor of Plaza 66 stares out into the vast and hazy Shanghai skyline but unfortunately, I don't face the window to actually be able to see the sights. This first month at the new job has posed to be a challenge.  While I believed I was culturally aware of life in Shanghai, work life proves much more difficult. Everyone speaks Shanghainese and my Mandarin Chinese isn't even up to par.  My co-workers look at me as an outsider, even though I am ethnically Chinese. If not for the brand ambassador who was hired the same day I was, I would have no friends at work. Depressing! Even more sad, the brand ambassador is always traveling, so pretty much half the time I am alone! Such an opposite experience as New York where all my friends were at work. This has made me appreciate my friends who stayed from USA Pavilion.  Although, most of them are back home for the holidays now.

My contract is for 3 years at this company and I don't know if I can stay here for much longer.  I love the experience I'm gaining and my prospective career goals could be easily achieved with this experience, but China seems to want me to leave. I can't go into much detail about it now, but I sure hope I can stay (and my boss warms up to me.)

But that's enough about work, snore.
I recently moved into my new apartment off of Nanjing West road, which for those who don't know is like the 5th Avenue of New York City. I say this because all the lux brands line this street and if I can't clearly describe it... Prada is on the same floor as the 2nd floor of my office. The rest of Plaza 66 is filled with the designer brands and lux goods.

We just celebrated Christmas as well, which was my first Christmas away from family. I was so grateful that my roommate's Italian friend arrived just in time for the holidays. She taught me how to make Italian food and we cooked for 12 people on Christmas Eve. I met Chinese-Italians, an English couple, some more Italians, and another Californian.  It was definitely a nice first Christmas in Shanghai, but I hope to spend next Christmas with my family.

New Year's Eve should be crazier than last year as well.  The same friends from Christmas rented 2 party buses and the plan is to hop from club to club and ring in the new year.

I do have to say, 2010 has been the best year of my life. I got to live the dream in New York city staring at the Empire State building every night. Then, moved to Shanghai where I met 79 other Americans just as enthusiastic about Shanghai as I am. I had the opportunity to travel to Thailand with friends, one of my life-long dream travel destinations. Now settled in Shanghai, I'm working a corporate job in Plaza 66, living on Nanjing West road staring out to the JW Marriott and the Pearl Tower. I couldn't have asked for a more fun-filled, adventurous, constant-high year. I know I can't expect too much out of 2011 since 2010 rocked, but I am ready to continue the excitement.

I've been in Chiang Mai for about 2 days now and absolutely love it here. Sad thing is the number of foreign tourists is outrageous! (us included). I think I've seen more foreigners in Thailand than I've seen locals! Tourism is really a thriving industry in Thailand, and now I've got photos to prove it. (well, not at this very moment, but when I get back to China)

To update you on what Rachel and I have been up to... Bangkok was insane. We got around by tuk-tuk - a motorized wagon pretty much. There are similar ones in China, but are considered illegal there while in Thailand its one of the main types of transport. We visited the Grand Palace, the Emerald Buddha, Reclining Buddha, and Khaosan Road... First off, Thailand, even Bangkok, is CHEAP. It was one USD for each of us to get from our hostel to Grand Palace (30 minutes away). Food has been even more glorious, ranging from a few pennies to a couple dollars.  Don't get me started on housing. We were spoiled in Bangkok with $10/person/day in a really swanky hostel but here in Chiang Mai, our guesthouse is $2/person/day for the daily conveniences.

Yesterday, we started our adventure trek bright and early, beginning with a 1.5 hour ride in the back of a pick up truck to the elephant ranch. We rode atop these docile elephants for an hour through the jungle, up hills, etc... Then we went on a 2 our trek to a waterfall. Definitely not feeling swimsuit ready (even more so now that I've "eaten my weight in Pad Thai" as Rachel says...truth) so we just sat on the side and enjoyed the scenery.  White water rafting and bamboo rafting followed...OMG. I will just have to show you the photos...no words can describe the 'joy' we had during this adventure.

Last night we ate...(I probably had 4 dinners) at the Saturday Market which is a big open air market with food, random articles of clothing, souvenirs, you name it. I just ate...drank Thai Tea (Cha-yan) and ate more. We definitely slept well last night. 

This morning we woke up bright and early to go to Thai cooking class! They brought us to the local market to pick out our veggies, spices, and other goodies.  I bought a bag of Thai Tea so I can make it on my own now! We chose dishes in different categories - curry, stir-fry, appetizer, soup, and dessert. It was amazing! They would teach us one category at a time, we would cook and eat what we just made, rest, then make the next course. Now we're both just trying to relax and take it easy as we have a CRAZY day tomorrow.

Tomorrow, yet again, we will have to wake up early but this time to go Ziplining for 7 hours, on Thailand's longest ziplining course! The only time I have ziplined was off the Great Wall (pretty sweet too). But now, we're going to jungles by Chiang Rai and spending a day flying through the air with "Jungle Flight".

Tomorrow night, we'll be off to Phuket!

Sa-wat dee ka.

Sorry I have kept you all out of the loop this past month.  This is the first time since the last post I have been able to log onto Blogger! My VPN expired and then I had no possible way of updating.

I do have a lot to update you on, but as of now, I am in Bangkok, Thailand! After a lot of contemplating, I decided to move to Shanghai indefinitely. This being said, once I made my decision to move I began freaking out about the job search and how I would be homeless and jobless after Expo... Because of this frank decision to completely alter my life and skip out on grad school, my plans for traveling have changed as well.  I am no longer backpacking through south east Asia for 5 weeks.  Instead I'm taking a mini vacation of 10 days in Thailand! I figure it's better than nothing and I can use all of my savings to LIVE. The remainder of my savings can help me survive in China for about a year without a job, not that I'm planning on being jobless, but just in case! Travelling would probably have wiped out my bank account.

I'm traveling with a close friend of mine from USAP, and we're going to meet some of our other expo buddies in Chiang Mai and Phuket. I'm excited for this warm weather as Shanghai's weather went from scalding hot to freezing cold in a matter of DAYS. No joke, on September 22, first day of fall, the weather dropped 20C. We all got sick. I've lost a lot of color too...so the beaches of Thailand should fare well for me! Tan (healthy, non-sickly) Cassie back in action!

I'm glad to finally have some uncensored internet access, but I know that in 10 days, I'm going straight back to the PRC and must re-suffer the prison-esque internet. I'll try and keep you updated as much as I can on my trip!

Off to some delicious Thai food! :)

Sa-wat dee! (Goodbye in Thai)

-Aug 25-
I think it’s about time I update you on my hectic life in Shanghai.  Since last time, I did move departments from Sponsorship into CEO Operations – Special Projects, mainly doing office management and other good stuff. I did get sick, and about time huh? However, after two days I have begun to recover, but still have a nasty “Shanghai lung” cough.

I don’t even know where to begin. My internet connection is pretty unstable which has caused me to write minimally about my intense experience thus far at the World Expo.  Training has been draining, but I have managed to find time to go out every single night.  Today is my first night staying in this week – due to the thunderbolts and lightning (very, very frightening to me!) even though the Philippines and Angola are holding parties in their pavilions.  Today marks the HALFWAY point of the expo.


July 22 - On the first day, I was so happy to be reunited with Charlotte – my friend from Fudan study abroad. I had dinner at a Xin Jiang restaurant with a few people I had just met, including one of my suitemates. I was eager to go out, but many people were jetlagged, understandably.


July 23 - The next morning, I grabbed some breakfast with a new friend before we met up with others to visit the Expo grounds. At the expo, we visited Kazakhstan – which included a really cool 4D movie with moving chairs like at theme parks, an ice room – to imitate winters in their country, and some random games… it was all pretty entertaining in my opinion.  We then visited the USA Pavilion to check out the offices, nothing as in depth as the training I will describe later. We then visited Egypt, which was a bit underwhelming… other than a few Egyptian statues and art, there wasn’t much to see or interact with.

Zapatas night 1.

At night, we went to our first pavilion PARTY at the Austrian pavilion. It was a first night out for many of the ambassadors, but I was entertained with the euro music playing in the background. Apparently I danced so crazily I made it onto the front page of the Expo Nights website – www.exponights.com woohoo! One of the session 1 ambassadors took us out to a club called Number 88, which is reputed as a “Chinese” club, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself! They played the best music I have heard in Shanghai thus far.   

For the past few days I have been chillin in Shanghai with some Aussies and it's been wonderful! I went out to play rugby with one of them for the first time and I feel like I've had my ass kicked, because literally, I did.  The weather is so hot here that I have only left their apartment three times in the past three days, once for rugby, once for shopping, and once for bubble tea! Apparently, it will only get hotter as July and August are the hottest months of the year... I don't think Taiwan prepared me for anything.

View from Aussie's apt. Jealous the Expo view is not like this.

As for the title of my post...it's the clear expression of my experience at the World Expo. It is NOT Disney World and I am clearly not high roller like Obama. Once I stepped foot into the Expo, the massive pavilions just awestruck me. Of course waiting in line is nobody's favorite thing to do (if it is, you're interesting), so I flashed around my staff pass in the VIP line.  Too bad for my parents, we found out that at most pavilions, only I can get in.  If only I were Obama, I would get in with as many people I wanted...but I'm not.

VIP [staff] pass

At night, however, the lines go pretty fast - there are still hundreds of thousands of people though.  We went to Nepal, Taiwan, France, and a few others that had moving lines.  Taiwan had an amazing pavilion.  While it didn't really cover the topic of urban sustainability, it had some pretty neat effects - a 720 degree movie (it surrounds you), a HUGE LED screen in the shape of a balloon - to submit digital paper lanterns, and a tea ceremony with harp playing.  Because of these intricate stages of the pavilion, you must have a reservation ticket (or pass in my case), and only 4,000 tickets are given out a day.  I don't even know when they give them out! 

720 degree movie.

Largest LED sphere.

While the expo does not strike me as a theme park, it is an opportunity for the native Chinese to explore other cultures and lifestyles.  In the French pavilion, many were taking pictures with an Eiffel Tower image, pretending they were there. In the Taiwan pavilion it was fun for me to watch the guys take pictures with the pretty female Taiwanese staff. All in all, most pavilions do not fit the "Better City, Better Life" theme, but they showcase a day in the life of a [country] person. 

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Outside of the Expo, my parents and I visited my old stomping grounds - Fudan, Wu Jiao Chang, Wu Dong Lu... as well as the Bund, Xin Tian Di, French Concession, and Tian Zi Fang.  All of these places have changed so much over the past year, especially the Bund.  But, the magnificent view of the Financial District has not been altered.  Always beautiful and always enchanting!

I love my new camera!