I left Japan 3 days before Christmas for my two week trip in China. I first met up with my mom and dad in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was pretty much the same as last year. I spent the few days there shopping a bit and seeing a few family friends. I even met up with my old Piano teacher who now lives and works in Hong Kong.She wasn’t too surprised that all the piano knowledge she taught me was not retained.
(Picture below: Bruce Lee statue in Hong Kong harbour) 
I also went with my dad to his old elementary school, Salesian. He told me the old building hadn't changed since he left when he was 12. It was pretty neat to see areas where he told me he use to play at and to see a part of your dad's past.
(Picture below: My dad in front of his elementary school)
For Christmas, I went to Macau and saw my godmother who lives there. We spend a few days eating the Portuguese food (as, it was a former colony of Portgual) and visited the mega casinos. The skyline of Macau has changed drastically since I went last year, as new Casinos are opening every month. Their recorded profits have even overtaken Las Vegas. We visited a few casinos and then just spent Christmas visiting a local temple and eating dinner with my parents.
(Picture below: A water and flame display outside the Wynn Casino in Macao)
On Boxing Day, my parents and I flew up to Shanghai to stay with some family friends for 12 days. We stayed with my “Auntie” Judy and her son Andy, who we’ve known, well, ever since I was born. I had a pretty crazy time in Shanghai and my friend Andy, took me out 10 out of the 12 days while I was there. I somehow managed to consume alcohol all 12 days.
(Picture below: My auntie Judy, my mom, Me and Andy)
The food in Shanghai is also quite different from anything I had really eaten before. My parents are Cantonese, so traditionally I’ve eaten Canton cuisine and it was different eating Shanghainese food, which typically has stronger flavours. What also didn’t help is that I’ve grown so accustom to Japanese food that when I eat Chinese food, I can’t eat the copious amounts of food I am use to. I get full really fast and have a harder time digesting what I had eaten. The food is still good though and the best is thing to eat in Shanghai is the crab. We had crab a few nights I was there and some of it was just amazing. We had these small crabs by the bucketful and also this soft-shelled crab marinated in vinegar.
(Picture below: A plate of hairy crabs)
The most difficult part of being in Shanghai was being unable to speak the language. My Mandarin ability is virtually non-existent and I only understand sentences that are similar to Cantonese. Trying to find people that spoke English, Cantonese or Japanese was pretty hard. Luckily, Andy speaks Mandarin, Cantonese and English fluently, so he translated whenever necessary.
(Picture below: A famous bridge that has 9 points)
I’m really glad my parents taught me Cantonese, as I think it would be quite sad if I couldn’t speak my “native” tongue. But even meeting people in Shanghai, they were like “why can’t you speak mandarin, even though you’re Chinese.” Well seeing that I had never stepped foot in Asia till last year, it’s pretty good I can even speak my parents native dialect, even though I have roots in Canada for almost a 100 years. What is also difficult is that English is virtually non-existent and anything in English is phonetically spelled out from Mandarin with a bunch of x, y and z’s, so I have no clue what the Romanized words even are.
(Picture below: Me on New Year's day at the club in Suzhou) 
For New Year’s we headed up north to this city about 2 hours from Shanghai called, Suzhou I think- I know the name in Cantonese but not sure about the mandarin pronunciation. We had family friends that invited us up to his hotel. Yes, this dude owns a whole hotel. China is really about who you know, as we got treated to free hotel rooms and these huge 20 course meals. The food they give you is just insane, as just the appetizers can be a main course back home. I actually had to stop myself from eating certain foods, as I knew I wouldn’t have room to eat anything else. They didn’t just give us hotdogs for dinner too, as each meal was a delicacy and overall would cost about 300 dollars Canadian a person, which in China is a fortune.
(Picture below: Me and Andy's girlfriend and her friend.)
The 3 days spent in Jianzu was basically just partying, eating and drinking 200 dollar bottles of white wine (which I got a bottle as a present) and we even had our own bus to transport us to different venues. On New Year’s Eve, we went to this Karaoke/Nightclub place which is basically a large room which you can sing Karaoke and transforms into a disco. The next day we pretty much relaxed at the hotel and did the same thing again at night by going to another disco.
The rest of the days in Shanghai were spent pretty much going out every night. For a guy who rarely drank back in Canada, I can’t believe I made it though drinking 12 days straight and heading to a disco/club 10 of those nights. I can give you a long explanation, but basically stuff like this only exists in Asia. The discos are also more like lounges, as they also have nice couches and big private booths. We weren’t drinking colt 45 beers either, as the only thing I really drank was Chinese white wine and bottles of Chivas scotch. Only the first night out, did I come home pretty drunk- good story there, ask me in person and I'll spill the beans. As for the other nights, it got to the point where i just metabolized the alcohol in hours and by the time we left, I would be completely sober. All in all, bad for your body, but a lot of fun to just experience. I’m still currently on my self-imposed detox and plan on not touching a drop of alcohol for awhile.
I did manage to see a bit of the city though, as Shanghai’s skyline is pretty amazing. I walked around a few famous districts Andy brought me to, though I have no idea what the English names for the places are.
I also spent a really nice day with my parents walking around this historic district of Shanghai and visiting a few temples and walking along the shops. The one place as the best Chinese steamed buns I have every eaten. The shops were really fun to look at but the art of haggling is something I have no skill in. That was one thing that was really hard to get use to in China, was the pressure you get when you shop and how you have to bargain. It’s an art that both my dad and I are terrible at, just cause we don’t have the fortitude and most of the time, we just don’t care about paying a few dollars more.
(Picture below: Andy, his cousin Trevor and me)
Overall, this trip was a lot of fun and I really learned a lot more about the people there. It’s a pretty amazing country, full of huge contrasts like Japan. I learned a lot more about China and I realized the umbrella of Chinese as a race, is such a wide one. The people within the country really diverse and have their own cultures and customs and you really get a sense of that. The best analogy I can give is that imagine Europe having a common written language and then being one large country controlled by commies. Their race is just European, but you still have many different cultures, foods and customs.
(Picture below: Andy's dog Mango who I hadn't seen in 7 years. He got a infection while we were away, see how the left part of his face is swollen!)
The people have really come along way, it’s crazy to think that just 30 years ago, people were still collecting food stamps and almost everyone needed handouts. The country is progressing so rapidly and I look forward to watching the Olympics, when China gets showcased. Andy’s family offered the invitation for me to live there with them and after Japan, I’m considering spending a few months there to learn the language and just travel some more before heading back to Canada. Which basically means I'll becoming even more asian....scary!
(Picture below: Group shot at a KTV for the dude in blue's birthday)
Japanese (Chinese) Factoid #40: In China they have these places called KTVs. The places are huge and go all out with the aesthetics, like marble statues in the foyer and just really nice furniture and all. The place allow you to sing Karaoke and also converts into a personal disco. I went to a few of these when I was there, as two of Andy’s friends had Birthday parties. These places also allow you to *ahem* get a girl. The gig works like this. The building has 200-300 girls that are usually from the country side that come to these places to earn a bit of money before going home. It is a volunteered position, as the girls just pay a small fee to the “house” if they get chosen. Basically, the “house” isn’t the pimp, as they just want girls to attract customers. What happens is that they parade girls in sets of 10-15 and if you want, you can pick one to play dice games with you.
(Picture below: A collage of photos of a KTV )
The best part of going out was playing these dice games, which is basically a drinking game- which I got pretty addicted to. So if you do pick a girl, the fee is 300 RMB (about 45-50 dollars Cdn.). They will just sing songs, pour your drinks and play dice games-no monkey business. But if you want, you can ask to take the girl home with you at the end of the night. The girl can always refuse and some girls working their just sit down and never go home. Totally up to them. You also don’t have to have a girl sit down with you to and many people don't, as girlfriends go too. Oh it also goes both ways too, as they also have guys who work at these places.
It hasn’t been too eventful the past few weeks since I got back from winter vacation, but I’ve stayed busy by doing a few things here and there. I’ve mostly managed to recover from the break, but getting back into the swing of things was a bit tough the first week back. (Picture Above Me and Rob wearing Anpanman and Bikiman masks and Asuka wearing a crown that Rob got for the party)
