Bubble Tea 24/7

Sorry I don't lead the most exciting life. Last week mostly consisted of me chilling around the apartment and visiting my grandma.. plus some additional things here and there I've been getting figured out. Went shopping a couple times. Intense salespeople can still tell I wasn't raised in mainland China - even before I say a single word. My aunt is my personal barterer (wow okay, that is a legit word..thought there were too many -er's). I can say a lot about shopping but I'm lazy and rambly and awful at this blogging thing (if you couldn't tell) and so that's that. Still gonna tell you what I got though: two pairs of leather flats, two bags, black sheer H&M button-up, another pair of shoes, sunglasses... if I left out brand names, that's probably for a reason. Picture with the sunglasses below. Don't judge me for this narcissistic picture, I was playing around with Instagram. I know, my love/hate relationship with Instagram scares me too. Was going to get the sunglasses in tortoiseshell but already have a similar pair of those so went with the kinda opaque pink color. Sorry guys, promise I'm going to stop talking about fashion now.

I went to the botanical gardens in the area with my grandma last week. I was probably one of the only non-retired, non-baby humans there that morning. Lots of exercising older people. And cute babies. (Don't have pictures of those because I didn't want to be too creepy.)

Unfortunately, most of the flowers already bloomed but it was still a nice day to walk around there and not be constantly surrounded by the city. Took some typical flower pictures and some pictures of my cute, lovely little grandma. Check out the odd textures on those flowers. Grandma loved these elephant statues. We had to search for them. And yeah, I may or may not have worn a flowery blouse because I knew we were going to the botanical gardens. The last picture of the two of us I took on my phone. Fun to watch the grandma struggle with the concept that while we were looking into the camera screen, we were seeing ourselves because of the forward-facing camera (not sure if that's the technical term). Also, even though it was super sunny and nice that day, the sky's still never entirely blue in Shanghai. Always a lil' bit smoggy.

Played with reflections. Click through for bigger versions of those pictures on my flickr. I need to probably update that more often. And put Photoshop back on my laptop. Notice how I just got lazy and stopped 'shopping the more recent pictures? Yeah, whoops. Also, side note, teach me Photoshop if you're good at it. It'd be much appreciated. I'll pay you back with food.

Got to hang out with my friend, Leland, who also goes to Michigan but lives in Shanghai. He went to an international high school right down the street from my relatives' apartment. We had dinner and walked around Xu Jia Hui - which basically consists of a bunch of shopping malls, movie theaters, and restaurants. I wish this was where me and my friends could hang out back home when we were bored. A tad better than the local Wendy's and McDonald's.

And yes, we saw a transformer outside this karaoke place. That's what a lotta people do for fun here, KTV. Haven't gone. My singing voice shouldn't be heard in public. There was this guy guarding the transformer slash greeting people in front of the karaoke place, and I tried to get him to take a picture of me and Leland and the transformer but he said no. Party pooper, right? That last picture below is of this guy on the side of the street making little kabob type things with your choice of veggies, meat, seafood, and bao zi (bread type dough). Got yelled at when he saw my camera so enjoy that picture please.

Chilled with the uncle/aunt/cousin/grandparent set on the other side of the family during the weekend. My grandpa likes to go off and tell little stories. Fun stuff. My cousin works 6 days a week at the bank. Saw her Saturday. I'm the tallest out of this side of the family, minus the grandpa. They think I have big feet. My other set of uncle/aunt/cousin are all way above average for Asian people standards. My cousin on that side of the family is 6'2. Silly opposite relatives.

Some tweets exposing more of my Asian life to you:

Call Me Maybe on the radio in China. Can't escape it.
— Sophie Zhao (@sophz) May 19, 2012

Bubble tea 24/7. #nom
— Sophie Zhao (@sophz) May 22, 2012

Company next door setting up for a fashion show. Hopefully I get to catch some of it. Perks of working in a creative park.
— Sophie Zhao (@sophz) May 23, 2012

Just made soup by adding hot water to this rectangular block of egg and seaweed. First time for everything.
— Sophie Zhao (@sophz) May 24, 2012

One of the better things for me and sucky for workers is that there isn't tipping here. So, at work we order lunch and bubble tea. Yay! I never even drink bubble tea in the States. Who knows why. I probably need more Asian friends to hang out there. Yeah so speaking of work, I've been interning at this marketing group here since Monday and I've been working on their Estee Lauder team. Did some research on the competition for one of their clients so far. Also, next weekend, I'm going to be the assistant of a French professor flying in from Paris while he's here for a couple days teaching MBAs about CSR. That should be fun.

There it is. Update on my life. I should really just blog more often instead of writing ginormous posts every week. Or just not ramble and feel the need to say a buncha little things. Lo siento.