Heba & Hyde

Once a good man said to me :, I had the same elements in my mood as in the Icelandic weather. You never really know if you should dress up or dress down.
I think he was a little bit right...
I had a heated discussion on msn last night and it's hilarious afterwards , because when you get irritated on msn , you start to push the keyboard even harder (as if the person will ever know about that aggression in your body-language).
So it's actually kinda funny to be irritated on msn , cause how are you showing the person your irritation if you can't do it with body language and the tone of your voice??... Well you start writing less lovely words, and shorter sentences. Then a classic is to say " OK FINE" if you don't want to continue the ridiculousness of an irritated msn conversation.

It's 8.30 am in Shanghai China, weather is sunny but chilly, I'm listening to Nina Simone at the office and getting ready for todays challenges.
It's exciting to see where we will go to do field work today and to hear about the groups research from yesterday.

My mood is good , i had the best beginning of today calling Iceland via skype. I miss that place a bit.
Once an Icelander ALWAYS an Icelander...

Take care , i'm having coffee . see ya

Cultural differences..

Yesterday i was walking home with Sara Wallen after work and we decide to stop in a supermarket to buy some breakfast for today. We pick up some yoghurt, milk , coffe and then i really wanted some fruit in my yoghurt and i tear 2 bananas of a pile of maybe 15 bananas.
We come to the register, everything is going well until the woman freaks a little bit out because of my 2 bananas.
I get all stressed as she keeps pointing to the pile and trying to communicate something to me in Chinese that i did something wrong.Then Sara informs me that apparently here in China, you have to buy the whole stack of bananas.
You cannot just want one banana or two.... NO ... Here it's about quantity.
So i feel a bit embarrassed and return the 2 bananas to the stack , as i had no need for 15 bananas last night nor today.
Then it's the beauty of street markets, there i could go for 3 bananas instead of 15.
I slept on the hardest bed I've ever tried in my life last night.
It actually wasn't as bad as i thought waking up in the morning on that wooden board with a blanket over it.
Maybe us Westerners have it all wrong and are ruining our backs with too soft beds?

I'm researching on the fashion industry today , and on a apartment hunt as me and Camilla decided to look for something else then we have already found.
I'm also going to try to find a good acupuncturist here in Shanghai , as i belive it could help me quit smoking, and balance the CHI (life-force) in my body:) SO it's a little bit of this and that for my afternoon agenda, i'll be posting more later on.
kys fra Kina

Keywords-

-Raining
-Waiting
-Irritating
-Interesting
-Testing
-Reacting
-Homeless
-Tired but happy....
That's about how i feel today and what i'm facing....

East meets West

This is weekend chill.. Red wine,Vogue,Starbucks,Learning Mandarin,Tourist Map, and some Chanel make up :)

I had a blast last night... Camilla and I went to Barbarossa for cocktails, showed off and laughed our asses off when telling our funky China experience stories to each other.
After that we jumped into a Taxi and headed for LOGO to listen to Greger's tunes and see Nicklas's visuals. Some of our team members were already there and we rocked that place.

Rambling on..

I've been out and about today and have started to hate my Chinese phone-number, it's just not working and i can't seem to find any China Mobile service around.
So i haven't contacted my favorite gay guy in the city (it really follows me everywhere my ability to attract gay guys in to my sphere of friends.) Hopefully I'll be able to hook up with him tonight , we'll see:)

On another more positive note..
I went to an antique market today and OH MY! Shanghai is no place for a girl with a budget smaller then her dreams.
I really have to tell myself many times a day , NO HEBA you really don't need that, nor does anyone else of your family,friends, or distant relatives...(I tend to have a long inner dialogue with myself seeing the positive things about buying all kinds of crap , just because you can't get it in Iceland and someone might enjoy it).
If you are just buying to buy something the magic also goes away! With that said i might as well admit i bought a few things today. Very pretty notebook, so i could keep a diary over where i go,what i see and maybe more importantly who i meet. I bought a gift for a special someone in Iceland, I bought myself a silver statue of Hare Krishna (i have a thing with religious artifacts). I bought 3 monkeys , "See no evil, Speak no evil, Hear no evil" only because i thought it would be fun to bring into my group-work on Monday as i'm facilitating a feedback session early Monday morning. Hmmm did i buy something else.... NO not really, take away coffee later on, so this was a piece of cake day.
It really drains me to be yelled at all the time "Hello Hello Lookie Lookie" at the same time i know these people are only trying to make a decent living so i really can't blame them and smile back and say "No" in my most polite way.

Now i'm back at the hotel , as i had a skype date with my son, and no one seems to be answering the phone so i'm guessing they went to the pretty little summerhouse over the weekend....AAAAAAhhhhhh wish i was there with them.

New agenda is coming up..
-Shower todays pollution of my body and out of my hair (one day I'll dedicate a whole post in this blog about my hair and how it feels in Shanghai)
-Check out what some of my classmates are up to , and try to seduce the gay guy to have dinner with me at Barbarossa which is one of the most beautiful restaurants I've seen so far.
Moroccan style and placed in the middle of a huge beautiful Chinese park in the middle of the city. Skyscrapers all around but still so much nature. In fact it reminds me a bit of Central park in New York, just smaller.
That's it for now...
I'm gonna lookie lookie into what the night will bring me ...
Au revoir... (saying it in french is so much more glamorous then if i try in Chinese)

Sunny Shanghai days...

The temperature is finally picking up here in Shanghai and that makes everything so much easier. Before it was so cold, i didn't feel like exploring the city so much and felt i was missing out on the adventure.
Today i'm gonna stroll around the city , check out galleries and have some good coffee somewhere. The french concession is an area unseen by me, and i've heard so much about it from my classmates.
Plan of the day:
Brunch and smoothie at vaga's
Metro to the Bund
Check out some galleries
Hook up with my favorite London Fashion designer Setal
Have dinner in a Morroccan place in Peoples Park
Go out dancing at Logo as my dear Gregers will be the DJ tonight.
Enjoy life to the fullest and this experience i'm having...
Hope you are enjoying it just as much as i am...
BTW: this is Amelia and me having fun in Shanghai...

Shanghai

Yes here i am lost in translation in the oh so amazing Shanghai .. Who would have known?