TRAVEL & FASHION: SHANGHAI & MRKT

Tuesday 7th April - Friday 10th

Back to class and back to work this week. finally visited at Yuyuan gardens properly. also took Mor the fabric market to get a suit, he's getting to full suits (trousers, jackets, shirts and ties) for 1750RMB all tailored to fit of course!(his sister's wedding is coming up, this venue or the south bund fabric market, and also the fake markets are the places to get tailored clothes for those you cant really speak chinese, its more catered to foreigners, its cheap, skill is excellent, you choose style, material colour etc and of course tailored to fit. great for work, special occasions or just a nice treat for yourself, they do excellent coats as well!)

In work got speaking to Tom about where to move with the bags, look in detail about the flat packs, and do an everyday female bag and the fold triangle envelope bag. There’s a children’s wear company who want to work with MRKT and Tom was thinking the triangle backpack would be perfect as one of these. Also doing the New Pandora bag shoot on the 15th with me as the model!! Going to Jing ‘an park for that (since it is so close)and studied for my first Chinese comprehensive test getting an okay 80.5% on the Friday.

Later on went to Muse, the nightclub (for some strange reason most shanghai clubs have M names...), getting our classic vodka cranberry of course! Dancing and doing some shots. Of course the erotic dancers were there. The girls had on cool short hot pink leather studded jackets which I would have worn, however the guys had woeful long ones. When I first told my dad about it he asked if I was actually at a strip club haha. Amazing night after the exam definitely let my hair down. Not getting home till near 6, like a proper shanghai expat student! not particularly drunk, but i dont think drinking too much in one of the clubs with the free alcohol is advised, its renowned for being dodgy, fke or out of date, hence why so cheap/free, if you value your liver keep drinking to a minimum dancing to the max

Saturday 11th April - Thursday 16th

bit of a lie in was needed obviously, thought Taiyung my roommate was back even later, and on Sunday I had to wake her at 2.30! a nice day but I had to revise I was therefore late for Mor as we'd all talked about how the bottle opener is a must go to venue for sunset, light show and drinks.
so I missed the sunset however we did pretty all much witness the sunrise this morning (sunset and sunrise are both surprisingly early in china, no matter what time of year). We got lost trying to get to the bottle opener before finally finding the lift to the bar restaurant area and sitting with a random couple. We completely ignored them and ended up living in our own world. watching the light show at the oriental pearl (nothing amazing, not after the light show at XIAN but still a nice sight, I could spend hours just gazing at buildings - the problems of being an architects daughter eh! i get too absorbed with stupid things like cornerstones, take me too a land full of amazing skyscrapers or architectural beauty and im lost to you for a good while)) the boats on the bund 外滩were lit up and you could see the pudong area buildings and some others in the distance were nicely lit up, you could also see the lovely old architecture on the bund as we all see down to the other buildings like the jin mao tower (which is in fact my favourite of them all)  conoodled for a while before getting kicked out for not purchasing anything 

Unfortunately due to crossed wires I didn’t get to go to church with kat due to confusion on my end, but I met her at xintiandi and we chatted on our return. Studied and sketched a bit before I returned to xintiandi  to go to FUXING PARK in the French concession area. A nice area full of people and couples dancing, went to the rose garden to discover no roses and chilled in the park.went to pizza hut and share a pizza. Yummy!!

Class on Monday and got my test back. Only a few silly mistakes and was in the class average of 80.5 will know to study harder next time and not argue on skype with anyone! Headed to Yuyuan gardens to meet Mor to help him collect his suit.

He looked well, especially in the grey one, however they messed up his ties, he's wanted a papillon bowtie (like the one worn by the Daniel Craig James Bond) but they did a poor job, he won’t use them and he got discount. they had to add a buckle to his coat and do button holes so he'll return tomorrow as he's staying a bit longer now I was really late for work so called in sick. Got some noodles and chilled at the park before we went into Yuyuan Gardens getting a student in. A nice area. with lovely garden and traditional Chinese pavilion buildings, there was an English speaking tour group so we tagged along for a while learning about how the huge dragons with the tongues out where for "protection" sort of like a kimono dragon as its saliva is highly poisonous and its bite will kill.  We sat and relaxed by the water (ignoring the huge scary Koi carp, I don’t like big fish, especially lively active ones, black ones are the worst!)

it started to get a bit chilly by now with the sun starting to set so we headed over to meet Arthur, from the Netherlands, bit of a feisty sort of guy who loves the ladies 花心, very talk, talkative and funny. We failed to get to the Baozi restaurant as it was closed to we ended up going to a fancy Muslim restaurant on Nanjing road. We got a test tube shot of fruit wine which was delicious and a ridiculously cheap 4RMB. We then shared 3 dishes, ones were a lemony hummus with seeds and some flatbread, and one was noodles and another vegetable dish. We then had their speciality dessert, a small slice (again cheap) like a creamy pudding with a light creamy wafer biscuit in the style of vienneta ice-cream. it was delicious and may in fact be the most delicious dessert I have had in my life (Yes it topped the one I ate on my 18th birthday in the Belfast restaurant in Villa Italia where I actually groaned whilst I ate, but I am willing to compare the 2 again of course haha!) went back to mine after this and studied/finished my fashion sketch passed the park at night near the back of West yan'an station. There were prostitutes...yep Chinese prostitutes...least you know where to go now eh!

Wednesday in work was the photoshoot for the Pandora bags for MRKT Tom had a driver pick us wife, Tom's Chinese wife was there too, she asked me what modelling I’d done before and who did my makeup, she seemed quite happy and surprised I’d done none and I’d done the makeup myself, but whatever, just went to a simple natural look. We went to the nearby JING'AN Park to take photos; I hadn’t been there since I first came to Shanghai in September. we took shots with myself and the new Italian/Brazilian intern from the CRSS internship (she was adopted at 1 by Italians) they mainly took ones with me, ofc focusing on the bag, in a variety of areas with different bags and some just in scenery. I was listening to my headphones and playing with my phone (hoping for them to take the hint for a casual photograph which they finally did) Ducky and Toko seemed to be happy and said I was a natural. Fun day and was nice to have some of my bags being used! Thursday was the usual, was happy to be one of the few if not only person in the class who could write haizi (child)