Shanghai Stories II

The weekend came and went. The main events were the hotpot dinner and finding an apartment.

Hotpot is a social way of eating. You dip meats and vegetables in a spicy fondue and eat it with a sauce. Having been away all the way in Sweden and mainly living by myself, I hadn't had it for a long time. I think we had dinner for about 3 hours. Although you don't eat all the time, it is easy to have you belly taking the shape of a basketball.

On sunday, I went to Xuhui, an area pretty close to "downtown" Shanghai to have a look at a room in an apartment. It was clean and looked newly refurbished. The equipment is pretty good as well and even the flatmates seem to be nice people. The downside is that move in date is not until September 1st, which is 2 weeks away. But still, I found it a better choice than going out on a prolonged hunt.

To celebrate, I went with a friend to have dim sum. It was good but I was a bit tired to really enjoy the atmosphere. Also, we got in at rush hour and it was a bit stressful in the beginning. However, definitely a place I could go back to.

I don't want anyone to think that this blog has turned into a food review blog but you should all know that food is very important to the Chinese people. You can tell by the sheer number of restaurants and their variety.

As a finishing point, I had a discussion with a new friend last week concerning many topics and we briefly landed on education. I proposed that Swedish students do less well the lower grader (1-9) compared to e.g. China or India but catch up at higher levels (collage and univ.). This is because Swedish students don't learn to memorize stuff as kids and their own interest and creative thinking is promoted. Once at a higher level of studies, these attributes become more important and swedes can catch up. I just want to share with you this view and welcome any comments you might have on the topic.

Until next time...

Your voice in Shanghai.
/Y