Indian Food

Last night Chris, Abhinav, Helen, Caitlin and I went into the city to get Indian food. I have never had Indian food, and since Abhinav is originally from India and knows the food well, what better way to try Indian food than with someone who knows what he is ordering.

The place wasn’t far from a subway stop, about a 5 minute walk. I don’t remember the name of the place but I would be able to find it again J We sat down and the server spoke English in addition to Hindi. Abhinav knows some Hindi so he conversed with him in Hindi rather than English. We left him in charge of ordering everything since he knows the dishes well. Abhinav ordered 5 dishes for all of us to share. I don’t remember the names of any of the things he ordered but they were really good. The chicken we had was extremely tender, and the lamb was great. We had another Chicken dish that was cut up into smaller chuncks with gravy on top of it. We also had a spinach cheese that we dipped the nan in. The last thing we had was just chunks of cheese, this dish wasn’t as good, they cheese was slightly dried out.

Overall I loved the food. There wasn’t spice to it like I was expecting although I am sure most of the dishes are spicy. Even though I thought it was great Abhinav said he only would have rated it a 6 out of 10 for Indian Food.

SJTU students accepted at Purdue

On Wednesday some of the students that were in our class while we were in Xujiahui, found out that they got accepted to Purdue for a 2 year dual Mechanical Engineering degree from Purdue and SJTU. We wanted to go out and celebrate with them so a group of us went out with the intention to get some drinks outside of campus. We ended up staying in campus and went to the outdoor BBQ area. We bought some beers and had a great time joking with our classmates. Everyone is really excited for them to arrive at Purdue in August. They asked us a lot of questions about what to expect and we shared stories about Purdue.

Since we treated them to drinks, they found it necessary to treat us to some food. But some is an understatement…they ordered a ton of food. It was delicious but I was so full. We sat outside and continued to eat, drink and talk for 3 hours or so. Everyone was in such good spirits it was extremely enjoyable.

It is really neat that about 10 of the students we have met at SJTU will be at Purdue next fall. I am excited because we have created friendships with these people and now we don’t have to just maintain these friendships through e-mail, we are actually able to see them in 3 months and then they will be on our campus. When they are at Purdue we will be able to show them around and treat them to some of our favorite things around West Lafayette, the way they have done for us around Shanghai.

an afternoon at a 5 star resort

Our last day in Sanya…I woke up and didn’t wait for the guys, I headed straight to the beach. It was day three and I still did not have a good tan, so I was going to fix that J It was not too humid yet, but that changed very quickly! The sun was hot and the sky was cloudless. I found a great spot on the beach and laid down. I was there by myself for a couple of hours. I had already been in and out of the sea to cool off a handful of times before the guys showed up. The guys laid with me for a while and then we decided we would go back to Yalong Bay for the rest of the day.

We got on the city bus and headed back to Yalong. When we got to the Yalong area the bus goes through the resort streets and makes a few stops before arriving at the public beach area. We were driving along and Abhinav saw the 5 star Sheraton Resort and he said something to the affect of I am sure that place is gorgeous. He then said we should get off and go in there. I agreed and we woke Kean up and quickly got off the bus

The lobby was gorgeous. It was an open-air lobby with cherry wood trip everywhere. We first found the bathrooms; it ended up being the nicest bathroom I have seen in China!! We walked through the garden area, which eventually opened up to the grassy area that overlooked the private beach. We wandered around for a while took some pictures, found the lap pool, kids pool, and the normal pool. The towels were stacked in a hut next to the pool so we grabbed a few, put our stuff down on the chairs and jumped into the pool. It was great to be in a pool rather than the sea. Don’t get me wrong I love the sea but it was a real treat not to be in salt water. The pool was huge and wrapped around many tropical bushes and trees. There were a couple of ledges that you were able to see the sea from. It was magnificent. By this point the sun was covered by the clouds, but that is okay since I was already burnt L

I eventually got out of the pool and just sat around and read. The guys got out a little later. We got dry towels, had the staff take pictures of us and eventually even ordered dinner pool side. We were a little hesitant to do this at first because we assumed you would just have to charge it to your room, and since we didn’t have a room we didn’t think we would be able to. We inquired without letting them know that we were not actually staying at the resort and found out we could pay with cash. It worked out perfectly! So we ate wraps, swam some more. Sat by the beach for a while, swam even more and then decided it was time to go out for the night. So we walked back to the lobby and found another pool on the way! It was even bigger than the one we had spent the afternoon at. We were tempted to jump in but didn’t.

Since we had used everything else the resort had to offer, why not use their concierge too. The concierge desk helped us find the best nightspots in Sanya. They helped us figure out the best way to get there and eventually hailed a cab for us. A very accommodating hotel with extremely friendly staff J

When we got back to our hostel we changed and headed to the bars that the Sheraton told us about. We had some street food and walked around for a while. We found a huge street market that was packed with people. Eventually we found the local dance club, 88 Bar, that we were told about. We went in there and it was just the place to be in Sanya. There were hundreds of Chinese people dancing and having a great time. We sat at the bar for a while, played some jenga, yes we may be losers, and then we went out on to the dance floor. We weren’t out there long before some guy came up to us; eventually we figured out that he was the one that booked our scuba diving for us the previous day. He invited us up to his area by his friends and we had a great night dancing. The only problem was every time he tried talking to us he found it necessary to scream in our ears, I guess he was trying to talk over the music but instead he was screaming so loud we couldn’t understand him. Not only did he scream in our ears but apparently it was necessary to spit while talking…it was very unpleasant and extremely gross. Yuck. It was still a great night and what a coincidence to run into him.

The next morning we almost missed our flight because it took forever to get our boarding passes and then the security line was excessively long for 6am. Thankfully we made it on the plane and made it back to Shanghai with great tans J

Sanya was a great little beach city. Everyone was tan and relaxed without a worry in the world! It was an incredible tropical weekend getaway!

Scuba diving in Yalong Bay

On Saturday morning we decided to head to one of the other beaches in the area. We really wanted to take part in a water activity and most of the websites online recommend going to Yalong Bay for this sort of thing since all of the resorts are in that area. We got on a city bus and had a stunning view through the mountains on the 45minute drive to the other bay.

We arrived at the public beach area to find water that was even more gorgeous than the water at Dadonghai. This water you could see the different gradients of color. The sand was still just as white but only a little finer. Mountains also surrounded this area and you could see a few small islands off of the shore.

We decided we wanted to go scuba diving. We knew a general price range because we had done our research online. We found a place and they quickly had someone that spoke English come out and help us. We were able to talk down the price so we paid and got in our wet suits. We started off by learning the basics in a swimming pool. At first it was difficult to breathe out of my mouth since I usually breathe out of my nose, but the time in the pool really helped me get use to the breathing. I had so much fun diving in the pool I could hardly wait for what was to come out in the sea.

We took our flippers and headed down the pier to a boat. We boarded the boat and headed out. The water was neon blue and extremely clear, we could see straight to the bottom. We were on the boat for about 10 minutes before we had to switch to a smaller speedboat. This was a quick ride over to the raft. When we got to the raft we waited for a few minutes before they were ready for us to get in the water. When we got in the water the ‘dive masters’ helped us get situated with our tanks and all the rest of our gear. Then we were off. At first I struggled with the buoyancy and couldn’t submerge fully under the water, but with a little push from the ‘dive master’ I was good to go. The coral that we saw was gorgeous!! The colors were extremely vibrant. There were Yellows, oranges, purples, blues, blacks, and greens. The water was clear and the sun was shining through. Some of the fish were bigger and some were smaller. It was a completely different world 10m under the water; everything seemed so peaceful.

After scuba diving we went and grabbed some noodles for a late lunch…there really wasn’t too much food around that area. Then we went and layed on the beach for a while. 6:00PM came around and we headed back to the hostel.

The activity for the night was going on a yacht ride around the coast of Sanya. This was something we booked through the hostel. It was an all you can drink with entertainment. We made it back to the hostel a little later than we had hoped. We changed quickly and someone from the hostel took us to the yacht. The yacht was already packed by the time we got there, however, we were able to find a table in the back so we sat down and started enjoying some beer. The entertainment started shortly after leaving the dock. They had some dancing and some games with the audience were played. We didn’t stay downstairs too long because it was getting hot and the speakers were extremely loud. We made our way up to the deck for some fresh air and quickly made friends with a group of older Chinese people. They invited us to sit down and then we ganbei-ed a lot! (ganbei is the Chinese word for cheers, bottoms up…basically you finish what is in your glass). Eventually we started dancing. It was so entertaining. The Chinese guys were spinning me around and everyone was watching and taking pictures. It was a great time!

After the yacht cruise was over we walked back to the hostel and got some noodles and went to bed. We were exhausted! Being in the sun all-day and drinking really gets to you J

Dadonghai Beach

The next morning we woke up and we were still cockroach free J

We all got ready for the beach and headed out to make the 5-minute walk. Along the way we bought some suntan lotion (which ended up not working so well). The beach was gorgeous!!! The sand was white and the shades of blue in the water were unimaginable. The bay was surrounded by mountains, absolutely a breathtaking view. We walked for a short while until we picked a spot. The sand was hot, and the air was even hotter. It was the sort of heat that you are just standing still and dripping sweat. The humidity was almost unbearable but since we had the sea…we were okay J

We laid on the beach for a couple of hours and then walked the boardwalk area and eventually picked a place for lunch. The food was only mediocre but the view was spectacular. Also, it was nice to get out of the intense heat for a while.

After lunch it had cooled off, relative to a tropical climate—I guess I should say the heat became less intense, and we went back down to the beach. I ended up falling asleep and woke up just in time to see the sunset. There wasn’t much of the sunset to see because of the mountains in the way but the colors were still gorgeous. It is interesting to note that around this time is when the beach started to get really busy. All of the locals had come to the beach—they are smarter than sitting out during the intense sun.

As darkness was falling I headed back to the hostel to shower. We all got ready and went out to find some dinner. We ended up eating at a place about a block down from where we were staying. The food ended up being really disappointing. We had heard coconut rice was a very local dish so we tried it….and it was not good. It was eatable but not desirable. The coconut was cut into slivers, as if you were eating a melon, and those slivers were packed with gluttonous sticky rice. There was really no flavor to any of it. It was quite a disappointment. After dinner I grabbed a beer and the guys grabbed some tender coconuts to drink the water. We headed down to the beach and just talked, while listening to the water crash against the beach.

Arriving in Sanya

So it was a Monday night and 3 of us decided we wanted to get away for the weekend we threw around a couple of different destinations but the obvious one prevailed…Sanya, China. It is in southern part of China and it is called ‘The Hawaii of China’. It is on a tropical Island with gorgeous beaches and constantly warm weather. It took us a few days to figure out the cheapest flights and living arrangements but on Thursday night we were headed south for a tropical getaway.

After a three-hour flight we landed in Sanya-It was 12:10AM. The minute we stepped outside we could feel the humidity. We took a shuttle bus, that didn’t have shocks so we were bouncing the whole ride, to the Dadonghai beach area. We got off and we were hoping for the best. We were very fortunate we found where our hostel was very quickly.

We checked into our hostel and went upstairs to checkout our room. When we got upstairs the guys went in first and immediately told me that I can have the middle bed (we had a 3 bed room with our own bathroom). I was wondering why such a quick decision so I entered the room with caution. I take maybe 3 steps in the room and there was a HUGE flying cockroach sitting on the pillow of the middle bed! I was going to have nothing to do with that so I stayed in the doorway. The guys were just as scared by it as I was. After just looking at it for a couple of minutes we went downstairs to tell the lady that checked us in. She told the guys to kill it because she was afraid!! So we went back upstairs. It was no longer on the pillow when we got upstairs so the guys were cautiously looking under the bed and then without any warning Abhinav decides to flip the top pillow to see if it was under it. It was! And it started flying, it flew right on to Keans leg…Ooo it was so gross. We all ran into the hall closing the door behind us. At this point the lady found us another available 3-bed room and brought us the key. We entered our new room with extreme caution. We fearfully looked under the beds and we were all clear…no cockroaches J The last room and this room were actually really nice, I guess you just can’t control the tropical bugs J

We were all sweating so we turned on the a-con and just relaxed for a while. Then we headed out to the streets to get an extremely late dinner and to buy some water. By the time we bought the water and headed down a block by the street food it was close to 2AM and the streets were packed! There were tons of people out without a worry in the world, just drinking a couple of beers and eating. We all ate some food and then headed back to the hostel to get some sleep.

Shanghai Formula 1

While Purdue was starting there Grand Prix week some of us were headed to the Shanghai Formula 1 qualifiers.

We took a shuttle bus from the indoor stadium to the track…it was about 45 minutes away. Then we had to walk ½ way around the track just to get to our gate (the track is over 3 miles long). When we got there it was early and some other races were going on. I don’t remember what type of cars they were but all of the guys seemed really interested!

I knew nothing about car racing, and I actually didn’t think I would enjoy watching it but I ended up loving it. Some of the guys that I went with are really into formula 1; they track it and know all the rules so they were able to explain things. I ended up learning a lot and loving it!

One of the things that surprised me the most was after the practice time…all the information about the cars and how they were driven is collected by the team and sent back to Europe to be analyzed. Then the results and changes that need to be made were sent back to Shanghai so the teams can make the changes; all within a very short time frame…the power of technology is amazing.

We sat right by one of the turns so it was awesome to hear the cars shift down really quickly to make the turn and then shift back up on the straight away. The sound was loud but honestly not as loud as I was expecting.

This is not something I would watch on TV but I would definitively go to another race in person. It was a lot of fun and great learning experience.