I’ll be there fu man chu: Central Perk in Shanghai

Ah, Wednesday. I am often reluctant to get out of bed since it’s my day off and therefore I may as well lounge in my jamas all day and embrace the idea of perma-bedding. Today was a different story. My alarm went off around 9:30am. I smiled and opened the covers. FREEZING! About 35 minutes later, I got up, skipped downstairs, booted up the Internet, and blared the “Friends” theme song three times. I was ready.

After a bite of orange and a sip of green tea, Bernard and I hopped the subway and ventured out an hour’s way to Hailun (high-loon) road where we visited the spitting image of everyone’s favourite tv café: Central Perk. We waltzed down a really China-China street. What I mean by China-China is that where we live, you see some street carts, cafes, clothing stores, big grocery stores, and other things you’d expect to see in a big city. Where Central Perk was located there were rickety houses turned shops and shops turned houses. There were ghetto noodle houses and a billion scooters piled on top of each other. A couple of weird looking carts carting giant jugs of water and big planks of wood were parked outside an everything-in-the-universe shop the size of my classroom. It was weird. It was super China-town China.

I was kind of expecting to hit a ritzy part of town and find a sparkling New York style café. Nope. We kept walking and got to a business-like district and inside a boring looking building was a teeny tiny room with a teeny tiny lobby: Central Perk!

Me acting like a crazy ass fan.

I squealed as I walked into an empty café that I’d become so familiar with over the past ten years watching the best sitcom known to man. I smiled as I powerwalked around the room. On one side was the iconic orange sofa. On the other, art-deco style paintings. On the perpendicular corner was Gunther’s coffee bar. Opposite that was the bench and stage-like area accompanied by Phoebe’s guitar and Hugsy, Joey’s penguin friend!

I was thrilled. It wasn’t exactly as seen on tv, but it was close enough and I was in it! Above the orange sofa was a flatscreen tv playing endless episodes of my favourite show. We were on Season Eight.

Bernard and I sat down and perused the menu. There was very little on it and even less in terms of eats. What I had stumbled upon online was the Beijing location which was pimp and giant in comparison to the Shanghai location. All they had to eat was pizza and cupcakes, and so Bernard had a pizza and I had the only cupcake offered: The Rachel. I really wanted the Ross (chocolate cupcake with oreo cookie crumble and oreo cream inside). The Rachel was a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting. I was at the Friends café! I HAD to have a Friends cupcake! So I ordered it and a violet tea. Bernard got an Americano in a one-of-a-kind Friends mug with “I’m Over You” printed on it from the episode where Rachel drunkenly calls Ross when she’s on a date and tells him she’s over him and he has no idea and it’s all like WHAT?! And there we have a classic Ross/Rachel moment expressed via mug. Another was an “I Ross take thee Rachel” mug. OMG! ← Another mug. Classic Janice.

As we waited for our food, Bernard and I watched an episode when I noticed a cat prancing around. “OMG! It’s like Smelly Cat!”

I said. “It is Smelly Cat” a customer said to me. I looked over and a Chinese man in a business suit was holding Hugsy the penguin and smiling at me. He joined us in watching Friends and we made conversation where Bernard discovered that there are people in this world who love Friends more than I do. He was a little disturbed by this guy’s obsession. Richard, our new friend, (pictured below) began the long conversation on the greatness of this show after I mentioned that I loved Ross and Mona together. He respectfully disagreed and said that Ross and Rachel are perfect together and have too much history. I think I ruined his life by saying that I loved Mona. NATURALLY I know Ross and Rachel belong together, blah blah blah, but one cannot mistake the fact that Ross and Mona were really good together. Anyway, Richard and I discussed Friends as if it was politics and we were in a political science university lecture. Bernard quietly ate his pizza and watched the Halloween episode.

Now, everyone and their cat knows that I love Friends. I’d punch a baby to meet any of the cast and I’d crush skulls to own Monica and Rachel’s apartment. I’m a fan. It’s a great show and I know pretty much 93% of all the lines in every episode; BUT my new friend Richard was legitimately a bigger Friends fan than I was. Not only did he know a bunch of crazy stats about specific dates of specific episodes, BUT… he was named after Richard Crane, one of the producers of the show and Monica’s mustached boyfriend, Dr. Richard Burk. Can you believe that!!!?!?!?! I’m serious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To be honest, I’m surprised his name wasn’t Ross.

He also told me that Monica reminded him of his mother because she was controlling and therefore he would not date a girl like Monica. Haha! He was an interesting dude, and the way he acted and chilled out in the café like he owned the place made me wonder if he either lived there or went there every other day to just watch Friends for hours on end. It’s entirely possible. Bernard thinks his job is to just know everything about Friends.

The funniest part about our encounter with Richard was that he felt it necessary to explain the jokes in the show to us, as if we didn’t grow up in North America where the Friends culture was born. HAH! I admire this guy for his passion surrounding a really wicked show, but still… I wonder if he watches other shows. I guess not.

<<<---The owner of the café also gave me a “Friends café exam” of which I OWNED! I didn’t ace it because there were stupid questions on there like “On what date did the series finale air?” Bitch please. I have other things to worry about! But I did know Joey’s full name and the names of certain badass guest stars. I even explained when Rachel found out Ross loved her. The owner was impressed, but when I wrote that Joey had 8 sisters (apparently, there are only 7), the owner looked at me like, “Leave now. You are a disgrace to super fans everywhere.” Oops. Hah!

I went into the café with the intention of buying all Friends paraphernalia in existence, but the only thing there were key chains. Naturally, I gravitated towards them, went “OMG! THESE ARE SO COOL” and the owner gave me one FOR FREE! I almost cried. Literally, I teared up. Then I asked if Bernard could have one AND HE GAVE ME ANOTHER ONE! I was tempted to ask for 700. I didn’t. ---->>>>

So my cupcake eventually came (she legit made it from scratch), and I must say the icing was to die for. So I shouldn’t have eaten it, as it was cream cheese and my lactose intolerance usually prevents me from going anywhere near milky things, but I was in Central Perk in Shanghai! Life was really special at that specific period in time; and I thought, screw it, I’m going to have a YOLO moment and down this cupcake. And I did. It is now Thursday and I haven’t died yet… in time…

The cupcake was alright. It wasn’t amazing or anything, but I’m pretty sure cupcakes don’t really exist in China, so in that sense it was kind of awesome. The whole experience wasn’t as anticipated, but it was great. I finally set foot in a Friends café made to represent the real Central Perk in NY. In CHINA! THAT’S cool!

After my dreams came true, Bernard and I were still quite hungry (the menu online told me I’d be able to find muffins and sandwiches there, but no) so we went to our favourite noodle house and inhaled some beef noodle soup. It was SO good. I absolutely love the noodles in this country. I could live off of noodles!

Anyway, enough of that. In the words of Chandler: “Could I BE any happier in China?!” Life is good. And with a Friends cafe visit and some noodles to top off the afternoon? Life is great.

Until next time,
Sarah the Wun with all the China

KABLAAAAM BOW WOW! Chinese New Year Fireworks and Puppies

After three long and gruelling days of overtime phonics camp, Bernard and I began our Chinese New Year 10 day holiday!

Phonics camp, you ask? Overtime, you ask? So phonics camp is an optional thing to teach over Chinese New Year and I decided to sign up for the first few days of it. I told Bernard to do the same as I'd be at work anyway so why not. From 8:30am to 4pm, Bernard and I each taught phonics. For those of you who are not sure, phonics are essentially sounds and blending consonants and vowels. One of my true loves! :) Needless to say, I had a blast. I love phonics and phonics loves me. Kids, however, are typically not the biggest fans of making the "p" sound and differentiating it from the "n" sound... y'know. Plus, it's the holiday. They don't want to be at school.

I had the older kids (6-10) so I was on cloud 9 about my phonics camp. My kids were mature enough to understand and old enough for me to be like "Stop speaking Chinese... this is an English camp". And for the most part, they got it and I was spared countless headaches. Bernard enjoyed his camp too, but he had the younger kids, so he cried blood more often. He did come up with this WICKED phonics game called "Sound Zombies" where all the people make a sound (I chose L because my kids have a hard time saying it). The zombie walks around saying R and if a person gets caught by a zombie, they change their sound from L to R. Educational!!!!! AND the kids effing LOVE it. Bernard said a lot of his kids were scared of it (hah) but my kids (I had a LOT of boys) went apeshit over it. I used that game as an incentive to do the more "boring" things like recite tongue twisters and listen intently as Teacher Sarah said things in a perfect North American accent to which they must try to mimic. For the most part, I had the BEST time. It was an excellent way to cap off my work week and it made the CNY holiday that much more refreshing when it began.

On our first night after completing phonics camp, we stuffed our faces with delicious Muslim food (I miss Abu Dhabi sometimes, and having a Muslim restaurant RIGHT down the street is BLISSSSSS) and then had some drinks and lit off some fireworks. The next night, more eating, drinking, and MORE fireworks. This night Bernard and I were stumbling home from a friend's place when we saw a complete intersection pretty much blocked off. We strolled over and some random British dude was setting up what looked like an epic display of fireworks, firecrackers, and other flammable shit. We HAD to see this. He had boxes upon boxes of fireworks in the middle of the intersection and rows of firecrackers like sun spokes rolled out into the street. Cars were stopped and honking to get through. Finally, he lit them off and we didn't think the firecrackers would connect and make a huge display... we thought they'd fizzle out like ours did a night previous. An eruption of sound and smoke happened when four dudes lit the end of each firecracker. The crackers popped and sizzled until hitting the centre of the display and then KABLAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMM! A giant fireworks display and an eruption of sound and light. I covered my face and was like OMGGGGG. I had NEVER seen fireworks THIS close before. One piece of shrapnel bounced off my foot!! It was CRAZY. Only in China! :)

OH! I forgot to mention. Our first day of holidays began with a puppy!

Our friend was going to visit his fiancee's parents in another town and couldn't bring his dog, obviously, so naturally the dog lovers we are, we said we'd take her for the week. She's currently on my lap making this blog incredibly hard to write, but HEY, at least she's not pissing on the floor!! Damn dog...

Anyway, so every time we came home from eating or drinking or a nice casual stroll because we had nowhere to be (I love holidays), we'd be greeted by BaiBai! The puppy who pees too much. Seriously, I think she has a problem. But AAWWWW:

So a couple of days into the holiday the weather was perfect. When I say perfect, I mean sunshine for days, little pollution, and temperatures SO nice it might as well be May in Ontario!!!! Bernard and I took this opportunity to stroll around our area and explore. We walked around forever. It was amazing. Seeing people walk around and smile because it's all sunny and such... it was perfect. Shanghai isn't usually SUPER sunny. And people aren't usually outside as much because of pollution. So that was a beautiful day.

One thing that's kind of sucky about CNY is that most places are closed. And by most, I mean like ALL places. All the workers go back to their hometowns, naturally, as they should. But can you imagine a big city like Shanghai and NOTHING being open! Some things are open, and because the New Year is 2 weeks long, some things only close for a week or a few days, which is nice, but generally, things are full on closed. We're waiting for our xiaolongbao place to open again. Soup dumplings? Omgggg. Come to China. I will take you there!

So this CNY has been a lot of lounging, eating, discovering, relaxing, and just spending time together. Bernard and I work a LOT and only get one full day together when we're working, so it's been nice to enjoy some dinners together at a reasonable hour!!! We haven't done that at all, haha, seeing as we both work until 9pm.

We both really like China. I really want to beef up my Mandarin skills so I can grocery shop alone and with ease. Bernard is better at blindly walking through a Mandarin conversation, and he is the one who gets approached because of his highly Asian appearance. Me? Nope. I really want to be able to bust out a little Chinese and freak out the old women who yell at me, God knows why. Probably because I'm so damn beautiful. *flips hair*

Apparently, this is the only BIG holiday we get all year, so we're making the most of it. I've gained several inches on my stomach and we've spent LOADS of hard earned quay (kuh-why) on food and it's been great. Life is good. Life is really good.

Sidebar: As first time parents to a puppy, Bernard and I are now in full agreement that we are not ready for a dog. Between the whining and the early rising and the muffled curse words from him, it's a love-hate relationship with this puppy. Bernard tries to reason with her and it's hilarious. We love her, but we're over her. She's like a baby with fur. Also, she likes Bernard more than me because I'm bad cop.

Here's Bernard with his little helper while he's cooking. (She ate from the garbage and now she's not allowed in the kitchen. HAH!)

But the other day I think I scared the daylights out of her when she peed on Bernard's pillow and I Optimus Prime chucked her onto the balcony after a soft bat to the head and a solid Arabic scream NO! Now, I think she respects me and she's been very cuddly and gravitating towards me.

This is a solid life lesson: If you stand your ground and are firm but reasonable, little things (kids/puppies) will like you and respect you.

But yea, now Bernard's jealous and our marriage just doesn't need that. :) Hah!! I jest. It's been cool being "parents" for our week off. Parents who get to leave their little one outside? That's my kind of BaiBai. :)

AAWWWW!!! She just circled and plopped down beside me. That's my favourite thing dogs do. Alas, I need a pastry. I haven't been NOT hungry since before Chinese New Year and I'll allow it. :)

Yours,
The Wuns-on-vacation

P.S. For those of you who can handle the cute, here's BaiBai falling asleep in Bernard's arms. It's with great willpower that I'm not with child... just saying:

The best of friends. Dogs > Cats