The Mission

If you've been reading this you might remember that I had a plan. Well everything has pretty much gone to that plan.. kinda.

I found an apartment. It's a 6 bedroom 6th floor apartment on Xinzha Lu. That doesn't mean much to anyone who isn't Shanghainese (or an expat) but in layman's terms it means that I live in a pretty sweet location near to the main shopping district, close to pretty much all the nightlife too. So that's good. I'm living with a French guy, 2 American girls, a German girl and a Belgian guy at the moment, although I found out that the personnel change quite a lot around here so once the Belgian guy leaves a Swiss dude is coming back from holidays. The German girl is only staying for another month or so I think, but she's on holiday at the moment. An awesome Korean lad is staying at the moment (visiting the French guy) but he leaves tomorrow. Everyone works, I don't. Therefore I feel pretty guilty for sitting around watching House all day... well I would feel bad if it wasn't such damn good television.

The job front is looking pretty unimpressive thus far. Sent out a ton of CVs the other day so I'm waiting for the inevitable rejections. However one thing I have done is train with the Shanghai Shooters, a local expat football team.

Now I'm not good at football. I'm unfit, my passing is pretty poor, my shooting is worse. I'm pretty decent at tackling and heading (I think) but my miniscule height doesn't help with the latter. But I just want to play some bloody football, I missed playing regularly in Sweden and I was looking forward to playing on grass again. Training was absolutely knackering. There wasn't a patch of my Arsenal shirt (come on you lads!) that wasn't drenched in sweat. We had to run around a track for 12 minutes (I only reached a measly 6 laps... 8 was the 'good' amount), we did a ton of these drills too.. but the 12 minute run destroyed me enough so that my lungs were on fire. I used to have Asthma as a kid, I lost it as a teenager. After watching so much medical drama on TV I've got a feeling that the symptom of Asthma stopped when the cause of exercise stopped. I don't think it's gone away, it's still there and it means my lungs feel like the size of 2 apples rattling around struggling to do their jobs.

Tomorrow I gotta go get some drugs for it.

What tonight's training session showed was that all my previous goals in life are definitely not comparatively emasculating if I fail. I can live with being unemployed, bad at Chinese, weightlifting at a level lower than I did 18 months ago and being horrendously unsuccessful in the romance department... but I am seriously depressed with my cardiovascular capacity after tonight's session. I know I'm not great at football, but if I want to break into a team I can't have my fitness making it worse. Plus when you're with 13 other dudes who, while obviously knackered, can still finish all the drills and then play 30 minutes of football... well it's not a good feeling.

SO I have a mission! This isn't a plan, this is a militaristic operation which cannot fail.

Objective 1
I have to be able to run at least 8 laps of the track in 12 minutes

Objective 2
Not only do I have to take part in every drill (there are about 10 or so). I have to be able to do them all to a good level, as in no half-arsed attempts like today.

Objective 3
I have to get better at football. OK, that's a hard one but I can play 2 times a week. I think I'm going to choose to be a right back because:

a) There isn't as much running involved
b) I get to tackle
c) I can see myself being a decent defender (I like the whole tactical side)

Deadline
Bar objective 3 (which I can't really test), I want to reach my objectives within 3 weeks. This is when the first matches start to be played. Apparently there are 30 people in the team, and that needs to be cut down to 20. Based on todays performance, I'm first for the cut. Although it's incredibly 'high school American sports movie', I don't think getting into the team is a realistic goal.. seeing as I suck at football. Just the fitness goals at the moment!

Strategy
The first is that I gotta start cooking at home. It's cheaper to eat out but you can't regulate your diet and diet is half of getting fit. Also I'm gonna stop drinking. After tomorrow night (the Korean dude's last night) that's it. Teetotal. Back like when I was sober before turning 19. The booze screws up any sort of gym regime, makes me fat and it's expensive. With the money I save I can get better food that I can cook at home. Maybe I'll still go out and have soft drinks, but everyone knows that sucks.

Reward
I'm rubbish without incentives. Usually I can go with the non-material kind but this time I've got a nice little coincidence that can work to my favour. Today I went to the Nike store to get some football socks and shin-pads. Today I saw that you can use NikeID to make custom football boots. Today I discovered that I want some custom football boots. Today I designed some boots:


Check out the
Nike Mercurial Talaria V iD Boot
I designed at NIKEiD.com

I kinda had the colour scheme I use here in mind (well the Orange, White and Sky Blue). I can stick a little Tiger image on the heel and I'm gonna stick either my surname or my initials on one side, and my team number (if I get into the team), 09 (to commemorate this year) or my birth year on the other. How do they look? I think they're pretty cool

In 3 weeks I will buy these boots if I reach my goals. If I don't, then I won't. In the end, how am I gonna use them if I'm not fit enough to play football? So it works quite well.

And so ends my blog drought. I'd like to say I will have more regular posts but I've just had writers block for 8 days so I'm not making any promises.

One thing I will promise though... see you in 3 weeks (hopefully with warmer feet).

All about the Maos

So I got my first good sleep since I arrived last night. I've been napping a lot, might be the heat or really long jetlag but I've felt the need to have a few hours in the middle of the day. Then I wake up at 6am the next day and the cycle repeats. Indeed, last night I went to bed at 9:30pm because I'd been running around town looking for apartments. 6 hours and I found one I kinda liked, but it only had 3 bedrooms (and therefore only 2 people). Fortunately I was waiting on a response from a 6 bedroom flat I saw the other day and I got the greenlight to move in! So that's cool, gonna be out of this hostel in 3 days. That's just a little update on the housing situation. Now onto the main subject of this blog.

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The amount stuff costs in Shanghai is really warped compared to the UK. I was speaking to an estate agent yesterday and she said that everything is quite affordable, except housing. I think it's the complete opposite. For example, in Manchester my 3 bedroom student flat in a decent location was £480 a month (around 4900RMB). In Shanghai my maximum budget (which I'm hitting) is around £240 a month (2500RMB). That is hella cheap if you've ever rented property in the UK. If I actually had a real job, I could live somewhere absolutely incredible... maybe something for the future ;)

After deciding to go out for lunch (as in, spend more than 4RMB on street food) I was in the main shopping area of Shanghai (well one of them anyway); Nanjing Xi Lu. This area has so many designer brands and podgy white people that you would think you were in New York if it wasn't for the humidity. Since I'm here on my own, and haven't got anyone to hang around with, I've just been leisurely exploring malls and seeing what there is. My primary goal is to find an arcade with a Drummania game, so I can get my percussion fix.. but alas I've come up short every time. Secondly I've been trying to work out what sort of stuff I can afford over here. In Shanghai I can get a very decent sized meal for about 50RMB (£5 now, £3.50 back then). On the other hand, if I wanted to get a Chocolate Sundae at some American chain it would cost about the same. So you can have a banquet or an ice-cream for the same price. Weird huh?

Things are a lot different now than they used to be. As a result of Gordon Brown dumping my UK-Chinese savings onto a slab and cutting a fat third off of the amount, things are expensive over here. Despite the fact that the majority of the higher end brands are made in China, it's often more expensive to buy clothes here than in the UK! Take Lacoste for example, in the UK a Lacoste polo shirt is likely to cost about £65ish? I think.. I don't actually own one but that price rings a bell when I was looking pre-departure. In Shanghai a Lacoste polo shirt costs around 900RMB (£85)... and that's a cheap one. Before the credit crunch 900RMB was only about £65, but now it's £20 more. In another shop I saw a Lacoste shirt (I think, it had the same logo) for 1100RMB reduced from 3300RMB.... reduced from 6600RMB!!! That's like £640 for a polo shirt. Even before the credit crunch that is absolutely ridiculous. If you compare that to my rent, I could get a house for 2.5 months (6250RMB) or I could get a polo shirt (6600RMB). Drinks are also way too pricey. Now £10 is only 100RMB, those bottles of beer for 50RMB are not so appealing anymore. £5 for a bottle of beer... you really do not realize how expensive things are until you convert them and think of where in England would you pay £5 for a bottle of beer.

What does the typical Chinese executive earn these days? It's absolutely ludicrous how high these things are priced. No-one can afford it! The mall (Plaza 66) is rather empty, at least all the shops inside, so it's obvious that these stores are just there to keep up appearances. Even if I earnt a decent salary, the price of even the lower range of luxury brands are unaffordable (affordability of course includes value for money, even if I could buy it I wouldn't). So I just browsed... from outside the stores. Some of it was the shame of walking into a place that expensive wearing messy Vans with shorts and a t-shirt that has seen better days. There are other problems with Chinese shops that I gotsta tell you about but that can be saved for later.

After a thoroughly depressing afternoon, realizing that my idea of coming to China and living like a pimp, I went to a more regular store; the Puma store near Nanjing Xi Lu Subway. I found a pair of trainers that I really liked, for 419RMB with 30% off. That's what I'm talking about! But they didn't have my size. Seriously, anyone who says that the 'All Asian men have small penises' theory is a myth needs to try and get a pair of shoes in Shanghai. They didn't have US11? Come on! I might go back and ask them to order in a pair, if they can.

My worries were confirmed when I left the subway heading back to the hostel. I walked off the train and saw a white guy, about 24ish, wearing a t-shirt with a huge hole over the left sleeve. Got a feeling that's going to be me by the time I leave Shanghai.