I'm still alive!

Finally I have something worthwhile to post to you all! I've been a very busy girl. In fact, I think this is my first completely free day for about a month. Go figure. Anyway I'm posting a link to my trio's performance of the Shostakovich Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 67! We performed the entire work on Friday night at one of the weekly chamber music concerts held by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. There was a captivated full house, and I think we played quite well...I'm not biased or anything!

You can judge for yourself! I don't know why the sizing is all funky....blah.

It's already the middle of April!?!

Time sure does fly when you're in China? I don't know if the whole "fun" thing applies to this semester. For the last three weeks I have been commuting to and from the other side of Shanghai for orchestra 3-5 days a week. Mind you, it takes at least 40 minutes to get there and another 40 to get back, add in 3 hours of actual rehearsal and that's a lot of time. So I've been keeping busy. 

For instance, yesterday I woke up at 6:30 and was in a practice room by 7:00, practiced for two hours and was late to Chinese class by 15 minutes. After class, I did another hour of practicing, ate lunch and continued practicing. At 2:30 I rehearsed with my piano trio so that we would do well in our coaching at 4:30. After our coaching, I ran to the metro station so I would be at orchestra on time at 7:00. I didn't get home until around 11:15. If you tally all of that, you'll see that yesterday alone, I played the violin for at total of...wait for it...wait...10 hours. That's right...10 hours. 

Needless to say, I needed a break. So today, with no Chinese class, Joanna and I had a girlie, spa, do nothing kind of day. We went and saw the new Fast and the Furious at a real movie theater (not a bootleg DVD...go us) at 10:40 am, followed by window/boutique shopping (though neither of us actually bought anything), then a pedicure that took an absurdly long time. And for dinner, we made crepes with strawberries and ice-cream. Unfortunately, then we both had to go to "work"...Joanna to teach and me to orchestra. At the moment, I am waiting for her to get off of Skype so that we can go get the massages we so desperately need. 

Anyway, I know this update is probably not all that interesting or informative for you. I'm just too darn tired to come up with anything witty or cute! I promise to try harder next time. 

Countdown to France: 2 weeks! (Also, I have no idea how this happened...seriously, France seemed a long way away, and now suddenly it's here and we still don't know exactly where in France we are going. This might be a problem.)

Quick Update!

This has to be short, I don't have time for too much! In bullet fashion, this is what has happened in the last few weeks.

1. Piano Trio = awesome and hardcore. I really like working with my new partners and I think the Shostakovich will turn out exceptional. 

2. Lessons are really intense and I feel like I will never have enough time to practice everything I need to practice. My hands might just fall off first, which would be bad. I just have a lot of repertoire to learn.

3. Chinese is fun. I feel like I've made progress. I can definitely communicate much better than last semester, I've even had a few of my Chinese friends tell me that I'm actually not that bad...

4. The Shanghai Sinfonietta convened this week from Wednesday to Friday, we prepared an entire concert in only 2 rehearsals and 1 dress rehearsal. We played with the cellist, Jian Wang, who is featured on the movie "From Mao to Mozart" if you are interested. 

5. We had the concert last night and it was particularly fantastic. I think everyone had a really good time.

6. I've gotten much closer to my Chinese friends so far this semester...I have a lot more of them, and we spend a lot more time together (this is the product of having rehearsals all the way in Pudong and having to travel an hour back and forth by metro). 

7. It looks like France in May is a go. I just sent a copy of my passport to the Xu Zhong (the conductor)'s assistant...there will be more updates on this when I actually find out things.

8. I'm really tired...this week has been kind of stressful. I think we're getting massages tonight.

 

9. I need to go practice...

Offline...

So part of the reason I haven't recently posted is due to my current lack of internet at the dorms. You see, we only paid up to six months, because they told us it would be cheaper than paying for a year, but now those six months are up and we have to reorder. That has been accomplished, but someone from the company has to come and install the the hardware in the room (this will supposedly happen sometime this week). So until then, I am online when I am at various coffee shops...

In other news, the last week and a half have been extremely busy. I have hit the ground sprinting. Last week, I had three hour rehearsals for orchestra every night before the concert on Saturday. In the midst of that all, my piano trio started and I had a lesson (which means hardcore practicing has to start again). This culminates in the fact of me playing the violin for 8+ hours everyday after having barely done two everyday at home...uh oh. 

The concert on Saturday was wonderful. Rehearsals were interesting, to say they least. On the second day of rehearsal, our conductor stopped, looked straight at me and said, in English, "Where are you from?" I answered and he asked a few other questions about Oregon, my exchange, etc. It was extremely awkward as it was in front of the entire orchestra, roughly 99 other students, all Chinese (except me). But in the end it was a really great concert. It was the 50th Anniversary of the Butterfly Lovers' Concerto, being performed by the woman who premiered it 50 years ago...so that was actually quite amazing. 

In other news, I have a ton to do. Today I have to move my stuff over from one room to another and I have a lesson at 5. It also happens to be Joanna's birthday, so some form of celebration will be required. Fancy massage anyone? I vote yes. 

I am off to practice! I will update when I actually have internet in my room again!

OH! And I joined a professional orchestra. It is called the Shanghai Sinfonietta, conducted by Xu Zhong. I will be in my first concert with them on Friday the 20th! Yay!

Back in Shanghai!

Well, we're back from our whirlwind trip to the middle of China. Apparently it was very untouristy of us to go there, but who cares...some of the stuff we saw was pretty amazing. We saw the Yellow Crane Tower, Guqin Terrace, Guiyuan Buddhist Temple, Hubei Provincial Musuem (which boasted some impressive exhibits), Hubu night market, and we tried to see the East Lake and Mo Hill, but it was too rainy and miserable by the time we got there on our last day.

Day 1:

We got up early, leaving the hostel around 8am to see some sights! On the way to the Yellow Crane Tower we stopped and tried some snacks. Some were fabulous, others were not. I'm becoming a fan of fried bananas though, if that gives you any kind of clue. Finally we got to the tower and started our wanderings. It was a little strange because we were the only waiguo (foreign) tourists, everyone else was Chinese, go figure. They thought we were pretty funny, I think they were wondering why we had traveled to Wuhan of all the places in China. I'll let the tower speak for itself.

After seeing the tower and it's accompanying sites, we crossed the Yangtze and tried to make our way to the famous Guiyuan Temple, stopping along the way to see the Guqin Terrace.

And that pretty much ended day one. By the time we finished there, we were exhausted and retired to the hostel for some sleep before another busy day!

Day 2: Day two saw pouring rain and plummeting temperatures. It came in handy that one of the main sites we wanted to see was the Hubei Provincial Museum (a newish museum that specializes in the history of the Hubei Province).

bronze.

celadon.

really cool drum.

really big bell.

REALLY big bell.

traditional performance with big bells.

That basically took up our entire day, however we made time to go to Hubu Snack Alley and try many things. It's usually a 50/50 shot with the snack stalls...sometimes its the best thing you've ever eaten and sometimes it makes you never want to eat again. The other funny thing is that you actually have to make it a point to ask whether what you are about to eat is sweet or savory, because everything kind of looks the same.

Day 3: 

Sadly, day three was even wetter than the day before, but we were determined to see the East Lake and Mo Hill. So we took the bus the hostel recommended, but I think we got off at the wrong stop. We ended up walking across the bridge to the middle of the lake. You must remember that this is in the middle of what could feasibly be called a thunder storm. Needless to say, we didn't see much. We hailed down the first bus we saw, got out at the top and got back on the opposite bus. 

And then we traveled home. It was a long journey. Ugh. I'm tired now and have a ton of work to do!!!

Out of Shanghai!

As some of you know and some of you don't, my friend Aida, who I met at Meadowmount a few summers ago, is visiting me in Shanghai at the moment. She arrived two days before I flew in, but we hung out on Saturday and all day Sunday. This morning, she was scheduled to fly to Beijing (because no matter how much you want to see your friends, the Great Wall kind of takes precedence), and Joanna and I were supposed to go to class. Little did we know that there were no classes today or tomorrow or for the rest of the week for that matter. (No Chinese class that is, technically my conservatory classes start this week, but I am not taking any lectures, so they will start next week sometime or Friday, who knows) 

Hence, we concocted a plan to go somewhere...anywhere...anywhere but Shanghai. We searched around for cheap flights and found a cheap one  to Xi'an in the north (that's where the terra-cotta soldiers are). But when we tried to book the flights, they said that the price had changed, substantially at that, so we decided to continue looking. Also unfortunate, Aida borrowed Joanna's Lonely Planet China book for Beijing, so we were kind of stuck looking at a map and randomly choosing names. We finally settled on a place called Wuhan which is in the Hubei province, it is in the center of China. It is another large city, but it at least boasts some historical sites and artifacts. It might also be possible to take a train to the Three Gorges, right up the Yantze River from Wuhan. Did I mention, Wuhan is another river city, located on the Yangtze! How cool is that?

We're not really sure what our plan is...we have plane tickets and a hostel and I guess we'll just find out when we get there. That's the plan...or nonplan such as it is! I'm excited. Finally, I'll get to see something other than Shanghai!

Return Trip...

So I am here again, I made it alive, if not a little rough around the edges. Things started out great with a half full plane on the way to Tokyo...until the most garrulous man decided to fill the seat next to me. Once we were in flight, I was excited to get my in flight entertainment started. I was sad to find out that my tiny personal television was broken and because there was a man sitting next to me now I couldn't move over and use that one. Boo. But everything was okay and the flight from Tokyo to Shanghai passed uneventfully. I passed through security with no problems and collected my luggage. The cheese passed through undetected (if you were wondering).

Pai's driver was there to pick me up and we were on the road before I knew it. Unfortunately, about twenty minutes into the trip we ran into a massive traffic jam that took almost an hour to clear. Most of the time, we were squished between two buses or large cement trucks, oh dear. One lane of traffic became three and two lanes became five to accommodate the anxiousness of all of the drivers. But finally, after only an hour and a half of travel in pouring rain and horrific traffic, we pulled into the driveway of my dorm. Aida and Joanna came down to help me carry up my luggage and then we had a late dinner at around 11:00pm. 

And now, I'm exhausted.