Getting sick, better and not getting lost

I spent the majority of this weekend hiding in the flat and reading with occasional forays onto the porch in an effort to not get really sick. I bought some medicine at the store using supreme guesswork which actually seems to be pretty good.

Hiding worked till Saturday night when I found out about 20 Westerners were going to a lounge on the Bund. The Bund is a busy nighttime strip across the river from Pudong with a lot of danceclubs and neon lights and whatnot. I thought I should give it a try and not write them off as doing what I thought they were doing. It was actually more chill than I anticipated, I was encouraged by free drinks for women. I had red, then I had blue. It was a hookah bar (very good for cold) with live salsa music in Chinese followed by the skinniest belly dancer I've ever seen-- you could see her organs when she moved. I left while everyone was playing dice, somehow under the guise of "I don't gamble" despite the fact they weren't gambling. My flatmates were out till 6am as they all went to a dance club afterwards... definitely not my bag.

Dancers to salsa:


In the cab, Attn drunks-going-home:


There was only a slight panic in the evening when I realized I had neither my map ("I can walk") or my phrasebook ("I can ask directions") because I had switched purses.

The Office, as viewed from my half-cube on 3 1/2 /F: