Shanghai: City of Feasting

This past week has been incredibly busy with saying goodbye to friends, finishing up things at work, and trying to find time to pack. Also, after two weeks of beautiful weather, a nearby typhoon has been adversely affecting the weather here. It's still clear and unpolluted, but the sky is filled with grey clouds and it will randomly rain for short periods of time. The wind has been quite strong as well. I heard that Thursday night they had to delay some flights from the airports. Fortunately, I was able to board my flight smoothly and am currently in Vancouver on a layover.

Anyway, earlier this week two of the Norwegian interns left for home, and Saturday 3 of us left. Coincidentally we are all Americans that left Saturday although none of us booked the same flight. Since Saber, one of the interns who already left, was the only other person in my apartment, things seemed a lot quieter at home. Even though we didn't spend a lot of time at home, it still was weird seeing his empty room. Before he left, most of the interns went out to a small noodle shop that he really liked. I think the owners were a bit overwhelmed when 15 foreigners came to their shop that probably has a capacity of around 24 customers.

By the end of my trip, it seemed like Shanghai had become a city of eating for me. I guess it was that way for me last time as well, but it seems kind of sad when I feel like the biggest decision I made every day was what/where do I want to eat. Since Shanghai is such a big city though, you can basically find whatever kind of food you want so for example, my last week of dinners was something like this:

• Friday - Indian
• Saturday - Xinjiang style Chinese Food
• Sunday - Turkish
• Monday - Lanzhou Noodles
• Tuesday - Sichuan Style Hot Pot
• Wednesday - some of my coworkers invited me out for a farewell dinner. I don't really know what style of food it was though
• Thursday - All you can eat and drink barbecue
• Friday - Shanxi style Chinese food, different coworkers invited me out again

So yeah, when there are so many different kinds of delicious food, it's difficult for me not to think about food. One of the other interns and I actually planned out all the places we wanted to eat but we only made it to 3 of the 6 places we had selected. It essentially boils down to the fact that if you ever end up in Shanghai, be prepared to eat. I'm pretty sure I gained 5 pounds in my last week of feasting.

Finishing up work though is still something I need to work on. I thought I was finished with everything with about 2 hours left on Friday but Rachel sent me two final assignments. One is optional: If I want, I can write about my experience at Wison and it will be published in one of the magazines later. The other thought was the longest article I have been assigned to edit yet. Its 91 pages so at least I have something I can do during my 12 hour layover here haha. I probably won't do much of it now though since I'm absolutely exhausted. It's around 3 PM here right now which means it's 6 AM in Shanghai. Writing something in English on my own is one thing, but editing/translating takes a little more brainpower.

One last interesting detail about my internship though was that on Thursday, the Brand Management Department called a meeting for all the interns to come together and brainstorm an English slogan for the company. They have already selected a Chinese one that really works well with the company's Chinese name but finding an equivalent English slogan is quite difficult. Because Wison is involved in so many industries (Engineering, Biopharmaceuticals, Offshore and Marine, Clean Energy, Petroleum, Heavy Industry, and some others) it's really difficult to just pick a few words that can sum up the whole company and create a brand that is truly Wison's. We had a productive brainstorming session but the decision for a slogan is far from over and I'm sure many more meetings will follow.