Back to being a human again...

I am so excited to report that I am FINALLY over this damn illness (knock on wood of course!) It was the worst experience I think I have ever been through (besides the whole Bali sickness in 2005). For two whole weeks, I think I must have been to the toilet about 100 times. I don't even believe that is an exaggeration! Anyhow, I will spare you the details and just say that I am going to watch what I eat now. Then again, the doc did say, "you are in China Hsiao so you can't avoid these things." Great...
Anyhow, for the past few weeks, I've just been struggling to get by and get my work done (both work-work and schoolwork). I of course am procrastinating right now and decided to put up a little update on what's happening here. Shanghai is finally getting warmer! I'm so excited about that. The only bad thing is when the weather gets warmer, the streets get more crowded and the city becomes a bit "smellier." I don't care... the sun is out and that's all I care about. Past week, I went out to a friend's birthday dinner at this really nice restaurant (where I will be taking my visitors of course!) called Face and we had a fab time. It's just nice to catch up and have dinner and a couple of drinks. It was a weekday so I was good and went straight home. However, last night, that's a WHOLE other story. Last time, I went out with some of my girlfriends and partied a bit too much. Got home around 5 am (then again, I'm sure some of you guys are like "wait, that's nothing new for Hsiao." Had to get up this morning for a conference call with my school classmates, and boy, was I out of it. I deliberately set my alarm for 5 minutes before I had to take this call. I think everyone on the phone knew I had just rolled out of bed. :) Last night, we went to the place called "The Shelter" and it's an old bomb shelter in Shanghai that is now an underground bar. Totally cool, with a great DJ so for those of you coming to visit, I'll def take you guys there. A bit smoky but then again, IT IS CHINA! I sometimes think that I should start smoking JUST because I'm in China...ha.
Outside of my house right now is the sound of freaking machines drilling holes in the ground because they are building this massive mall thing in the middle of summer. I might have to look for another place to live cuz it is RIDICULOUSLY loud. And trust me, they do this ALLLL night long too. Cheap labor... that's why houses go up in like 5 days.
OK I'm rambling now. I thought I'd just post something here to let you know that I've survived this giardiais parasite. I think that's how you spell it. Not fun I tell ya...not fun at all. Anyhow, I'll try to post some photos when I do get a chance to take some. Right now, I have been a lazy bum. I'm planning my next trip to Kyoto for some fun in Japan. In May, I'm off to some remote part of China with some friends from work so that should be fun! I can't wait! I need to take advantage of these travel deals :)
Until then... miss you guys. xoxo

Terrible sickness....

Nice title for a posting, I know. I have been out of commission for the past week sick as a dog. Ever since I got back from my trip to USA, I really have not had time to rest at all. I immediately started a class the very next day upon returning and then after four intense days of that, I had to travel to Beijing for work. I think my body was completely operating on adrenaline and then it just crashed! It has been a while since I had to take antibiotics! I thought I could beat it, but one night, I got up in the middle of the night and realized that my ears were killing because I had an infection in my throat. I went to my own refrigerator and started self-medicating...thank god I had some amoxicillian in there to numb the pain. I know, some of you might be like, what the hell is she doing medicating herself. However, the pain of living in China is the lack of doctors and there was NO way I was going to go to a local hospital at that hour. I don't even want to go to the doctor during the day here in China. I have never taken that much time off of work ever, but really couldn't get out of bed to go to work. I of course had to work though so just sat at home and worked in bed. After one day, I was starting to suffer from cabin fever! I knew that it would be wrong to go out, but of course, I went out with some friends and had some drinks. I didn't rage though so I was being somewhat good :)
I posted some photos from our China Summit meeting last week in Beijing. The entire PR office was sent to Beijing for a two day meeting to discuss the current China business market. It was THE WORST trip I have been on... I was bored out of my mind. Granted, the trip was a good way for me to meet a bunch of the staff in the Beijing office and I was totally moved by the speech given by the President of the company, but it really did not require TWO days. To make it worse, we were pretty much quarantined in a very remote part of town so that we were prevented from going downtown to party. We were pretty much staying in a "Chinese country club." It is sooooo far removed from what you'd think of what a country club is. In China, it is pretty much cramming as much crap in one area as possible and there is NO upkeep of the place. This place where we stayed in had a horse stable, bowling, karaoke, etc. However, everything, including the horses, were old, dirty, and smelly. Thank goodness I had some of my fellow colleagues who were able to be "bad" with me and sneak out of the meeting and went for a nice walk. We actually decided to steal a golf cart and drove it off the lot! How crazy are we! We walked around the property and attempted to go and ride a horse. However, after seeing these horses, I realized immediately that none of them were "fixed!" These horses would have thrown me off in a second cuz they are mean mutherf*ckers. We all decided that we were not going to ride because we were all scared of possibly ending up in the hospital. We decided to go chase geese instead...that was a mistake too. We almost got bitten! Anyhow, we had a great time just getting outside and walking around. It's amazing how China can control the weather...we had blue skies for the entire day even though it poured in the morning. Can't wait for the Olympics...clear skies everyday! whooooooo hooooooooo.
What I learned in class today: DAMN (drunks against mad mothers) - a new acronym that is used to combat MADD... guess I'm just tired out of my mind. :) I'm actually writing this while I'm in class pretending to pay attention. For those of you who know me, you know that I'm a crazy student!
Until then...xo