Exactly as we'd hoped, it's been an uneventful week and an eventful weekend. We got through our first week of classes fairly smoothly and, surprisingly, without casualty. Friday night was our "welcome dinner" which was much as I remember it from last year- replete with jelly fish and a chicken head. Apparently the more food brought to the table, the "friendlier" the gathering. Based on the over-abundance of leftovers, it was a very friendly meal. After the dinner was done, we went back to our old stomping ground, a bar called Kommune in Tai Kang Market, where we continued to have a "friendly" time Canadian style with generous amounts of wine and beer.

Saturday night, I headed over to Paul and Anthony's place to get ready for our big night of KTV (Chinese style, private room karaoke). Ola said she'd come join us a bit later. We had a couple drinks and started sinking into the couch, at which point Ola walked in, shot us a dirty look and herded our butts out of the apartment. We quickly determined that our first attempt to find a local KTV was definitely a "gentlemen only" sort of spot, so we headed to the other main street.

Thanks to some ill-timed traffic lights we got stuck waiting on the median along with a large group of fairly drunk Chinese folks. Being the polite person I am, I pointed, stared and loudly asked my friends why they thought these people all had eggs hanging around their necks. You see they did in fact all have eggs hanging around their necks. One woman walked up to me and explained in broken English that it was a holiday and the eggs were to be eaten at midnight- one egg for women, two for men because "men have two eggs" wink, wink, nudge, nudge. She took her egg off and put it around my neck urging me to eat it at twelve. The light changed and off we went.

We got to the KTV only to find our new ovum-endowed friends were going to the same place. They insisted that we join them for the rest of the night. Case after case of beer was rolled in as well as bottles of fire water (a foul-tasting Chinese alcohol), and bags and plates of snacks. We were handed dice and taught how to play a few drinking games while David, the man with the best language skills, started programming English songs for us to perform for them- Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain, My Way, No Matter What (from Sinatra to Boyzone, it was a little schizophrenic, but we were happy to play along) They loaded us up with drinks, danced to our songs and at midnight reminded us to eat our hard-boiled eggs. As Anthony put it, it was an epic night with very "friendly" people.

Today I went for a big American breakfast and then bailed on everyone. I napped, got some work done and spent several hours arguing with the washing machine. Two hours in the wash and another two hours on dryer mode and my clothes neither smell clean nor feel dry; I'm obviously doing something wrong, but I think I'll fight that battle another day. It's Sunday night and I've got an early morning ahead. My friend Phoebe arrives in Shanghai tomorrow, so something tells me that this week I'll have a little more to say about my goings on.

I hope your weekend was as friendly as ours.