Five parter on the weblog tonight.

Net Rationing

So here's the plan: I allow myself to buy an RMB 50 dial-up internet card on every day of the month that is a multiple of ten, and that affords me 30 hours of internet time for the following ten days. Sounds do-able? Well, considering I ran out of time 4 days early on my first try, this is going to be fun.

超级女声

My and Jodi's favorite singer, little Coco Lee sing-alike 何洁, was eliminated on Friday night's Chaoji Nvsheng PK, so we're not much interested in watching the show anymore.

Jodi noted that of the three girls left, two are sporting the currently popular 中性 look. How do you translate that word? Asexual maybe. Basically, they look "ambiguous". But you be the judge:

Oh, and when we went to Shanghai Book City this evening, we saw a bunch of high school girls hanging out near the front door holding Chaoji Nvsheng posters and recruiting passers-by to vote by SMS for their preferred contestant. It's just a TV show, folks!

Language Oops

I was walking to lunch with Jodi and a tout offered us a paper, proferring it and saying something about a "menu". I was momentarily surprised that this guy knew the English word for "menu", but figured that he probably meets English speakers every once in a while since we were in the neighborhood next to the Shanghai International Studies University.

Then Jodi remarked that he should have offered the menu to the 帅哥, and I realized that he had actually been calling her 美女. Oops!

Hong Kong Disney

Hong Kong Disneyland had its soft opening on the 12^th of this month. Jodi heard somewhere that there were low prices for package tours to visit, so we stopped by the travel agency just north of Raffles City on People's Square on the off chance that they'd be offering that specific package. Sure enough, 4 days and 3 nights, one day to tour the city and one day of free Disney exploration, hotel and meals and airplane ticket included, for RMB 2000.

The big stinker would be having to apply for Jodi's passport—she'd had to go back to Hunan for that—and my visa changed to add another entry. Oh, and the fact that it could probably be done funner and cheaper by travelling independently.

Surfing over Dial-up

Jodi finally got her computer working and modem installed, and I found out this tip in the process. I've been buying cards with usernames and passwords on them to get dial-up internet access here in Shanghai, but if you don't want to deal with the hassle and don't mind paying a slightly higher price (or just want to test out your new modem) you can dial 16300 with username "16300" and password "16300" for a net connection billed to your phone bill. That's nice for those times when you have a net emergency.