If you’re like me, one of the things you love most about living abroad is when people come to visit.  It’s a little taste of home without the hassle or expense of actually going there.  Plus, I love Shanghai, so I also love to show it off to friends and family who come to see me.

But here’s what I discovered after a recent visit by my parents: Shanghai is not Beijing.  In Beijing, you’ll never run out of historic, cultural, touristy things to do.  In Shanghai, well, not so much.  The things that I enjoy on a regular basis in Shanghai don’t really cut it when my parents come and want to experience “China.”  So here are some ideas of what to do with your parents if they visit that try to blend the old and new of China while still showing off the personality of Shanghai.

Yu Gardens

Beautiful, traditional Chinese gardens.  It’s a great place to wander around, take pictures, and people watch.  My best advice: make a day of it and head to the gardens early to beat the crowds, see the gardens, and then have a walk around the bazaar.  Take your parents to eat some traditional xiaolongbao at the famous Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant (the takeaway queue is intimidating, but you’ll have better luck if you just go inside and sit down).

After lunch, have a walk around the old town area.  There’s the Chenxiangge Nunnery as well as the Temple of the Town God, both near Yu Gardens and worth a quick visit.  Fangbang Zhong Lu is a great street to wander along as it’s got lots of souvenir shopping as well as nice shops, tea houses and restaurants if you need a break.  Also on Fangbang Zhong Lu is the Shiliupu Fabric Market if your parents want to have any clothes made before returning home.  It’s a good idea to hit the fabric market early in your Shanghai visit, in case the clothes you order don’t get done on time or need more than one fitting.

Do NOT go to Yu Gardens at the weekend, unless your goal is to show your parents just how many people live in Shanghai.

Believe it or not, you can volunteer at an event and in the end feel… nothing. That’s when you start questioning yourself if you did something wrong or whether the event was unsuccessful. If you’ve gone to a few volunteer events and questioned yourself at the end, then most likely you’re going to all the wrong events. Don’t give up volunteering at this point; just make sure the event is within your interests. Volunteering can be your release valve after a stressful week at work, a week of boredom, or just wanting to be involved in the city. I would say volunteering is probably the greatest contribution an individual can give.  

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve gone to a number of volunteer events back home in Seattle and at times didn’t feel anything. For me, I like to feel an inner peace or happiness at the end so I know I made a difference and the event benefited from my help. For several events I’ve become a regular volunteer because the impact I gave and received was amazing. One event I regularly volunteer at is the yearly Spaghetti Feed event that my drill team helps operate. Located in a small venue in Chinatown, we serve spaghetti and garlic bread to anybody on welfare to have a free lunch. World hunger is a big issue that needs to be solved and doing the Spaghetti Feed event is the start of diminishing world hunger. Cleaning up after the event is usually when I start to feel my inner peace or happiness. With Spaghetti Feed, I feel it every year because I know I’m helping my community members in need. Knowing this, I feel as if I truly have made a big difference in the world.  

Shanghai Dolls may come from all around the world, but one experience unites us: we’re all wai guo nu ren (foreign women) here in China!  This experience can be exciting, glamorous, and advantageous… as well as frustrating, isolating, and inconvenient.  In addition to sharing this unique experience, we often share language and culture, which makes it easier to share friendship.

Although foreign girlfriends (especially Dolls!) can be vital to our happiness and sanity, most of us would probably be thrilled to add a few more Chinese friends to our circles.  The thing is, despite your best efforts, sometimes it’s just so… hard.

Most obviously, there’s the language barrier.  Then, you can’t agree on the best way to spend a Friday night: you like to dance until dawn after a few drinks at el Coctel, while she prefers to get a full night’s beauty sleep after KTV-ing it up at the nearest Haoledi.  On a deeper level, you have different life experiences and goals.  You’ve been able to visit several continents, and are working to establish yourself in your career before starting a family.  The only stamps in her passport are from the Expo pavilion staff, and she worries that if she doesn’t secure a husband by the magic age of 28, she’ll be forever doomed to a life of spinsterhood and financial insecurity.  There’s often a financial barrier as well:  many of us maintain or improve our lifestyles in Shanghai, while many educated, professional Chinese women still struggle to heat their homes and care for their aging parents.  Oh, and what is the deal with her texting you all the time and holding your hand?

Meditation is one of those things that we hear about all the time in different circles and someone always knows someone who does it and talks about how it is something that changed their life for the better.

My personal journey with meditation probably started over ten years ago when I kept hearing about it from different sources and thought it was something that I should try.  So knowing nothing about it, except the fact that you are supposed to sit in a cross-legged position and maybe say OM a few times while having your hands on your knees I sat down and attempted to meditate.  As you can imagine this did not work!  I was one of those people who kept telling people that it is impossible for me to meditate.  I would say things like “I just can’t do it, my mind is too crazy and is incapable of thinking about anything, but mundane things like what I need to get at the grocery store or “I wish that cute guy in the office would just ask me out on a date already, because it is obvious that we are sole mates”.

Over the past ten years I did attempt meditation on numerous occasions, but always failed, because I lacked the tools I needed to have a successful meditation practice.  I had never actually been told how to meditate!  Obviously there is more to it then just sitting with your eyes closed and thinking about nothing.  I think another factor that stopped me was that I thought everyone who was capable of meditating just sat down on there butt and started and it was so easy for them.  This, I am here to tell you, is a complete urban myth.  It would be like saying that tomorrow I think I might run a marathon with no training at all!  Running a marathon with not training is impossible; meditating with no practice or some kind of instructions is also completely impossible.

Last October I decided to take myself off to Thailand for a holiday.  I know when people mention heading to Thailand we all conjure up images of cocktails at the beach and partying until the early hours of the morning.  That has to be the complete opposite of what my holiday was about!

A little background information before heading into the life-altering holiday that I went on.  When I arrived in Shanghai over three years ago my company shipped me off to humid Guangzhou and while I was there I got incredibly sick with salmonella poisoning!  Not a pleasant experience and I was then chronically ill for 10 months until I flew back to Australia to see my doctor.  Long story short there was an unusual strain of bacteria living inside me which needed an extremely strong course of two different types of antibiotics to kill them off.

So you know how I can’t stand Oprah because of how she is just this random, middle-aged single woman who is always shoving unsolicited advice down people’s throats?  Well as a random, 30-something woman from whom most people know better than to ask romantic counsel, I’m jumping on this advice-giving bandwagon because it seems like a fun place to be.

So…

1. Don’t take it too seriously. It really is like buying a lottery ticket.  Chances are that it will end in a big fat zero.  Which, to be fair, you should consider a win because at least he didn’t try to kill you.  Set your bar of expectation way low and don’t prioritize that first date over anything else.  Really, don’t do it.  Think about it like looking for a needle in a big old pile of other needles.   Better-looking, socially well-adjusted needles.  Which are all already taken so you are left to sort through “The Others” like some creepy parallel universe version of Lost.  Which is how you feel as you trawl through maybeillfindsomeonewhoisntbroken.com and then self-awareness kicks in – belatedly – and you stop and think: “Eek!  Is this what guys are thinking when they are looking at the profiles of people like me?”

Okay ladies as most of you know Shanghai is or can be the land of “Happy Endings” for men who choose to go out looking for this…  “Ni Hao, zhe ge anmo shang dian shi xiao jie de shang dian ma?”  A few simple words the single men of this city need to ask and off they go to a “happy” place, but what about the women?  Being the type of person who lives to please the members of the Shanghai Dolls I have done some research and found somewhere that offers this service!  Yes Shanghai has a happy ending massage for women too!

So the story goes (or so I have heard, cough, cough)…  There is a guy in Shanghai who is now offering this service to the women in the city who are looking for a bit more than their trusty rabbit has been offering.  You will get a two-hour massage and then at the end he will ask you to turn over and he works his magic fingers until you are screaming away with pleasure.

The whole process is very professional and not embarrassing as you may think.  After the massage when you may be feeling a little vulnerable, because you start to realize that you just let a stranger take you places you never imagined he will let you know that he is going off to get some towels to clean off the oil from the massage and give you five minutes to recompose yourself.  After he comes back he gives you a nice facial massage, wipes off the oil and finishes the session by even walking you to the cab!

Since V-day is coming-up, and because I co-own a sex shop here, I thought I'd take the time to talk about what's available in Shanghai and where you can get it. As I'm obviously biased, I welcome you to take my advice with a grain of...MSG.

In the review: Buccone's, Oh! Toys, G-Le, Amy's Bedroom and of course that sex toy market. There are also some recommendations for Valentine's shopping with someone special.

Image credit: krazydad