The only time I’ve got out of bed before 5.30am before is to catch a flight.  So the idea of this being a regular thing and to go and exercise was really beyond my comprehension.  The day just does not start that early!  I originally signed up for the EVENING Fitness Challenge but then the location switched (how could you!!?) so here I am, part of the MORNING JingAn team!  And actually, the getting up at the crack of dawn is the easy part.

WEEK ONE, SESSION ONE (Big Brother stylee voice, please)

5.45am, Jing’An Park, it’s a bit rainy, it’s hot and very humid.

First up – running.  Ok, I can do this!  I used to go running, well that was about 18 months ago now.  Next - push-ups.  These I can’t do.  I have jelly instead of muscles.  Skipping – I’ve not done this since I was a kid!  Oh, not like a schoolgirl, feet together you say …I hate skipping.

The Shanghai Dolls book club has been going since May 2009, when about eight of us held the inaugural meeting at Julia’s apartment.  This was the first time I met the Dolls.  Many books were suggested and we eventually decided on the first three (one book per month), the main influencing factor being their availability, what with this being China!  Since then the Dolls Book Club has been held every month at different venues around Shanghai. 

From now on, I’ll post a monthly review of the book that we’ve just read.  I guess this means that I’ll have to take notes form now on…  The usual way of things is lots of chat, catching up, drinking of wine and then “oh, we should talk about the book!”.  All pretty informal.

There’s a wide range of literary tastes in the Dolls Book Club, so it’s a great way to try out a genre that you might not normally go for.  There’s a few of us sci-fi fans in there so July’s book is “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick.  The film “Blade Runner” is based on the book and it’s being screened at Dada bar on Tuesday 27July and listed on Dolls Events Page. 

I've been to Cristal only once before, and clearly they have massively improved this time round in terms of service and quality of food. It's more of a "nice-dining" restaurant. As in, it's not as exorbitantly priced as fine-dining, but certainly not a cheap cafe. It sits nicely in between and is actually really close to where we live, but we hadn't yet found an occasion to go again. Located on the 4th floor of a shopping mall at Nanjing West station, it's easy to miss and relatively unknown unless you've heard about the restaurant and are specifically going there for a meal. What a hidden treasure :) Last weekend 8 of us decided to try out Cristal's Brunch set menu, which at 178 RMB (3-course) or 198 RMB (4-course) turned out to be ONE AMAZING DEAL that had all of us surprised and delighted. The quality of the ingredients was superb, the presentation was fine-dining style, the service was polite and attentive, and the menu actually underplayed the variety and quantity of food that we would be served. It was flat-out impressive and all of us were raving about the value of the brunch. I am most definitely going back and recommending visitors to go there for a relaxed, sunlit weekend brunch.

There are two types of people in this world, the ones that like the challenge that doing fitness and being fit brings you and others (like me) who are ‘fitness challenged’.

When I arrived to Shanghai 9 months ago, I was in really bad shape (I’m sure you know the symptoms), luckily for me I met Julia Taylor (the original doll) who opposite to me really enjoys her daily doses of fitness. Long story short Julia had the great idea of starting a fitness program in the format of a ‘challenge’ to bring some of the Dolls together and help us to get in good shape for the summer.

The program is designed under the format that there are 2 competing teams (due to the location of the ‘challengers’ we had a JingAn and a Xujiahui teams) training twice a week at our local neighborhoods parks with a different trainer (10 people per team). After a period of 6 weeks both teams get together for a fun picnic day and to compete against each other (as a team) to declare a winning team of the Fitness Challenge. This fun event ends giving prices to the winning team (thanks to our generous sponsors). In addition because we truly believe that is not only important to win but also is important the effort you have put during the 6 weeks of training we gave awards to the people (in both teams) that showed the ‘most improvement’ since they started training. I’m proud to say that together with my friend Mirna we won the award for most improved for the JingAn team, I cannot tell you how much it means to a ‘fitness challenged’ person to get this kind of award. We also gave prizes in recognition to our team leaders because all the time they spent coordinating our teams, from scheduling to making sure we all got the materials we needed to work out. Our teams in addition to having the goal of getting in good shape, also had the goal of having a good time and laugh among friends that is why we decided to give the award to the laziest person in each team (by democratic vote), because you should never loose your sense of humor the winners of the ‘laziest’ person on each team received the prize of (1) one on one training session with our trainers.

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On Saturday we had the first pole dancing class! In particular, I wanted to do it because it means I'd be 'forced' to exercise. My fitness levels are.... nonexistent. I'm generally just too lazy and love to eat, so exercise somewhat opposes that ;) So I figure, if I enroll myself into classes, and do it with friends, then I'd just HAVE to exercise, right? And obviously, pole dancing is FUN. A lot more exciting than jogging endlessly, how boring. I also like how you move to music, and it seems to me it's very similar to gymnastics/ballet.. what with the core strength and flexibility involved. So I figure, since I danced ballet for 10 years, I'd be more pre-disposed to do pole dancing than, say, rugby ;) The class was a LOT of fun, and so entertaining! It was all our 1st class ever, so it was all very beginner. We learned a lot though, and you realise how much coordination and strengh is needed for pole dancing. In fact, the next day, my muscles were so sore I couldn't stand up or sit down properly.. let alone walk without limping! My thighs were SO painful I just couldn't move them, and so were all these weird areas of my upper arms and armpits. Ouchhhhh. The pain was staggering. And all because of my zero exercise, hence none of my muscles are used to working out. Argh. Well.... hopefully now that I'm doing this, I'll get fitter and be in less pain after each class!

Lynn Modern Shanghai Cuisine (whew, what a mouthful!) is a chic restaurant boasting a fabulous location in the middle of the ritzy part of Jingan. The Art Deco decor boasts a modern interior, dark wood tables, and charming private rooms for large groups. We were here specifically for the all-you-can-eat dim sum brunch, though were quite disappointed when we found out that it was now 88元 (up from 78元). Still, the clean and neat restaurant and delicious food made up for it. The dishes were all excellent. You'd expect sub-par quality for all-you-can-eat, but the quality was fantastic. Most of the dishes were delicious, with only a few 'misses'. In particular, I adored the smoked egg, which sounded plain on the menu but we immediately fell in love upon first bite - it's basically a soft-boiled egg, the yolk all creamy and slightly runny. Another winner was the dan dan noodles, slippery smooth noodles resting in a delicious creamy spicy soup. The egg tarts, deep-fried red bean pancake and black sesame sticky rice balls for dessert were also stunners. 

10 of us girls decided to organise a cooking night, held by the Chinese Cooking Workshop. It's a large industrial kitchen with bilingual chefs and assistants - basically catered for expats to get together and learn how to cook Chinese food. IT'S HELLA FUN!Chef Huang was our star of the evening - a very very sweet guy that joked along with the rest of us. He handled 10 women wanting to marry him for his culinary skills very well ;) Man, the guy can cook! He makes it all look so easy, though we were struggling and looking so uncoordinated. It made me realise that Chinese cooking isn't so hard, but it's all in the preparation - which takes ages chop chop chopping stuff. Other than that, it's all actually quite straightforward.

We whipped up 10 courses (!!!!) and got to sample our hard work. The food was all, surprisingly, delicious! Impressive considering we were first-timers, but I chalk it up to Chef Huang's great instructions and patience.. especially since we were all drinking wine and laughing whilst trying to cook.

As the Shanghai Dolls aims to be not only be a group who goes out to eat, drink and dance, we often have some events to instill a little culture into our members. One of these events was a painting class at [the studio] in  a sunny May  afternoon. Ok, don’t get me wrong it was an afternoon of painting while enjoying some nice wine, but culture was the main theme of the afternoon!

This kind of event is for a small group of up to 10 Dolls and is usually in high-demand. We started the afternoon with an introduction of what we were going to learn and then jumped right in! I know that all the girls there had an absolute ball and would love to do this type of class again.

If you don’t know about [the studio] it is a small art workshop/gallery that has regular classes for either children or adults. [the studio] has a group of artists utilizing the space, including painters, furniture designers and any other creative’s who mesh well with the group. It holds various activities from art classes, casual exhibitions, parties and anything else they feel is creative enough. [the studio] has a motto of express, inspire, create!

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