shang-a-lang-a-lang-hai!

So. Monday we arrived at the Fortune Forever Hotel in "Shanghai." That is in quotes because we are actually about a 50 minute cab ride outside of the actual city. Lame. But I think once we figure out the subway system, the traveling won't be so bad.  Our hotel is badass. We have our own living room and kitchen and then we have a good size bedroom with two beds.  Apparently though, the FF hotel promotes exhibitionists because our bathroom is completely glass.  The shower stall is glass, and the wall separating our bedroom from the bathroom is also glass. So yup. Rach and I get full shows anytime either of us needs to pee or bathe.  Our room is also the only room out of the entire casts, like that.  Fabulous.

So anyway, first night here, the band boys knew a couple of guys who play in a jazz band in Shanghai, so they invited us to come out to J2, a jazz club in downtown Shanghai.  Long story short, everyone bailed except me, Courtney and Justine. We jumped into a cab and headed off.  55 minutes later we ended up in the Greenwich Village of Shanghai and at the coolest little club.

ugh. blogger just deleted the rest of my update. Now you get the reeeally condensed version.

The jazz club was a great little nook.  Awesome band, good friends, and the best mint mohitos I have ever had.  Very chill night.
The next day, Me, Rach, Jake, Michael, and Andrew headed to the Jiang Gardens (I think that's what it was called) It's a huge outdoor market with all kinds of cool stuff for very very cheap.  I had my first bargaining experience and it's the funniest thing ever.  The vendors offer you a price in RMB and you basically bargain from there.  I usually would just cut it in half, and then never raise my price.  If they didn't acquiesce, I'd walk away, and then they'd usually pull me back in and give me the product for my bargained price.  It was great! I got so much stuff for sooooo cheap.  A ton of prezzies for all of you (:  There was also a huge garden in the middle of the square which was beautiful and had kittens in it!
That night, Dominique and JoNathan threw a Christmas Party for all of us.  Dom's inner grandma came out and he went crazy with hot chocolate, cookies, icecream, and christmas carols.
The next day was opening day laziness, until we got to the theatre.  It's a brand new facility and it's beautiful. Amazing acoustics.  The audience was muuuuuch more receptive in Shanghai compared to Suzhou, which was nice.  It was a really solid show.  The afterparty was held in a gay bar/art gallery, 5 floors below, in the catacombs of Shanghai.  Private VIP room and open bar.  Do I need to say more?
It was a great, great time (:
This morning was spent recuperating and trying to get into the Christmas spirit.  Turns out Christmas isn't an easy thing to comeby in China.  I miss home and our tree and fam.  and food. god I miss holiday food.  I'm so bitter you all decided to have a whole foods Christmas Dinner the one Christmas I'm not home (:
Tonight Caroline, me, Rach, and Justine are doing hot chocolate, Love Actually, and Miracle on 34th street.  So hopefully that will help! Well, off to do the finale (we have free wifi in our dressing rooms, and it's the fastest connection we've had since we got to China! Lovely). Love, love, love to all of you and Merry Christmas!

goodbye suzhou, hello shanghai!

So just a quick update before we leave the Suzhou Convention Center.  Last night was our third and last preview in Suzhou.  It was our quietest audience yet.  The crowds are so strange here.  People chat during the show, smoke, and use their cell phones.  Last night during "Teacher's Argument" someone got a call and apparently it was too important to pass up to they just had their conversation right there in the second row, while we sang.  Luckily it's a loud song (: Despite all this, they are always extremely appreciative at the end of the show.  I think they really enjoy the finale and the fact that half the cast comes out into the audience.  We've gone out for encore bows all three nights. Hahaha and the first night, they brought out this gigantic fern flower bow pot thing and placed it right in front of Caroline for the entirety of the bows.  It was hilarious.  We now have designated flower movers, in case it happens again.
So last night after our show, our Suzhou sponsors took us out for "a drink".  This of course, after a long, freezing cold trek through the back alleys of Suzhou, turned into an 8 course meal at a restaurant.  They brought out the weirdest things.  Needless to say, I tried countless unknown amounts of meat (ehhhhlll) all with heads still attached.  Donkey, Pork, a Chicken that literally looked like they boiled one of those fake plastic yellow skinned chickens, Squid, some kind of amazing whole fish, an unknown soup substance that smelled disturbingly like a goat pen, some random animals' stomach lining,  a mishmash of some kinda of rubbery spiney seafood dish (pictures to follow) and spicy potato chips with some kinda of tomato raspberry sauce.  They also tried to get us all wasted on some kind of Suzhou special sauce.  It actually smelled and tasted like death.  They succeeded with I'd say a good 65% of us.  Me not included, I couldn't get the motor oil past my lips. Any, long story short, it was a successful, fun, and experimental night.  My first authentic Chinese experience I'd say.
Then, we came back to the hotel with beer and chocolate and danced to Christmas Carols.
Some sad news, it seems like we won't be going out on our second leg of the tour to South Korea.  It's a really big bummer. I cried.  Apparently we had a sketchy backer and things went awry.  But! These things happen, and we're in China for another month and we're having a great time and the show is amazing, and we are all so so so proud of it! So no biggie. Everything happens for a reason.
Alright. I have to pack and then run to our favorite bakery for one last coffee in Suzzy! Hope all is well with you all and you are all safely tunneling through the snow!

Rachel is Amazing

More videos!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wf7ZXwrP3E&feature=player_embedded

finale MAGIC!

AHHH this makes me so excited! Just a little taste of the show for y'all.  This is first tech rehearsal sans costumes and AM of FAME but it still looks pretty dang good to me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqrSaTGWdOg&feature=player_embedded

I'm on the far left SL tower and then once Fame starts, I'm the girl on the right corner of the soul girl triangle, next to Presilah and Ashli.  Have fun!

food food glorious food

I'm really trying to have an open mind.  Really. I promise I am.  And this is not going to be a rant about how awful the food in China is.  Because it's really not awful.  It's very good, just very different.  The major problem I am having with it is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to find vegetables.  I don't think the word vegetarian exists.  Everything has meat in it.  And it's weird meat.  Looking and tasting.  But, like I said, I'm trying to have an open mind and try everything.  Yesterday at breakfast I dared Andy, our trumpet player, 20 RMB to eat the duck head that they had on the buffet table.  It was a serious duck head.  It had been de-feathered, but its' eyes, beak, and skull were all intact.  Literally the grossest thing I have ever seen.   Somehow, I ended up being roped into the situation, and he convinced me to try it with him.  Armed with chopsticks, we dove into the brain.  Salty, mushy, and nauseating.  Needless to say, I will not be eating duck again anytime soon.  But see? I told you! I'm being adventurous!
Our meals have pretty much consisted of dumplings, noodles, dumplings, strange meats, dumplings, and stewed tasteless and nameless veggies.  I promised myself that I would not eat at any of the American fast food places while I am here, however, when Arthur handed out menus to Subway today during rehearsal I jumped on the bandwagon and snagged a turkey hoagie.  I needed a taste of home, don't judge.  Later in the day I stopped at a convenience store and bought a bag of kumquats, an apple and an asian pear.  My pear delights that I love so so much, unfortunately were just not as good as they are in the states.  Why? Aren't they asian? Shouldn't they be better over here?  Does America inject sugar into their fruits? I was bummed.
Tomorrow, I am going to journey off on my own to find really good chinese food.  i know it's out there. It must be.  Right now though, all I want is a bag of carrots.  and celery. cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes.  Fresh, raw veggies. PLEASE!

Ni Hao!

Luckily we have techy Jake on our side, here in Suzhou, and he figured out a way to get a proxy to get us onto the banned sites here in China.  Now hopefully that doesn't mean that we will all be hauled off to China jail, but in the meantime, I'm able to enjoy my facebooking and blogging at my leisure.
So.
I'm in China!!!!!
There are little random moments throughout the days when it just hits me, and it is just so bizarre that I am on the complete opposite side of the world from all of you.  Alright.  I will try to go through the past three days as accurately and briefly as possible.  Which will be difficult, timeline wise since we cross like 500 times zones in a matter of hours hah...

Ok so...Sunday, America time, we left Frederick around 11 and bussed to Newark NJ.  Watched UP on the bus and sobbed into Jamie's shoulder the whole time. Such a sweet, sweet movie.  Got to the Best Western, Newark style and Justine, Jamie and I went into the city to meet Meg for dinner.  I'm glad we did.  We had really good mexican and really good friend time.
Monday: America time.  Woke up at 6:30 ughhh to get to the airport.  Checked my bags.  They only weighed 62 lbs all together! So proud of my packing haha thanks mom.  Got through security smoothly and two hours later we were in the air.  15 hours to go.... I slept probably a total of 1.5 hours and watched four movies, "Julie and Julia", "My Sister's Keeper" (why I did this on a plane? no idea.), "Spiderman 2", and "Devil Wears Prada".  Rachel, on the other hand took 1 dramamine and 2 tylenol pm and was out the ENTIRE 15 hours.  She woke and said "Don't hate me but it felt like we were on the plane for 2 hours." I hated her.
Tuesday: China time.  Got to the airport, bussed two hours to Suzhou.  They told us that to avoid jetlag we needed to not nap and stay up til 9pm.  Didn't happen.  All of us passed out on the bus.  Got to the conference center at Suzhou.  Chinese men running everywhere with our luggage, our bus leaving with our luggage still on it, Arthur telling us we couldn't go to sleep for another 3 hours....lots of lost communication and sleep deprivation.  I have never felt more disconnected from my body.  Somehow in there we ended up getting Dim Sum at the restaurant in the hotel for a ridiculously cheap price (74 RMB for four people which breaks down to a little less than 6 American dollars...total. Yup. full dinner for a buck fifty. pretty schweet.) Finally passed out around 8:30 on our cement pallets in our room.

Ok clearly I am not doing a good job of creating a condensed version, so I'm gonna leave you with those first few days and update on the rest later tonight.  Enjoy!

"I like your smile, but unlike you, put your shoes on my face"

aka "keep off the grass". hahahaha oh man, a sign in china translated in english.  Apparently there are American phrases translated wrong like this alllll over China.  I can't wait to buy t-shirts for all of you guys with ridiculous translations.  
So we had our first run-thru today.  Parker and MaryLee got to come see it, which was really nice.  It helped to have an audience, even if it was small.  I think it went surprisingly well.  I know I have probably said every single post so far about how talented this dang cast is, but they really, really, reaaally are.  Ughh I wish you all could see it! It's such a fun little show.  If I could, I'd fly you all out to Shanghai on Christmas eve so you could see the x-mas day show and celebrate christmas with me!
Melissa from Nederlander came to talk to us today about the actual trip over to China.  Looks like I may be totally out of internet communication for bits and pieces of the trip.  There are definitely certain areas that ban both facebook and blogger, but I will try to keep this updated whenever possible.  She also told us that the internet is so censored by the government over there, that they have the control to erase our e-mail accounts or blogs if there is anything that they don't like in the context of the messages.  So if you're going to e-mail me or comment on this thing? Please refrain from any political comments or snarky jokes about Tibet hahaha since that's a regular topic of conversation with me.  But yea, I'd like to be able to keep my e-mail account.  Thanks.
While we're on the topic of the commies....i'd just like to state that their health care system sure does sound dreamy...Melissa told us that one of the guys working tech on Fame last time they did the show over there, broke his foot.  Went to the doctor, got it fixed for 160 RMB.....20 bucks, american dollars.  No health insurance.  Woof.  
Alright, I'm battling my 3rd cold in a month, so off to bed.  Gooooodnight!

addendum

clearly i figured out how to post a picture...
haha disregard last couple of sentences of last post (:

flashback to senior year

So. In Michael (director) and Katie's book, Ms. Bell has a pixie cut.  Meaning?  The un-attractive, grown out bob thing going on had to go.  So Jinay (stage manager) made a hair appointment for me and three other girls in the cast for wednesday night at 7 after our rehearsal.  Soooo Courtney, Justine, Melissa, me, Jinay, and Arthur (tour manager) roll in just around that time to Salon She, a salon owned and run by Christian.  If I continue telling every detailed account of this story, you will be reading this post for the next seven hours...since that's how long it took for us to get out of there.  That's right, do the addition...seven hours. 7. For four girls.  Long story short? Take out + 3 bottles of wine + 36 pack of pabst blue ribbon + one hair cutter and three trainees + hair color + scalp massages = 4 incredibly pleased but exhausted and over the situation cast members of Fame. At two in the morning.
But.
I have never had a better haircut in my life and it was free so, thank you Christian!
Today was rough, rehearsal wise.  Everyone is at the point in the process where we are all pretty exhausted.  People are getting sick, myself included, and I think we're all just ready to get over to China.
Speaking of sick, I bought the nasal shoot thing tonight, that's kinda like a netti pot with more power.  I used it and it was the most uncomfortable experience ever.  I thought my nasal cavity was going to explode.  It basically is a squeegy bottle with saline solution in it that you flush up your nose so that it shoots the water out of your other nostril and mouth.  It really gross, but my nose feels a little better so I guess it works?
ANyway...I'm trying to figure out how to post pictures on this thing so I can put up a picture of my hair, but they outlook is pretty bleak as of now.  Maybe tomorrow? Sounds good. Night!

The show is quickly coming together.  It's amazing how much has been accomplished in 8 days.  Just a couple more bits in the second act to hash out, and then the show is completely blocked and choreographed.  AND not only are we getting so much done so fast, it's not even a stressful process. Plenty of time for sleep, and fun.  Saturday, Jake, Rach, Justine, and I went into DC for MaryLee's 21st b-day. So much fun and so good to see so many people from home.  It was a nice goodbye (: Sunday, the 4 of us went into Georgetown to show Justine around and do some last minute shopping.
Tonight a small group of us went to see "The Blind Side".  Dad, if you're reading this, go see it immediately. You'll love it. Very sweet movie.
I think I might try to get an amazon kindle before I leave....
They're expensive but I reeeeeally think it'd be worth it for me to get.  One of the boys in the cast, Andrew, just got one and he sat and tried to convince me to get one for about 20 minutes today.  I have so much down time during this show, plus multiple 15 hour plane rides, PLUS all the commuting to and from each city, PLUS and most importantly teching the show once we're over there which let's not lie, i have a feeling will be a bit rough. A 25 person cast + 2, two-ton moving set pieces + a bazillion intense dance numbers + plus running crew that doesn't speak english? Ya. I think I'll need some heavy reading. Thoughts? Please convince me, because I'm having heart palpitations about spending that much money....
oi. ok i should probably become responsible and go to bed. night y'all. love.

bust that techno beat

AHHH! So Jasper has once again wowed the crap out of us with his arrangement of the Fame finale.  He totally re-worked it with this uber retro/cheesy/bad but so so soooooo good techno beat.  It literally feels like we are in an underground disco club in the czech republic surrounded by moshing, sweaty europeans. Which is A-MAZING. Anyway long story short, I get to be one of the "Soul girls" ala Jesus Christ Superstart an I couldn't be more excited about it!

Yesterday I did table-work with Michael (our director) for Miss Bell.  While we talked, we came to the joint conclusion that Miss Bell should have a pixie cut sooooooo, looks like we're heading back to second semester senior year folks!....I have a bit of cold feet about it though.  I was looking in the mirror today and really appreciating my long hair. Meh, it'll be a nice change.

Today is Justine's (our Serena) 21st birthday.  We surprised her in her room last night with a card and a snuggie, and tonight the cast is going out for drinks with her.  Before that though, I'm having dinner with Erin, Jesse, Paul, SB, and Joanna for a little pre-thanksgiving CUA reunion. woot woot! Rehearsal tomorrow and then home for turkey and fam

Fame-ity fame FAME!

First day of rehearsal down.  I can't even being to describe how excited I am for this whole shebang (is that really how you spell that word?).  We got so much exciting information today, I'll try my best to condense it so this doesn't go on forever!
First thing this morning we had a music rehearsal with our music director, Jasper.  He's great. Honestly, that word doesn't do him justice, but he really is wonderful.  We learned the music to the 15 minute opening, "Hard Work" and the cast sounds awesome.  So many good voices, and they can all belt their faces to the heavens.  It's kind of a bummer cause the teachers are pretty non-existent for the majority of the song, but it was fun to sit back and listen to everyone.
Later, they showed us a model of the set.  It's two 30-foot towers weighing two tons (each or together, I can't remember), and it's currently on a ship on its' way to China.   Walt Spangler is our set designer.  He also designed the sets for Witches of Eastwick and Ace at Signature,  which is why I think the model for Fame kinda reminded me of the towers in Ace.  It's crazy to me how much work goes into the tech aspect of all these shows.  All of that work and then on top of that having to move everything as efficiently as possible around an entire country? Holy crap.  So much respect for our technicians.
Our director, Michael talked to us about the trip itself and what to expect and why exactly it is that we are taking this tour over there.  Our production team has been to China three times before to work with a performing arts university on another production of Fame, with the students in the school.  Apparently the school is great and has a lot of good instruction going on, but unfortunately after graduation there aren't any musical theatre venues in which the students can participate in any type of theatre.  Phoenix and Nederlander are trying to change that so that there are more theatrical opportunities for the students upon graduation.  So I guess our role in that is basically showing the government that musical theatre is not just an "american thing" that it can and should be accessible to everyone.  Which is freaking awesome haha!
Jake, Roddy, Justine and I got a gym membership at Fitness First last night and Jake did an hour and a half P90X workout with us.  My abs and arms are about to fall off of my bones but hey, gotta work off that month and a half of bucks county bliss (:
Anyway, this morning (can you tell i gave up writing last night and have moved onto the next day? haha) Amma (Miss Sherman) and I had rehearsal with Jasper for our duet, "The Teachers' Argument" and I'm about to leave to rehearse the Finale with some of the girls.  Things are going great, I love the cast, we're all getting along really well and I'm actually doing well with remembering everyone's name, which NEVER happens.  Hope all is well with all of you!!!

It's pretty amazing, the panic that ensues at 11:26pm, the night before I'm supposed to leave with two suitcases packed to last me approx. 5 months...
I wish I would have felt this panic 4 hours ago when I sat down to watch  Flash Forward and Greys.  I'm being dramatic.  It's really not that bad. Clothes, pills and vitamins to probably keep 7 people healthy for at least three years, socks, every charger imagineable, blankie, socks, camera, script, recorder, journal, socks....I think I'm pretty set.
well, ready or not, here i go!