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!