Everyone knows someone

Saturday was very odd in structure, which is never my favorite thing, but it all worked out well in the end.

Had a relaxing morning, then went back to Super Brand Mall (where I went to eat with the Swatties) to meet Joy for lunch. Joy is native Shanghainese and works at Standard Chartered Bank. She is the friend of Earl Carr, the guy from the Caribbean Association that I met through work, and he connected so we could do some language practice. Joy is very nice and a little shy, and all in all it was a very nice lunch. (Dove is much tastier than pigeon - which is, I suppose, what you'd expect.)

During lunch I got texts both from Amy and from Sarah, the girl from the bus, wanting to hang out. I let them know I'd call after lunch, but by then couldn't actually reach either of them. Rats. The day continued to go somewhat downhill as I went to find this hair salon mentioned in the Rough Guide and found the address to definitely be a clothing store. Luckily, I was on Huaihai Lu with all the fancy shops and really helpful salespeople, and they called the place I was looking for and showed me where it actually was on my map. (Different address. Also, different name. But still a hair salon!) Found it and got, as claimed in the guide, a haircut and half-body massage for 68RMB (Under $10). A good deal, even with the added cost of about an hour of walking and train-ing in the worst humidity I have ever felt. I'm not sure what made me think getting a haircut would be a good thing to try to do in my third language (I guess, since I started Spanish first?), but I'm happy with the results.

Walked into a fancy mall and looked at fancy stores and ate some fancy food, then decided there wasn't anything else I really wanted to do, which seemed like a sign to go home. Turns out it was, since a couple of minutes after getting back a huge storm began. By then I had heard back from Amy, and the storm was over by the time I headed out to O'Malley's to join her. O'Malley's is exactly what you'd think - an Irish pub full of Americans. We were there to watch a Rugby game, since Amy's friend Allister (sp?) is a huge fan of the South African team. It was a really fun place to be, even if New Zealand won. Were joined by the son of friends of Amy's parents (who almost went to Swat - lived with Yongjun and Mark just down the hall from me when he visited) and his friend from work. We spent a bit of time trying to meet up with some other people, but there was a private party at MAO (I guess it wasn't a party for the people.) and Zapata's wasn't worth staying at. Ended up at Bon Bon, and had a lot of fun. Went back to Amy's in the revived rain and slept soundly.