Job Hunting Holiday

Job Hunting Holiday
22 September 2010

Mid-Autumn Festival

Shanghai, China<>
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Yesterday I was supposed to go to Beijing. But my job applications are due this Sunday, and I am not as far along on them as I needed to be to finish in Beijing. So I called Hardy and cancelled with apologies and ate the $50 train ticket. I will go to Beijing in November instead.
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Today was a perfect quotidian day. I was productive working on my job applications that are due this weekend, and I went on a nice run around my neighborhood. I was warned not to expect to go running outdoors in Shanghai, due to the number of people and level of pollution, but I had a nice jog. It may have helped that it was overcast and occasionally drizzling, but it was a nice run. I had gone to the fantastic Vietnamese place down the street, Pho Real, for lunch but the serving was enough to act as dinner as well, so I finished that meal before meeting up with Monica and company to go to the Expo. It was my first time at the Expo. I only made it to two pavilions, Chile and Australia. I also got my photo taken outside of the USA pavilion. At the Chile pavilion, there is a great wine bar, though we did not pick a great wine. We also had empanadas and mini pisco sours. There we met a throng of Chileans, acquired Chile flags, and joined forces to attend the party at the Australian pavilion. It was meant to be for Expo staff only, but a friend of a friend got us in. It was good times and great oldies, even if the night was more Chile than down under.

It is a holiday in China, the Mid-Autumn Festival, which includes three days off. I should probably eat a mooncake, though I tried one a few weeks ago and was not particularly taken by them. Yesterday was incredibly busy, and there was far more traffic in the streets than I have seen yet, but today was peaceful and one had the feeling many more people left Shanghai than came for the holiday. No stores or restaurants I tried to visit had closed for the holiday.

In China, if you have a mid-week holiday, you work on the weekend to make up for it. So much for well-timed holidays making for long weekends! Luckily, I am not effected by this scheduling phenomenon at school and do not have class again until Monday.

Pictures: with the Wake Forest crew at the USA Pavilion; viva Chile (for this week's edition of it's a small world, the Chilean in the picture happens to be the nephew of my econ professor/the head of my MBA program back in Barcelona)