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On Thursday, my housemate and I were relocated for the third time this summer to accomodate transferring employees. Instead of staying in the single-family home compound way out in the middle of nowhere and far from everything as we were before, this time we were moved to the centrally located, modern, nicely-furnished and super convenient serviced apartments at the Ritz Carlton. I was ecstatic for a number of reasons. One, it is a two-minute elevator commute and 30 second walk from my office, meaning I no longer have to get up at 6:00 am to catch the 7:00 am shuttle everyday, and no longer have to spend 1.5 hours a day commuting. 2) We are centrally located, meaning closer to everything…grocery stores, banks, restaurants, bars…you name it. Best of all, I’m a 12 kuai cab ride from my friends’ houses, which makes meeting up and going out a piece of cake. 3) The apartment itself is pretty sweet. It’s clean, big, and modern. Plus it’s a Ritz Carlton, so the bedding and towels are delightfully luxurious. I now have down covers and feather pillows instead of a hospital-bed like blanket and lumpy pillows, probably my most favorite thing about this new place. 4) I take that back, the most fabulous thing is the health club. We have free access to the really nice gym, indoor and outdoor pools, jacuzzi, and sauna, all a short two minutes away from my room. It is basically the nicest, most convenient, most luxurious place I have ever lived in my life.

That being the case, my first weekend there felt like a vacation. I completely forgot that I was in China, which was easy to do considering  the weather this week has also been abnormally spectacular: blue skies, puffy clouds, sunny, balmy…not your usual China fare.

My living in luxury weekend began Friday night. It was my new friend Michelle’s 25th birthday (my good friend Pete’s roommate), and she had an extravagant night planned. (Her father owns the biggest modeling agency in China. Needless to say, she is a very well-connected person when it comes to hotels, bars, clubs, fashion boutiques, and basically any high-end fashionable place). We first had dinner in a private room at the Tang Dynasty, a very fancy Hunanese restaurant in the Mirae Asset Building. The Westerners were outnumbered by the Chinese, so we were at their mercy when it came to ordering. Aside from a dish of pig tongue, all the dishes proved to be delectable. After that, we went across the street to another Ritz Carlton and headed up to the 58th floor to Flair Bar, which is touted as Shanghai’s highest outdoor restaurant and bar. Whether or not that is still true (there are certainly much higher buildings these days), the view is still undeniably spectacular. Overlooking the Huangpu River, the vantage point from our outdoor VIP seats (thanks to Michelle’s connections) offered us a breathtaking view of the Bund and iconic Pearl Tower. The air that night was crystal clear, a rare occurence in Shanghai, and the amount of detail and distance you could see was frankly a little trippy when you are used to having your vision obscured with a veil of haze. I felt like Plato’s caveman, emerging from the darkness of a fictitious reality to see the true form of reality in the light of day. Okay, maybe I’m being a bit too dramatic, but clean air is something that I’ve come to value more than any material object, and it can have such a dramatic impact on my mood and state of mind. But, back to the night itself, we had a wonderful time on the rooftop enjoying the view and drinking Moet (like I said, it was a luxurious night).

The next day was even better. Still balmy, sunny and blue, I invited Pete and another friend over to enjoy the sunshine by my new rooftop pool. We spent exactly 6 hours chilling by the pool, drinking mojitos, and swimming. Pete and I also enjoyed a cigar each, and then afterward had a Western dinner at Element Fresh. I confessed to Pete that I felt a little guilty having such an idle, conspicuous consumption day, and he said that most people work really hard all their lives to be able to have a life like this, and then either do not have the time or are too old to actually enjoy the fruits of their labours. Bottom line, he said, is to enjoy the good things in life when you actually have the chance to enjoy them. Guilt or not, it was a really fun time.

Sunday also proved to be above average. I met up with a friend and we went to the clothing market to have some clothese made. I wanted to fix a pair of pants and have a cashmere blend winter coat made (I haven’t had a new winter coat in a while, figured it would be cheaper to get one here). So we spent a couple hours there picking out fabrics and designs, and afterward went out for a very hygenically questionable Chinese lunch (It was a hole-in-the-wall place, and we half-expected to be incapacitated in a few hours, luckily that was not the case). We then headed back over to the Bund to a restaurant/bar called M on the Bund for an afternoon classical music concert. Every last Sunday of the month, M on the Bund hosts a music lovers performance. Tickets for students are only 10 kuai, so we couldn’t afford NOT to miss it. The programme consisted of two Haydn! opuses (Op. 77, “Lobkowitz” and Op. 76, “Fifths”), and was performed by a string quarter from the Shanghai Chamber Music. It was beautiful. I forgot how much I love classical music! After that, my friend and I decided to go back to the Portman pool. It was already evening, so we thought the hot tub jacuzzi would be a better place to hang out. Oddly enough, the Jacuzzi is not outdoors near the pool, but inside the ladies locker room, in a room next to the saunas. As we were both female, it didnt matter, but if you were ever trying to have a co-ed jacuzzi party, that wouldn’t work out too well. We ended up spending close to three hours hanging in the jacuzzi (and out, and partly in, when it got too hot), just chatting. We had the place mostly to ourselves (occasionally someone would walk in to use the sauna, unfortunately ruining our view by walking around butt-naked, as Chinese women are wont to do in a public locker room), but all in all, it felt like our own private jacuzzi.

In the words of many a rap artist, we were balling!