Shanghai with a little help from my friends

Uh oh, it's already noon on Sunday and I haven't written about Friday or Saturday yet!

I can't actually access my own blogspot site anymore (I'm hoping to be able to sometime in the future again, but who knows). I assume this has something to do with what is known as The Great Firewall of China. Since I can still post, this will only change a couple of things: my mom will be copying the comments and emailing them to me (but PLEASE keep commenting. I want your comments very much and I'd love for them to be preserved on this blog for whenever I can next access it.) Also, the formatting might not look as nice (not that it was anything fancy before), especially with pictures, since I can't check it out and see how it looks.

I gave you a taste of my feelings about work on Friday already. The day was generally pleasant and went fairly quickly - I managed to keep myself fairly busy. Also got myself there and back without a hitch, which was cool. Had an 8-kuai box lunch, which was tasty. (That's just over $1, a very tasty price.)

I feel bad for people studying English here (read: everyone Chinese), because there is a lot of bad English around everywhere. Wouldn't you start learning things incorrectly?

Friday night I came home, made myself a sandwich, and relaxed after my long two-day work week. It felt really good.


Saturday was super fun and exciting, are you ready? I went in the morning to the Foreign Language Bookstore, which was easy to get to since I had realized there was a stop of a bus I often took that was right nearby. They have enough selection to assure me I will not run out of things to read, as long as I'm willing to pay $10 each for them. Ate lunch at a Singaporean place, which was delicious and included a mango smoothy. Went then to the Shanghai Grand Theatre to see if I could get a tour, but it was right during a matinee performance of Mamma Mia, so not such a good time. Instead went to the Shanghai Art Museum, which is in a pretty old building and filled with contemporary art. It was free, and air conditioned, so it was great even if the art wasn't my favorite. Spent some time reading in the park, then took the subway to the Pudong side of the city. (The city is divided by the Huangpu river into Pudong and Puxi.) Met Adam Xu, George Yin, and David Lau, all '09 at Swarthmore, at the restaurant Yuga, which is located on the 9th floor of Super Brand Mall. (The mall was really impressively gigantic, by the way. Also, a Chinese guy came up to me when I was approaching the mall and said his girlfriend wanted to take a picture with me. They must not have seen the millions of other foreigners around.) George lives here and is leaving today for Taibei and Japan, Adam lives here and is leaving in a month for London, and David lives in Hong Kong, has been in my Chinese classes, and is here with a language program run by Columbia. The natives treated us to a delicious meal, and then we got to take a boat ride on the river, thanks to Adam's dad's company. It was the section of the river that runs between the Bund and the Pudong ("Futureland") area, and it was really really neat. I'll post some pictures at the end of this entry.

All the Swatties had to part ways, and I went to find Amy and her friend Priscilla, who is interning in a nearby city this summer. We met up with some expat friends of Amy's and experienced some of Shanghai's famous nightlife. Had a really fun time, and Amy let us sleep in her apartment so we didn't have to travel home that night. She and her mom even gave us zongzi (gluttonous rice wrapped in leaves, traditional food of the Dragon Boat festival, which is later this summer) to eat in the morning. Took a cab home (for like $5...I love Shanghai cabs) and here I am, relaxing at home from my big Saturday out in the city.