And Happy 4th of July, even though it's not anymore. :)
Anyway, I figure that since I have 2 days' worth of pictures of Shanghai for you all, I'll go ahead and post them now, since I'm anticipating taking more pictures today. I'll start off by telling some stories in this post, and then I'll just post pictures in the next one. If any pictures correlate to the stories, I'll note it in the story and the picture's caption! The stories will be in order of occurrence, but the pictures probably won't haha just fyi
Story 1: Airport & Airplane, Morning 1
Our flight for Shanghai left at 7am-ish, so we had to leave the dorms at close to 5am. Meaning we all woke up at 4am. It was rough. Luckily we all made it on the plane just fine, so there was that. In America, it's not often that we see people sprawled out on the chairs in the gates or on the planes just passed out, but in China, it's pretty common. We got on the plane, and there was a row to the left of me with one man, and the row in front of me also had one man in it. Both guys literally just laid down after takeoff and slept the whole trip like that (the flight is just under 2 hours). I slept on and off for the trip, and at one point I woke up and the guy sitting next to me pointed at a sticker on the seat in front of me. Apparently I had slept through the breakfast delivery (which was fine, I heard I didn't miss anything because it wasn't very good at all). The sticker cracked me up a bit, though, because it said, "Dear Sir/Madam, it's never too late to ask for service, thank you," on it. We both laughed, and with that, I started talking to this guy. He's a Chinese Malaysian, and he was going to Shanghai to visit a friend. He was really nice, spoke English & Chinese with me, and had cool shoes haha. We also laughed because at one point, the seat belt sign came on, and over the intercom the captain said (in English), "We are experiencing turbulence, but do not worry, the aircraft is very, very safe."
Story 2: Lunch
We had Shanghai traditional baozi for lunch, or steamed dumplings with a soup/gravy inside of them! They were so delicious~ My table got beef, pork, & vegetable baozi, along with my favorite Chinese dish, stir-fried green beans! So good...
Story 3: Yu Garden, Shanghai
It was here that someone, for the first time, asked to take a picture with me! We have a lot of very tall guys in our group, so it's really common to see them get stopped by people for pictures. Normally people just ask me to take pictures of them, but someone wanted my picture! She was really pretty and nice, and I was so mad that my phone had decided that it wanted to quickly die (I had turned it off so it wouldn't die until I could charge it), so I didn't get a picture with her on my phone :(
Story 4: Morning 2
This morning was also a mess! Everyone had gone out and partied the night before, but we were supposed to eat breakfast in the hotel and go visit the Shanghai museum at 9am. I had forgotten to check the schedule the night before, so I woke up at 7:30 and rushed to go get food, since I figured we'd be leaving soon. But as it turns out, I was the first one down there. A few other people joined me, and then closer to 9 one of the teachers came down. We never ended up going to the museum yesterday, so essentially I ate breakfast for 2 hours and then went back up to my room. The night before, I had found a discount pokemon show, but when it changed, I channel flipped and ended up finding the Chinese version of Running Man! So I watched that in the morning, as well, until checkout time (11:30am). But once again, I was the first one down?! Most of us just barely managed to check out in time, and some people elected to extend their stay so they could sleep in. But after that, we had the rest of the day free, so we got to explore!
Story 5: UNIQLO
I really like this store! It's clothes, and there was a 5-story one really close to our hotel that was having a sale! I bought three shirts, one of which is a Wally (Waldo) shirt that says, "Stand out from the crowd," and it suddenly became really ironic haha. I was with two of my friends, and we were laughing at some Star Wars shirts that I maybe should have bought but didn't (it's probably better this way). One of my friends went to go look at some shorts, and then completely vanished. My other friend went to look for him, so I went and stood against a wall by the Star Wars shirts, somewhere were there wasn't anyone else around. My second friend then proceeds to walk toward me... but he obviously doesn't see me at all. He looks around at everyone (except me) and continues to walk straight past me, sparing a glance right over my head. And then he does that two more times. It was hilarious!
Story 6: Suddenly More Shanghai?!
Our flight back last night kept getting delayed to the point where at around midnight, the airport decided to provide us with a hotel since they weren't sure when our plane would actually arrive in Shanghai from Guangzhou. So we walked across the airport, got on a bus, and drove about 15 minutes to a hotel. Since one of the girls on my trip went home already, there's an odd number of girls, so I get put by myself a lot (which is not a problem at all). So slowly but surely everyone gets a room, and then it's just me left in the lobby. I finally get my room key, and head up to the 5th floor. When you get off the elevator, there's a hallway to the right with all the rooms on it... and then to the left, there was my room. Literally right next to the elevator, I was almost convinced it was a closet. But I open the door and the room is filled with a huge bed, and on the floor inside is a card... for prostitutes. At first I laughed, because I was sure that everyone had one in their rooms and it was funny. So I'm getting organized, and the phone rings. I answer, and a man on the other end asks, "Hello, are you in room 518?" Confused as to why he would call the room and then ask if I was in the room he called (like, my answering the phone should have answered his question before he asked, right??), I told him I was. He then asks, "Are you a boy?" As this was in Chinese, I was sure that I misheard, so I asked him to run that by me again, but sure enough he was asking me if I was a boy. I told him I wasn't, he apologized for miscalling, and we hung up. Mildly confused, I go to brush my teeth, but as I'm putting toothpaste on the brush, the phone rings again. It was the same man asking me if I was a boy again. And it's here that I realize: My room is right next to the elevator, there's not even a chair for the desk because the bed is so large, and there was a card for prostitutes in my room. THIS WAS THE RAPE/KIDNAPPING ROOM!!!!!!! (or so I convinced myself) From here, I quickly deadbolted and locked the door, resolved to not change out of my jeans (into pajamas), and I would not remove the blankets from the bed. I brushed my teeth quickly, and as I was rinsing the toothbrush off, there was a knock at the door.
... but it was my teacher, saying that our plane was on the way and that it was time for us to. It was the worst 20 minutes of my life. When I told my teacher, she told me it shouldn't be for the prostitute, because normally the girls would speak on the phone... but the lady at the reception desk had called everyone, not the man. So basically, I have no idea who was calling, but I'm really glad I got out of there. We all piled back onto the bus and drove back to the airport... AND THEN WE HAD TO GO THROUGH SECURITY AGAIN I WAS SO MAD.
But I'm back in Beijing now, so... yay! I'll post the pictures in a later, so don't sit around here waiting for them now - you should get some sleep! :)
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