Yesterday, I went with a few other kids to pick up some toiletries and other essentials at Chinese equivalent of Wal-Mart. The building was two stories tall with a sloped escalator for shopping carts and it had everything from fresh fish to motorskooters. The shoppers there were ruthless, they make going to H-E-B on a Saturday look like childs play. Since there is no such thing as manners in China (which is so awesome!!) the shoppers literally shove, bump, and grab items right out of your hands; not to mention there are about a million freaking people there. All the while they play blaring advertisments over the loudspeaker system- the theme song to one of these ads was the song "flight of the bumblebee" - talk about fitting.
For dinner, my friend Carolyn and her parents took me and a few other friends to a very nice ethnic Chinese dinner in a section of Shanghai that we had not yet seen. If you imagine that Shanghai is like New York City (New York on Steroids that is), our university is in Brooklyn and this restaurant was in the equivalent of Manhattan. The skyline of downtown Shanghai is unrivaled; ridiculously large sky scapers everywhere, all of which call for your attention with brilliant night time light shows (as if the architectural feats themselves weren't enough to have you mesmorized). When we arrived at the restaurant, called XinJishi , Carolyn's dad and mom were waiting for us and had already ordered. As soon as we sat down the servers started bringing out dish after dish of food. I consider myself very adventurous when it comes to eating, and this meal definitely put a few notches on my belt; I ate jelly fish, bamboo, and fish head and loved it all. After dinner we took a brief stroll through Xia Tian Di, which is an ultra modern and very sheik part of Shanghai. While soaking up the ambience of Xia Tian Di I heard live jazz coming from inside a trendy lounge, so I think it is safe to say that I will be returning there sometime very soon.
Not much else to report for now. We are still going through orientation and welcome week meetings and in about one minute i'm going to register for classes. Below are a few pictures I've snapped. Sorry that there aren't more but i've been so caught up in everything else that photography hasn't been the foremost thing on my mind.
Thats my roommate Jake in our dorm room.
Statue of Chairman Mao in the center of campus
The street and shops outside the back gate of ECNU
Street shot from campus.
Our favorite restaurant (a total dive)
Dinner! By necessity I've become quite good with chop sticks. I can pick up a dime thats laying flat!
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