Shanghai ~ Thursday morning

I am starting to get behind in writing cause we have been going non-stop and when we drive, I wanna look out the window! 

Thursday in Shanghai was unforgettable! It was raining all day, but I think that might be everyday this whole week! My sandals turn my feet black when they get wet so I've had permanent black feet here ;)

Our first stop was the Old Town. It is a shopping area in Shanghai that basically looks like a very pretty Chinatown. Papi and this guy at work told me one of the best things here in China was the Shanghai dumplings, so I asked - and Old Town has a restaurant that serves the best ones. So I waited in line for about 40 minutes to get some. I was frustrated waiting sooo long but when you see all the locals waiting in line and ordering several boxes of them, you know they'll be good - and they were! They are dumplings with soup and pork inside. And you pop it in your mouth and the soup explodes out into your mouth. It tasted delicious and is a fun feeling I've never felt before. (No dirty minds, ok?!!!). 

Restaurant sign - but I got mine "to go" from a side window 

Dumplings being steamed

Enjoying my dumplings :)

Old Town. It was raining!!

Old Town

Side street next to Old Town

Shanghai - Dinner and Acrobats

We got to our hotel, nice! 

Then they took us to dinner which was really similar to lunch. I took better pics though. 

SOOOO much food. We didn't have snake, but they had a jar of snakes there. 

From there, we went to an acrobats show called Era. It was pretty amazing. The outfits, stage and lighting wasn't too great but the talent was amazing!!! They did all the typical Chinese acrobat tricks. 

The motorcycle globe had 7 motorcycles in there!!! Crazy! Another thing unloved about it was that we were seated really close to the stage. So all the dangerous tricks freaked me out!!

ERA - theater

Another funny thing was that it was dark and we were tired, it was so hard to stay awake even though it was a good show! This lady, Prima, that sat next to me liked reacting to the dangerous stuff and she'd grab my leg or arm whenever it looked like someone would fall ... But all of the sudden, someone would do something crazy and I'd look over and she would be asleep! No reaction! The girl to my other side, slept the whole second half!! Ha!

Got home. Dead tired. Slept sooo good!!

Shanghai driving around

Some shots of Shanghai from the bus window:

YOLO!!! Ha ha ha :)

Shanghai

We got to Shanghai around noon. 

Shanghai airport

Glad to know ... I was just wondering where I was!

They took us to lunch ... My first lunch in China!!! They take us to these convention-style restaurants, so not really a restaurant where local people go. But I think the food is authentic?!

It's a round table with a lazy Susan. They bring so much food and half the time we have no clue what it is!! My favorites at lunch were mystery meat with these glazed carrots. The carrots were amazing. Same with the eggplant! 

Chinese coke

We usually take up 4 tables like this!

I cheat and use a fork. I'll get to chop sticks eventually!

It's raining and super humid (and 80ish)

Hong Kong Airport

I'm so thankful that I can sleep on planes! I pretty much slept like a baby. The only uncomfortable thing was that I was in the middle and I wanted to get up and stretch a bunch of times or wanted to drink more water but didn't cause I didn't want to bother the people next to me!  Still, I was comfortable and the 15 hour flight wasn't bad at all! Dinner was gross but breakfast and an little veggie sandwich I got were the best. Our flight attendant was super cute too, added bonus ;)

The plane had a camera mounted by the wheels so even though I was stuck in the middle seat with no windows around, I could watch us landing via the camera :)

We landed in Hong Kong and I could see a little of the city thru the windows in the airport. Wow! I'm gonna have to come back here. It's pretty! You have the water and mountains and these huge buildings ... I thought it looked cool! The airport is super modern with tons of shopping. 

I was excited cause I got a snack at Starbucks and paid with my Starbucks card app on my phone!! :) I love technology. Then this guy on the trip, Chris, told me of this app - Magic Jack that let's you call for free! What?!?! So I called Mami and Abu and it totally works!! I so surprised them!!! They're without a computer and I can't text them so I was excited to have a way to communicate with them while I'm gone. I hope it works in Nanjing ... We'll see!!

I've met probably half of the group already. Everyone is so nice!!! I'm super excited for this opportunity!! Yay!!!

Oh! One of the girls here, went to NHS!!! She graduated in 2004 and has been teaching Spanish for 2 years. I never had her but it made me so happy to meet her and be with her on the trip!  There are some young teachers as well as some more experience (older) ones ;)

Now I'm flying to Shanghai. 2 hours. I'm so excited. SO EXCITED to be here!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhh ;)

I'll post some pictures I took from the plane of us landing and from the airport windows of Hong Kong. 

Oh, they had a prayer room next to the restrooms at the airport.  I thought that was cool, so I went in and prayed :) 

Oh! One more thing. When we got in this plane for Shanghai, they had a newspaper sitting out with a picture of people wading in knee-deep water: flooding in Nanjing! That's where I'll be in like 5 days. And our hotel is right by the river ... Hope it's not serious ....

It begins

I'm off!! Got to the airport, checked in and met the group. It was fun watching people arrive. Some people have done this before but at the other campus, not Nanjing so it was a happy reunion. It was comforting to know so many liked it last year and are doing it again, right?! There are peeps from Texas, Colorado, New Jersey ... And more but those are the only ones I know.  It's 9am California time and we have about 5 hours to go. I slept all the time and I think I'll sleep some more :)

Getting ready

Today I went out and got most of my supplies for teaching. I'm not really sure what my themes will be but I bought enough stuff to play games and make every day super fun. 

Tomorrow it's all about clothes and some more last minute things. If I do this right, Monday will be all about enjoying the beach and relaxing before I jump on that long plane ride!