It feels like it's been forever since I blogged! I left for Shanghai on Friday morning after my first class, the Principal offered to teach my afternoon class for me. I was surprised how smoothly things went with me getting on and off the train by myself and getting to the hotel on my own. I got off the train when everyone else did because Shanghai is the last stop, so that was easy enough. I then had printed off the address to the hotel in Chinese characters and showed it to the cab driver and I was on my way. About an hour and a half later mom and dad got to the hotel, their flight was later getting in than my train. It was evening so we just went for dinner and then hungout at the hotel.
On Saturday we explored Shanghai; mainly the Nanjing Road area and the Bund. They have a tower called the Pearl Tower that is a lot like the CN Tower. We went up it and ate dinner at the revolving restaurant, it was so cool! It was a little confusing though because it was a buffet and so you'd get up to get your food but by the time you came back your table would have moved, I got lost a few times! The food was so good! The hotel breakfast was also a buffet and I haven't had so much awesome food in a long time; the highlight was definitely the cheese. I hadn't had real cheese in awhile! We met a girl from Denmark at dinner and she ended up touring around with us a bit on Sunday, she was visiting Shanghai by herself on break from school in Beijing.
On Saturday night we got home a little late and hungout and watched tv. It was so nice having mom and dad here and just being able to hangout and watch tv like we would at home! On Sunday we went and saw the Yuyuan Gardens. It took us an embarassingly long time to find it; but we DID find it so that's what matters! It was really pretty there; I'll post photos later today, I don't have enough time to load them before I have to go back to school. We also saw a couple of temples which were neat, but I think the one I went to in Hangzhou has them beat; it was bigger and prettier and you could see more of it, we weren't allowed to go a lot of places at the one temple. Sunday was also my Birthday, it would not have felt like my birthday at all if mom and dad weren't here! They got me cake and sang to me, the cake was really good!
I had to leave Shanghai around 7:30 and spend the remainder of my birthday on the train, that was an experience. It was packed at first and the people around me were all speaking to each other in Chinese and I could tell when they were talking about me (because they pointed and kept looking at me) but I had no idea what they were saying. A few minutes later a different guy sat beside me and he spoke English and so then the person who had been mainly talking about me asked him questions to ask me. The first was where am I from? The guy who spoke English told him Canada and then he went back to sleep. Next time he woke up he asked the guy to ask me if I was Jewish; what the heck kind of question was that?! I laughed really hard and neither of them seemed to find it funny. Soon my English speaking friend got off the train and I was left with only people speaking Chinese again. I tried to hard to sleep, but I failed! There was a man on the train who kept horking onto the floor and the man across from him kept blowing his nose ("Farmer's Blow") onto the floor; it was pretty gross. I think that's one of my parents (and everyone else's) least favourite things about China, all of the gross spitting.
When I got to the school last night it was after midnight and the security guard was asleep. It took a lot of knocking on the window to wake him up; I was worried I was going to have to sleep outside! Luckily I didn't! I got to talk to Mary, Loretta, Jim and Trean when I got home too; they were all at Mom and Dad's, so that was nice! Today has been a tiring day. I never did end up finishing marking the kids tests, but I think they're over it.
When I went to leave for work this morning I opened the door and found a surprise from Mel! She had left me a Birthday card with chocolate, wine and mentos; three of my favourite things! Then I got to the office and she had gotten me a plant in a pot with a cow on it! I have to remember to take a photo of it later, it's so nice! Between my parents coming to visit, people sending me awesome stuff in the mail, talking to people from home and Mel's surprises, this Birthday was still awesome even though I'm all the way in China for it! One student remembered it was my Birthday this weekend too which was nice and wished me a Happy Birthday in the hallway this morning. In an effort to make him moderately uncomfortable Mel said, "Tell Miss Young she looks beautiful!" And the student got really embarrassed but then said "Miss Young looks beautiful everyday." So overall it was a pretty nice/ entertaining couple of days lol!
Now I'm home on lunch trying to get caught up on laundry, maybe a little bit of work and some blogging obviously! I'll post photos later!
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