National Holiday in China is a BIG deal, there are decorations everywhere for the celebration of the beginning of the People's Republic of China. There are pics in a link at the bottom of the blog including people's square a famous park in the Shiz with a huge statue of Mao Zedong and all the plants are new, we (Jenna, Sherly, and Jeremy) also ran into a animation fair and took some pics of the exhibition hall. It's a pretty big deal but I still found a huge pile of trash at the bottom of some stairs. Which leads me to talk about my living experiences in China, it's dirty, it smells, it's polluted, and it's cheap. There's a lot of getting used to, like not drinking water out of the tap, blowing your nose and seeing black, not seeing the blue sky for days at a time, not being able to speak the language, seeing people peeing on the street at all hours of the day (including babies and adults) yes, a bit...well gross, but it's just what they do. And that's just a scratch on the surface of cultural differences. However let's get back to my National Holiday travel.
http://picasaweb.google.com/cccapper/NationalHoliday Here is the link for many more Shanghai pictures and more National Holiday adventures.
As you can see the train station was very busy. We had a 18 hr train ride hard seat (meaning no reclining, no arm rests, no private leg room, extremely small tables and people constantly moving, bumping into you, and selling things. We had another 18 hr train ride back to the Shiz from Shanghai too which was worse b/c I swear it took longer. There were 9 of us total when we finally got to Shanghai. Kind of a big number and it was hard to fulfill everyone's own agenda but we did pretty well and saw almost everything there is to see. We went to the highest tower in town which I believe is the 4th tallest building in the world and they are building another right next to it that's going to be 10 floors more. I don't know who thought that was a good plan.
Otherwise, after traveling for so long, it was easy to call my little cold apt home. Classes have resumed and my students are warming up to me more and more. They are extremely nervous to talk to me but at least I know that there are some I can ask them for help when I go shopping and need a chinese translator. One of them is going to take me to see a park this weekend and hopefully another will help me get a cell phone (they call it a mobile) next weekend.
Tuesday the drake consulate people are in the Shiz so we will have a big lunch with many toasts and lots of food I'm sure, so I have some busy days ahead, especially b/c I just received a box from my parents with my warm clothes in it! The weather is quite a bit like Iowa's, pleasant in the afternoon, cold at night and in the morning. Unfortunately since everyone here is considerable smaller so are the clothes, so you can imagine the problems I've been having trying to find jackets. But no worries now! I have my favorite sweatpants and sweatshirts!
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