Day 2

Today was rainy and foggy and really freaking chilly. It turned out to just be yucky in the afternoon with no rain, so that worked out well for us.

I woke up at 6am. Starving. Last night I had some steamed clovers and grasses, friend corn niblets, soup, and sauteed celery for dinner. It was actually really great, but I was just hungry and was frustrated at picking up each corn niblet one by one because my chopstick skills are lacking.

Breakfast was just as odd. Slimy rice, hard boiled eggs and steamed bok choy. I ate a lot of it. And then scarfed a bag of skittles in my room. MMMMM...

We toured the Yuyuan Gardens in the old section of the city, took a boat tour on the Huangpu River, wandered down Nanjing Road

Lunch was creative. Dumplings stuffed with the ovary and digestive glands of crab. Actually, that was next door, but we did have crab dumplings, so I don't really know why they would be any different. I have a sign to prove it. But the worst job of the day was the women that were sitting in a little room picking apart crabs for the meat and insides with chopsticks.

Oh... other good signs include, "Protect our Homeland and Throw Away Trash" and "Love Her, Love Haagen Daas."

Tonight we saw a Chinese acrobat show, which was great, and I had a cup of STARBUCKS, which was pretty huge, but we were awake and on the go for 14 hours and jet lag was kicking us down.

I am here with Jessie, who is a foreign service employee and facilitated our trip on this end. She is young and great and really excited to have us here. She is maybe a year or so older than me. This time in Shanghai is on her and the goverment, which is really great. We are taking the train to Zhenjiang tomorrow, having a big dinner with the school officials and then I am going to take a train or bus to my city, which is about 1.5 hours away from Zhenjiang. Then I move into my apartment and get ready for class, which supposedly start for me next week...

Got to get to sleep.

Good night!