July 28th: Week 8th In Shanghai

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July 22nd- It seems like the whole program has been passing around a bug. We haven’t traveled around the city much due to the heat and our sickness. We did manage to go shopping at a new mall on the other side of the city. We visited an apple store which was packed! There is shopping everywhere in Shanghai but all the clothes and shoes are too small to fit us. Sam bought me my first Frapacino at Starbucks, guess I’m city folk now. We tried to go out and hit the city but every bar we go to is filled with smoke. You’re allowed to smoke in the bars which are difficult for the group to handle.

July 23rd- We visited the counter fit market again today. I picked up a lot of little trinkets for friends and family. I still can’t get over how cheap everything is. I picked up a natural jade necklace that is supposed to give me good luck. Let’s see if it works. I had my first experience with the Chinese toilets here. They are just holes in the ground. Let’s just say there is a learning curve.

July 24th- I picked up my custom made suits today. They fit perfect. I guess my MBA is official now that I own a real business suit. We spent the rest of the day catching up on sleep and doing homework.

July 25th- I am hitting the point of being homesick. The honeymoon stage of Shanghai has worn off. It might be due to the Shanghai plague I have received or I have been gone all summer. To get me out of this mood I am heading with Alex to pick up tickets to see the Fina Swimming World Championship. They were all sold out but Alex bought a scalping ticket. I didn’t because I wasn’t sure if the ticket was legit. Famous athletes such as Michael Phelps and others will be trying to set world records on Tuesday during the championship, after we are going to burgers and beers again. We meet students from the states at the bar. They were studying Chinese. It was great to have a conversation with students the speak English. We might be meeting up with them before we leave. There are a lot of famous people in Shanghai right now. Yao Ming also announced his retirement here which has cause the city to go crazy. He is like the Michael Jordan of International Basketball.

July 26th- I stated my second attempt at getting swimming tickets. I am actually going to the Oriental Sports Center in hopes that they are not sold out. Chelsea went with me and we did end up getting them. The rest of the group tried to go to the zoo but it started raining. I hope we get another opportunity to go. Later on in the night we went to the FINA Swimming championships! The facilities are gorgeous. They were built just for this event. It was so easy to navigate. Phelps swam the 200m freestyle. He ended up getting 2nd but his teammate Ryan ended up getting gold. I also like the 1500m race. It took 15mins and they did 30 laps. What an accomplishment. A woman from China won that event. The event center went crazy! We left a little early because we need to get HW done. Chelsea and Lara stayed and ended up getting a picture with the US swimming team and Ryan who won the gold medal. Teaches me to be a good student 😞

July 27th- Today we went on a site visit at a high end (luxury) mall. We visited the Zenga store. I touched a tie that was $260 US dollars. The prices where ridiculous! It was still interesting to hear about their supply chain and management. The General Manager of the store was an expat so he spoke great English and his presentation was very relevant to the material we were learning in class. We walk around to the competitors and compared prices and store layout. I really understood there operations because of my retail background at Motherhood Maternity.

July 28th- We got a lecture today on environmental law. A Fudan University professor was the one that presented the lecture. It was very difficult to understand what he was saying so I didn’t get as much out of it as I would have like. Today is the start of the weekend and that means we get to travel to Beijing. We leave tonight and take an overnight train to Beijing. We are traveling with the whole group and through a tour guide so we shouldn’t run into problems like we did in Spain. I have been looking forward to this trip more than anything else this summer. Sam and I watched Angels and Demons on the train. It was so interesting because it talks about Rome and we understood the locations because we had been there!!!!

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