Shanghai Surprise-Part 2

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Day 2

I slept well probably because I didn’t sleep on the plane. I woke around 6:35 and tried to get on the computer and Internet, but I didn’t realize you had to plug in the Ethernet cord. I was just assuming Wi-Fi, but we figured it out. Amy and I headed down to breakfast in the lobby. It consisted of rice, lo mein noodles, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, toast, green beans, dumplings, and what not. Not your typical breakfast food by any means and you only have chopsticks to eat it with. After, we headed to Starbucks and my latte was good☺
After Starbucks, Anne, Josh, Quinne, Amy, and I all headed to the Jing’ An Temple area. It’s a little bit more city-like than the area around the school. The Jing’ An Temple is beautiful. There is a mall right next to it that has a lot of high end shopping. We did not head in, just glanced from the sidewalk, but it is basically Michigan Ave. in a mall. The garden/park across the street from the temple is absolutely amazing and beautiful. Even on a cloudy day (which I think made it more fantastic) it was quite a site. It had this great pond and walkways with a little cave. Very neat!
We were hungry (not really for Chinese) so we headed into the French Concession neighborhood, which house a lot of expatriates (expats for short). We went to a restaurant called Manifesto and it was yummy. Then Anne, Amy, and I decided it was time for a little pampering so we got manicures and pedicures. They did an okay job, but we agreed that we could find somewhere better.
When we left the shop it was pouring down rain and none of us had an umbrella. (While in Shanghai-probably all of China-it is best to have an umbrella with you at ALL times even if it is sunny.) We stopped at a little family mart and Anne purchased an umbrella and by the time we got into the taxi and she was closing it, a piece of the umbrella already broke, haha. We have been warned that things are cheap for a reason☺ Also, finding taxis in the rain is a very difficult process sometimes.
That evening we all had dinner with Rebecca, Linda, Irene (Chinese woman that works in human resources-she is a gem!), and Amy Kent (learning behavior specialist) and her husband and kids. Amy and her family had just arrived in Shanghai that day. Her husband works here in the manufacturing business and her children will be attending RBIS this school year. The restaurant we went to was authentic Chinese. We sat at a large round table in the back of the place in a room to ourselves. When you order something it is placed on the lazy Susan in the middle and everyone can have some. The menu included some interesting items, such as chicken paws and stomach, and turtle. I stuck to eating some corn, potatoes, chicken, peapods, dumplings, and ribs (they were really spicy though). We drank Tsingtao and had a good time getting to know each other more. After dinner, Rebecca pulled me aside and asked me if I would teach first grade. She felt with my personality that I would be a better fit with that team instead of kindergarten. Me, being flexible, said okay!
After dinner, Josh, Quinne, Anne, Amy, and I head to this Chinese restaurant right next to our hotel for drinks. We all got a Tsingtao (basically a bottle that looks like a 40) and drink and chat. We tried asking for the bill-even pulled out the Chinese phrase books and such and all of a sudden the owner guy decides to become mute. He won’t answer us and tell us our total or give us a bill. He kept holding up five fingers and we told him we didn’t want 5 more! So we all left 30 RMB for our beers. (Later, we found out that we definitely got jipped-those bottles only cost 3.5-4.5 RMB at the convenience stores.) Language barrier was a factor there, but we had a good laugh about it.

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