Hello all,


Ｉ　ｄｉｄ　ｎｏｔ　ｈａｖｅ　ａｃｃｅｓｓ　ｔｏ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｂｌｏｇ　ｆｏｒ　ｔｈｅ　ｐａｓｔ　ｆｅｗ　ｄａｙｓ　ｓｏ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｐｏｓｔ　ｉｓ　ｄａｔｅｄ　Ａｕｇｕｓｔ　２６ｔｈ．

I am safe and sound in Shanghai! I unfortunately do not have access to my blog while here, but Eliza can give me the software to get around that once I am in Beijing.



So here's my overview of the trip so far.



As soon as I said goodbye to mom, Laura and Greg, I made my first Chinese friend. The guy standing behind me heard me say I was going to China and asked about it. He was a Chinese student studying at a University in Italy and traveling around the U.S. for his summer break. On the flight to Detroit I sat next to a Japanese woman who clarified that the kanji Japanese characters have the same meanings as their Chinese character counterparts. The man sitting next to her was a Greek national visiting family in the U.S. I thought it was an interesting omen of things to come.



Immediately after I got off of my flight I was approached by a guy who asked if I went to UMass. I said yes, and he preceded to reveal that we had been in a Model UN conference committee together this previous November. He was going on the same flight to Shanghai and was going to teach English in Hanzhou for a year. On the long but uneventful flight I sat next to a Chinese man who had lived in the U.S. for 11 years with his wife and now two young american kids. He talked about how he wants to send his kids back to Chinese every once and a while so they don't forget his native language. He's having trouble with his younger daughter. It was a little sad. I spoke with an ex-Marine who was extraordinarily jaded with his life in China, and said that knowing a language will never help me get a job anywhere. Interesting view on the world, but very cynical.



So what I didn't realize about Pu Dong airport is that it is about a 2 hour drive from Shanghai. Luckily, Eliza's friend Zach lives in Shanghai, and his dad offered to come pick me up at the airport, then preceded to take me, Eliza, Felicia and Liwen out to my first Chinese meal of the year! The hostel is called the Blue Mountain Hostel and it's really nice.



Today Felicia, Liwen Eliza and I had breakfast together before Felicia left for a vacation to Hong Kong. Then we walked to the Expo! It was very hot, so it was a good thing I had my umbrella, something unnecessarily ridiculed by Americans. And good that I'm now used to the DC weather (thank you greg) so it wasn't unbearable, since it was only hot and not humid. We went to the Spain, Turkey, Finland and the UN pavillions. Spain was the best by far, with a huuuuuge baby robot which looked like a lifelike baby but fifteen million times the size which creepily blinked at you and opened its eyes. We only had to stand in line for an hour and a half for that one. Turkey, I was surprised to see, did not mention its populations affinity to Islam once. They based their exhibit on being the crossroads of civilization two thousand years ago. Finland had a bunch of high tech picture taking devices, and a picture of me awkwardly sticking my tongue out managed to appear on a big screen in front of everyone. The UN was small and uneventful. There was a room of statistics about different countries. I was not surprised to see that on the "amount of political freedom/openness" scale China was not listed as one of the countries which answered the survey.



Now I'm back at the hostel and am exhausted. Tomorrow we may get a foot massage for an hour for about five dollars. I'm greatly looking forward to it.



Love and miss you all!