Thursday, May 18

Another day, another country. we left our beloved Senshu University for shangahi at 0517 on the train bound for Shinjuku. It was sad to see all the stops with fun names go by for the last time - Noborito and Mookogaoka-yuen especially. anyway, at shinjuku we caught the Narita "Express" which in fact still takes over an hour. we got to the airport and did the whole check in/security thing. the line for security was kind of long so we went through even though we all wanted to go to starbucks on the nonsecure side. surprise, there wasn't one on the other side! i had to spend my last yen coins on a coke and some ritz crackers.

we got to shanghai at about 1220 but then had to wait for the rest of our group to come in an hour later. we changed our money and tried to readjust to the new 8-1 exchange rate instead of 100-1. once everyone made it to shanghai, we got on the bus for our ride to the hotel.

the hai tai (or Harbour) hotel is amazing, especially after senshu. it is ultra modern and our rooms are done with lots of accent lighting and frosted glass walls and a sweet sink. there are switches for everything - even the do not disturb sign! we only had a few mins before leaving for dinner.

shanghai traffic is not fun. we were stopped for over an hour on the way to eat ... i am really glad we didn't have to take buses in Tokyo. driving must be the most stressful and hazardous thing because there are basically no rules on the road.

our dinner was a traditional Cantonese dinner. it is kind of like tapas in that there is a little of everything. all the food is on a lazy susan on the table and you dish yourself. the sad thing is that you can only have one glass of a beverage for a whole meal (sprite, coke, beer, or water). we can't drink the tap water so our choices are limited. the food was excellent though. and a huge selection!

after dinner we went to the chinese acrobats and what a show it was! the performers all looked to be 11 or 12 years old and they did some stuff i couldn't dream of doing ... duh. my favorite was the jumps off the seesaw where one person was launched off and landed on someone else. the show went on for 1.5 hours and although it was coold and definitely worth the $14 (112 yuan), the end was a struggle to stay awake. it was really, really sweet though.

happy to be done with stuff for the day, we went back and crashed after the acrobats. i think i'm going to really like shanghai.

other notes from today:
-a typhoon, named pearl, is currently hitting us with lots of rain. go away!
-tokyo is a city of umbrellas and suits; shanghai is a city of bikes and ponchos.
-i love the harbour hotel!
-i may or may not have our key from senshu. my roommates don't have it but i don't think i do either. yikes!
-there are TONS of kfcs in shanghai, just like tokyo.