After waking up in the morning after a night of little rest and still somewhat emotionally/mentally messed up after last night (for decent reason), I woke up around ten or so.
Campbell (who I was sharing a room with) woke up around when I did. It's funny. I never thought I'd like him very much, but his easy going, very chill nature complements my more rigid mindset and as a result has probably chilled me out mentally. We watched most of Coraline after I told him about what happened last night. He seemed quite surprised that such a thing happened, much less IN THE SAME BUILDING AS THE HOTEL. Yeah. So, there.
But Coraline wasn't that interesting, all things considered. The concept was intriguing but the story just didn't really flow very well until over halfway though and then the story bolted for the exit. The animation looked nice though. It was nice though to have some mental white noise for awhile (so to speak).
We were taken by Tony to this shopping center where we spent an obscene amount of time. The odd thing about this trip is that they took us to Western styles places. The mall was nice (6 floors!) but it had nothing that I wanted. It was mostly clothes that I didn't find interesting (all Western) or Sports equipment (which was admittedly cool- they had legit ping pong paddles from Japan and China- Campbell bought a few). Still, it was nice to walk around, I guess.
We then proceeded to walk around the city square type area around the streets of Shanghai. This was pretty cool and the skyline was interesting. However, Tony seemed uninterested or unwilling in actually taking us places. He proclaimed that he really didn't like the city and just wanted to be in the suburbs. He would point out cool places, but he wouldn't actually take us there. It was...annoying. But whatever. That's his prerogative. He's the fearless leader. In jest, Mike brought up the events of last night and joked about it. At this point, I really hadn't mentally sorted it out, but it was beneficial for my sanity for someone to talk about it. He then joked further that I was able to haggle the lady down to Y20 ($3), to which I smiled and said in a light tone that I hadn't done anything- she lowered the price on her own. To which, Miranda (of all people) jokingly responded that maybe the lady that wanted the happy ending more than me, much to my honest laughter and everyone else around. I could have kissed her at that point. It just perfectly brought me out of my mental bind- I'm not sure if she realized it, but she honestly did.
Dinner was...interesting. We ate at another Chinese Banquet place and they served dishes one at a time. I had some interesting things...jelly fish being one of them. Jim, Campbell, Tony and Libby all had some of it sort of as a suicide pact by jellyfish. Mine was alright. It tasted like chewing on bone- no real taste, just chewy membrane and just...eh. Campbell looked like he was going to vomit, Libby almost did and Tony pulled a nasty face. Tony started whining about the Chinese food saying that normal people don't eat unfried shrimp or duck or jellyfish or ox tongue, much to my personal amusement.
On a interesting note, Tony, Jim and I were arguing about one of the soups. Tony said it had Pork, while Jim and I claimed that it had chicken. We called the waiter over and he said that it was both, to be honest. Tony's head about exploded. Both of the girls from Turkey cannot eat pork (they are Muslim) and he ran over to their table. One of them ate it, unfortunately, but the other did not.
Tony and the managerial staff at the restaurant were flipping out while the girl herself just shrugged it off saying that it was alright as she did not know at the time that it was pork. I was impressed that she was able to just do that considering how big of a rule it is to stay away from pork in Islam. The night came to a close with a number of us students (Me, Miranda, Libby, Nancy, Jim, Campbell, Albert, Jihoon, Tony and Mi-ye!!!) partying and doing drinking games in Jim/Albert's room. It was officially Miranda's birthday and even though she had celebrated it in Korea in order for her to celebrate it with people from the summer school program, we didn't think it was right for it to go unnoticed this time.
I was most surprised by Mi-ye (the admin) drinking with us. It was amazing and definitely one of the coolest things I've seen a teacher do with her students. Though she was a definitely lightweight (though to be fair, she probably weighed all of about 80 lbs dripping wet), she was hanging out with us and playing our games.
I was ready to leave at midnight when Mi-ye took her exit, but Miranda stopped me and said "You aren't leaving my birthday party that early, are you?"
Whoa. So, I didn't and stayed for another two or so hours. It was amazing, though I was dead tired afterwards. I went up to the room with Campbell, unlocked it, gave him the key and bid him a good evening as he went down to the party.
China, while it wasn't incredible...I'm at least glad that I went. It was an experience, though some were unpleasant to say the least, and I will take it with me for better or worse. Though I don't think I'll be coming back here anytime soon.
Sadly my joy at soon departing China made me realize that I'm going to be leaving Asia soon. I think I will miss Korea a lot. The culture, the food...it's all wonderful. But I do miss people from the US a lot...So, it'll be nice to return.
-Reven
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