cheng huang miao

ok, this is really obnoxious but the first thing i need to say about today is:

i got mistaken for a CHINESE PERSON!
... BY a chinese person!!!

this truly made my day, for obvious reasons. basically, i was taking the bus home from yuyuan garden 豫园 and cheng huang miao 城皇庙, where i spent the afternoon with teddy's uncle ray, his son charles, and his grandchildren grace and joyce. quick pause in the story: cheng huang miao is a really funny and characteristically "shanghai" place, because it used to be famous for it's temple and garden.

but now, it's a huge shopping area, and all the old alleyways are crammed with shops where you can bargain. but the only way to win is for your chinese host to begin the negotiations.

back to the story: when my the bus came to wudong rd, the closest stop to fudan, nobody was waiting at the stop, so the bus driver quickly opened and closed the doors, and then began to drive away. another girl and i were running to get off, so i started yelling "XIA CHE! 下车!" and he stopped :) the only reason i knew to do so was because i saw the same thing happen at an earlier stop. the other girl thanked me as we got off and asked me if i was a student at fudan too. i said yes, but i had never taken that bus route before. then she asked what dorm i lived in, and i said the international one. she was shocked and asked me for my email. she said my chinese sounded great! i am seriously hoping this wasn't all a figment of my imagination.

anyway the other cool part of the story is successfully using the shanghai bus system for the first time. i don't claim to know the routes (there are approximately 2,397,981,000 of them) but i was able to ask around. here's the view of People's Square in downtown shanghai from my seat.

rewind a bit; today was also our first day of class! we are easing into the intensive schedule. today, we only had class from 8:40-11:35. by friday, we will work our way up to 8:40-3:00 or so. i like the teachers, my classmates, and the general teaching style. i think i am just super lucky to have be prepared by wei laoshi and dong laoshi at GW. here, we spend so much time in class that we can do a lesson a day, rather than a lesson each week. i guess thats what "intensive" means! tonight i'll post a few more pictures and then its homework time. 晚安！