DAY 1

foreword: do not judge me for wasting my time on the computer when i could be exploring shanghai :) we had a busy first day, but school hasn't started yet, so i'm taking advantage of this time to write... because i know things will really start to pick up later this week! sidenote, here is my room and my view from the 13th story:

today's highlights were an orientation tour guided by JEFF, lunch with the alliance group, and a refreshing run on the fudan campus. lowlights included a 3 hour placement test.

the group met in the morning for the bus tour, which also proved to be our first experience with shanghai rush hour traffic (1 hour from fudan to people's square, aka 8 kilometers). fortunately we were entertained by our hilarious tour guide, jeff. jeff is from xian and spent the entire hour slamming shanghai's food, housing prices, eligible bachelorettes, etc.


people's square is enormous and added to my general sense of bewilderment with this city! where to start?! i am hoping to bite off little pieces in the next couple weeks. our tour ended with a walk on the bund and a lesson in chinese idioms: 山人海人，"shan ren, hai ren," "mountain of people, sea of people"... aka china is sorta crowded. ps: sorry teddy, but there is absolutely no toilet paper anywhere in this city haha

not going to detail the placement test. 3 hours of chinese characters i don't know + jetlag = disaster

the evening was nice because christine and i went for a run around the fudan campus, getting to know the area and hopefully combatting the time change! i barely slept last night so this should do the trick. in conclusion, a 43 cent dish of dumplings made my night. 再见！

ps: katherine! i am using your italian soap! does that make me a global citizen? muahaha. nish i am also rockin' your orange shorts. miss you.

new words: shi cha 时差 (jet lag), hun xie er 混血儿 (mixed blood), mogu 蘑菇 (mushroom), guangchang 广场 (square), luxing 旅行 (travel), tianlu 天禄 (lucky imaginary animal!), shiyou 室友 (roommate), xuyao 需要 (need), chi ku 吃苦 (literally: EAT BITTERNESS, figuratively: work hard to succeed) this phrase was obviously courtesy of our chinese teachers