museums and malls

busy weekend! on friday, we visited the shanghai urban planning museum as a group. after our tour, a bunch of us split off to check out the shanghai museum, and the people's square underground mall. on friday night, we did some serious group bonding at a popular karaoke place. saturday, director michelle held a group meeting to check in with us and our chinese roommates. after the meeting, wenjun and yanan (sarah's roommate) took three of us girls for an AMAZING soup-dumpling (aka xiaolongbao) lunch. in the evening, sarah and i gave into homesickness and had mcdonalds (maidanglao 麦当劳)... only to be dragged to the SUFE night market for meat skewers and fresh watermelon with sue right after. sunday, we woke up to the heartbreak of the US being eliminated from the world cup by ghana. we then engaged in some hardcore retail therapy at the qipu market (chee-puh, aka CHEAP!) for approximately 6 hours. we now know where fudan students get all their clothes. finally, we walked from the market to people's square via nanjing east road, shanghai's high-end shopping destination. us ladies rewarded our shopping exertions with a classy, sit-down dinner at pizza hut. then took the bus home!

pics and deets: here we are at the urban planning museum, which features exhibits about shanghai's infrastructure, architecture, transportation, and future plans. you can see the gigantic model of downtown which apparently cost 6 million USD to build? tour guide was quite proud.

next, the shanghai museum, which is considered the best museum in mainland china. it did not disappoint! we visited jade, bronze, calligraphy, painting, furniture, and ethnic costume exhibits. PLUS it is free. yaay.

from the museum, we walked through the people's square underground mall to a food court that i discovered on my last visit in the raffle's city mall. dinner was hilarious because we all ordered variations on asian noodles except for john. the man wanted lasagna! can't blame him. getting back to fudan was the adventure of a lifetime, since we happened to leave people's square (shanghai's #1 transportation hub) precisely at rush hour on a friday night. since the situation is nearly impossible to describe, i'll leave it to one word: trampled.

after all that, the fact that we decided to go out is somewhat miraculous to me. i will save those photos for facebook... but my favorite karaoke tunes so far include: justin bieber - one time, lady gaga - telephone, britney spears - hit me baby one more time, enrique - hero, celine dion - my heart will go on, taylor swift - you belong with me.

fast forward to today! qipu market was overwhelming, but the bargaining was intense and the deals were fantastic. i feel like i have a stamp on my head that says "FOREIGN STUDENT, CHARGE 400%" ... but i am working on my chinese language skills, aggressive body language, and starving student routine. here's a nice example of a "changing room" and the girls at a t-shirt store with outrageous chinglish slogans.

i am so tired and almost glad to return to classes tomorrow because i need the rest! plus, i am looking forward to a "free" meal because each monday we have zhongwen zhuozi (中文桌子, chinese table) where we feast with each other and our teachers, speaking only chinese. last pictures, nanjing east road at night :)