Monday, April 1 10:00pm
You can't leave Shanghai without experiencing rush hour on the subway on a Monday morning.in my
last entry I mentioned the pushing that Chinese like to do on public
transportation. Yeah, that fact was just increased exponentially. It's
sheer madness! Here I was thinking I would enjoy my bakery treat and
banana and to think I was considering a Starbucks this morning... I was
out of my mind!! I'm squished like a sardine. I'm tuckered back in my
corner, safe and sound until the dreaded moment that I have to exit. I
may start moving that way three exits in advance to be safe!!
Update: I got off if the subway with no problems.
My first stop today was going to visit Megan and her students. Her first
class was a small group of 4th grade ESL students. Her second group was
5th grade English Honors kids. Each class was able to introduce
themselves to me. To be a student at the Shanghai High School
International Division School, students have to have a foreign passport
and tuition is $8000 a semester. After introductions, students were able
to ask me questions. They asked me about our schedule and we're in awe
of the 30 minute break kids have before our lunch. Electives at this
school are flower arranging, Shanghai Dialect, chess, crochet, sports,
cool math, mad science, Spanish, and many others. Students transition
for classes by a 10 second song clip; that's their 'bell.' That seems to
be typical in China so far.
After spending the morning at Megan's school, I ventured on back to the
city. I stopped for a bite to each for lunch that was really good. It
was some kind of bread on a grill, with a fried egg, grilled chicken,
lettuce, hot sauce and mayo. I gathered that the sauce that I picked was
'too hot' for me, because the cook shook his head and literally took
that bottle off of the table. :-) With lunch in hand, I traveled to East
Nanjing Square to eat it and people watch. There was great people
watching while I enjoyed my sandwich/wrap type lunch.
I planned to take a river cruise of the Huang Pu River tonight so I went
to the Bund river front area to purchase my ticket ahead of time. I was
all squared away for this night time entertainment. I got back on Line 2
and toolkit to People's Square where I visited the Shanghai Museum.
This museum was fascinating. I spent time other Ancient Chinese Bronze
gallery, Chinese painting, seal and calligraphy galleries, Chinese
Minority nationalities gallery, and a bunch of others. After viewing all
of the 'old' stuff, I wanted to see the Modern Art Museum so I went
across the People's Park to find it. I didn't see it off hand, but a
group of Chinese girls were so sweet to help me find it...they told me
it was closed on Mondays and they had come to see it too. They instead
offered to take me to a Tea House across the street. Hello Tea Ceremony
Scam!! I entertained their conversation for a few moments and the whole
time they were talking, I asked myself how anyone ever falls for the
scam? I talking about people online commenting that they had read about
the scams and still fell for it!! It was quite obvious to me. I did
wonder if the museum was actually closed so I did more
investigating,found it, and found that it was indeed closed.
After wandering around a bit, well, maybe more than a bit since my
pedometer clocked me at 11.92 miles after the day was over, I headed to
the pier where the river cruise departed from. The Huang Pu River Cruise
at night was gorgeous. It was hard to capture the beauty with my
camera, but the memory is definitely in my head. It was a nice way to
end my stay in Shanghai.
Up next, the bullet train North to Beijing.
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