SMU Update 6/2/14

For me this was my last weekend I planned to go downtown in Shanghai. Originally we wanted all the international students including the Americans, Ukrainians, our friend Alex from Denmark, the two kids from Poland, and the Koreans to go downtown and get together and have one more final celebration before leaving China and going back to our respective countries. We, and by “we” I definitely don’t mean me because I am such a terrible planner, had been making arrangements all week long so everyone was on the same page. I guess not everyone decided to show up but for the most part people did and we had a really great time Friday night! We stayed in our favorite hostel where they employees have gotten to know us very well. They don’t even charge us the 20 RMB for loosing room keys anymore, lucky us! The next morning most everyone went about shopping and getting last minute gifts for family members, myself included. Later in the evening we went to one of our favorite places, Helen’s International Bar and Restaurant where we ate and hung out with each other for a while. We saw friends we had met there before and said goodbye one last time. Afterward we went go karting at a place very near to our hostel. I originally planned not to go but after getting lost on the subway and retracing my steps back to Helens I had no choice but to catch a cab with the other students and go. I’m glad I got lost because it was so much fun. There was a group of nine of us and they let four or five on at a time. I was a little scared to go with the boys so me and Mary, our friend from SMU, decided to go in the second heat to avoid being slammed by another go-kart. They were all amped up and planning on bumping into each other, and that honestly scared the hell out of me, it looked like it hurt, a lot. After watching the boys go it was our turn. Those. Go karts. Fly. They were so fast and it was so hard to turn the wheel and avoid colliding with the bumpers! Even though I thought it was safer in the second round someone ended up colliding with my kart and I instantly had a headache. Thankfully our time was up and I could sit down for a sec and stop feeling too light headed. We got back to the hostel around one after walking a half mile to find a cab, the go-kart place wasn’t exactly near a main road, we were lucky an empty cab decided to drive down into the middle of nowhere Shanghai. The next day everyone was tired so we headed back to SMU to relax before having to prepare for finals week! Yay ……….

SMU Update 5/27/14

After coming back from Hainan it was a relief to get back into the swing of things. It was nice to be back in class and going about the normal routine. I personally didn’t want to go downtown this weekend and stay the night. I wanted to catch up on school work and work that needed doing back at MMA. I did however go into the city for lunch with my roommate from last year, Claire. Her aunt and uncle wanted to take all the American international student out for a traditional Chinese lunch. We took the subway in and met Claire a few blocks from the restaurant. It was actually pretty nice because it was an area of Shanghai we hadn’t been to before. The restaurant was really beautiful, there was Chinese decorations everywhere. We realized it was a seafood joint once we walked in because our lunch was still swimming around in tanks. We had a private room in the back with a large table with a big centerpiece and fancy table cloth. Claire’s relatives spoke a little English, enough that we could kindly introduce ourselves and learn their names. A few other Chinese students who came to MMA last year joined us as well, it was nice to see them one last time before leaving China. Lunch was very good, the seafood tasted awesome, although honestly I was a little skeptical of some of the dishes, but overall delicious. My favorite dish was the Indian bread, which is oddly served at most upper scale Chinese restaurants. They have an Indian chef right there making it out in the lobby. Afterward we thanked Claire’s aunt and uncle and they left while we stayed and talked for a little while. It really is nice to see the bonds we made with our Chinese roommates from last year evolve and continue even though we are so far away from each other in reality. Afterward some of us stayed in the city and some of us went back to campus and just hung around. It was a nice quite easy weekend after the hype of Hainan!