Still catching up in Shanghai :O

6/24/2010 (still typed on 6/26)

    After the language study (we actually read stuff out in English that was both grammatically correct and incorrect and we had to remember the last word in the sentence) and a reading comprehension portion.  We ended pretty early so Elton and I head back to hang out.  After watching some…interesting videos…I get a phone call from my language partner saying today we had a meeting date.  I’m 100 percent sure she didn’t tell me this, but I depart and we go to a nearby KFC to talk.  We can’t go anywhere far because it was a little after 3pm and the group had to meet back at 5 for dinner. 

    We talked about the Shanghai Expo and all that jazz.  She told me about the USA pavilion’s 8 hour line  :O  I sort of want to see it just for China or whoever’s take on the States, but I also don’t want to be in line for almost half a day.   Yang Ni told me that because I’m a foreigner I can cut in line, but I told her I really don’t want to do that (lest I get jumped by angry Chinese people, eh heh…).  But really, I couldn’t do that in good faith.
I still want to see the Japanese pavilion just to see the inside and what they have going on in there.  Other than that, Carly decided on going to pavilions of the countries that are less known, like Romania or Czech Republic.  I definitely want to see as many pavilions as possible, but I want to go inside the lesser known ones.

    I won’t lie, I want to get Haibao (海宝）memorabilia.  He’s the blue guy, the Expo’s mascot of sorts.  I’m getting pretty excited to see such a large event that spans international borders.

    At 5pm the group walks to Canteen, a restaurant right off of campus to have dinner.  We then hop on the bus and head to the performing arts theatre to see Chinese acrobats.  The group really loved it, which I’m glad, because Whitney was starting to get homesick and kinda down.  I was sitting next to her and she was so excited by the performances, so I’m glad something got her mind off of her homesickness.   It was the same one we saw last summer with the guy balancing the pot on his head, the hoop jumpers, hula hoop girls, the guy and girl who performed to “My heart will go on”, and the finale, of course, the cage of death with the motorcycles while the Star Wars theme song played in the background.

Afterwards, we return to campus. I go out with Carly and Elton to get some lamb burgers (it was my first time having them).  They are SOOOO good!  I think it used to be the restaurant with the cat.  They sectioned it off into two spaces where the back had the hotpot place and the front had the lamb burgers for only 4 yuan.  They have a hunk of lamb skewered on this metal pole that’s attached to this stove top (I’ll take pics later) and they cut off small pieces of lamb and let it cook on the stove top.  They mix it in with some shredded lettuce and sprinkled some powdered seasoning on it  :D  Simple yet delicious.  Why oh why can’t the States have such good eats?