Today was a goooood day :) First, me Geneva and Joanna went to church at one of our friends’ churches. It’s called Thanksgiving church and it is about 30 mins away driving. I don’t know what I thought of it…today, they had a speaker and he was just a member of the church, not a pastor or anything, so I don’t know how their usual services are like. But today, the message was very…dry. He was talking about the body of Christ, and he made it a lot like a laundry list like, these are the things we’re supposed to do, these are the things we’re not supposed to do, and these are the things God promises us. It felt more like an expository essay. He was giving a point, then supporting it with verses from the Bible, and that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Plus, he went really fast so when I was trying to take notes, all my points are half finished. So I gave up halfway through and just listened. Maybe I’ll go back next week, to see if it’s any better.Anyways, after that, we took the subway to the Shanghai Science & Technology Museum stop, which is popular among foreigners for the shopping! The shopping is all underground, on the same level as the subway, so right after you get off the subway you just go shopping. I really liked it here, even though it was slightly more expensive because this is where all the foreigners go and therefore they can rip you off a little more and we would never know. But it’s okay..it’s not that much more expensive than like the underground malls at People’s Square and stuff like that. It was good shopping, too, because the walls weren’t CRAMMED with little tiny shops that are 1 foot by 1 foot, which in turn were CRAMMED with about 1,000,000 items that your brain can’t possibly process. This was a lot nicer, a lot more spread out, and a lot cleaner. So I’d say the trade off was good…I’d pay a little more to have a nicer atmosphere while shopping, and not be haggled constantly by the shop owners to come in and look or breathe the secondhand smoke of the shop owners who are bored to death. Anyways, I think I spent too much money. I bought a pair of shoes, 2 shirts, and a purse. Total, I spent about 100 yuan (=$15) on everything. Good deal!!! It was harder to haggle with these people though, because they spoke English, and because they knew I was American they tried to jack up the price. But usually I got it down pretty low, or low enough. I got my pair of shoes for only 60 yuan (less than $6), and they’re supposed to be Crocs (obviously they’re fake, but they’re super comfy). So that was a good deal. There was a lot of good stuff, but Geneva and Joanna were getting tired so we just decided to come back to the hotel.
When we got back to the hotel we were starving, so we ordered some lunch (we like to order our food a lot now :)). I got cucumber w/ egg and rice. It was pretty good…too oily though! Everything here is too oily…I hate it. Anyways, we ate lunch, watched too much Arrested Development, studied, and then took a nap. Gosh we’re always so exhausted now…I think we’re even more busy than we were last month, even though we had a lot of activities last month. This month, now that we have our own free time, we STILL have a lot of activities, but they’re not really educational and sightseeing activities anymore. Now they’re more hanging out with friends activities, which can be even more exhausting.
Anyways, at 6:30pm we met some more friends for dinner. We ate dinner with 3 Chinese students – Teddy, Teddy’s friend Champion, and Star – and Jessica from last month. Jessica has been interning here for the past 2 weeks, so that’s why she stayed longer after the program was over. But she’s leaving this week, so tonight was our last night with her. Man!! Everyone’s leaving except for us. I feel like such a lame-o. Well, in 1.5 weeks that will be me!! Can’t wait!
No comments:
Post a Comment