Last Friday, I got to go on a field trip with one of my morning classes.  We went to a Heping park.  While there, we visited a small zoo and amusement park.  The kids got to ride some rides.  (I got to ride one too!) The weather was beautiful and the kids were great. My afternoon classes were canceled and I got to leave school early.  Afterward, I went to pick up an awesome package from my mom!  Thanks mom! 

I've finally been feeling mostly better.  I'm sure the good weather has really been helping.  It's finally sunny and beautiful.

During the weekend,  Cori, Cary, and I went to the Bund.  It was closed while we visited last time, so we decided we should make our way over there before the expo began and thousands more tourists and businesspeople flooded into Shanghai.  I posted a couple pictures of the Pudong skyline before, But here's some more pictures.

I'm currently on a five day weekend!   Tomorrow I will be heading to Nanjing.  So, there will be more pictures and stories coming soon.  

Last weekend, Cary and I traveled to Zhejiang province with a couple of his students and their parents.  We left on Saturday at a bright an early 7 AM to reach People's Square and get on our bus by 8 AM.  Four hours later, we arrived at our hotel in a tiny city about an hour west of Hangzhou.   You could stand in the middle of the city and see the edge of town in nearly all directions.   Despite its seemingly small size, there were still probably a million people that lived there.   Saturday afternoon was spent climbing Tianmushan. 

The mountain was generally very peaceful, but one major gripe I have with here (and pretty much any Chinese tourist site) is the extreme amount of litter.   I always thought the litter in the US was bad about litter, but from a young age we are told that littering is wrong and there are fines for littering.    Generally Shanghai stays pretty clean because people sweep the streets and sidewalks every day, but it was very disheartening seeing the amount of trash in such a beautiful place.  The botanical garden a couple weeks ago was just as bad.  Generally, I try to be very accepting of the cultural differences between American and Chinese manners, habits, and lifestyles (the spitting, the shoving, the lack of information, the staring), but for some reason the littering really gets under my skin.  Even at the peak pavilion, you look up and see a beautiful mountain range, but if you look down you see a pile of garbage outside the pavilion.



 

On Sunday, we spent the day at the Eastern Zhejiang canyons.  We had to wait almost three hours for a small van to take us around the winding roads.    It was pretty much like a roller coaster ride around a giant a cliff that I would prefer not to re-live anytime soon. Various things we saw: waterfalls, bamboo jumping dance, and other naturey things too.

I am quickly growing tired of the lousy, rainy, cold weather here in Shanghai.  I have been told it is usually T-shirt weather by now, but I am still wearing 3-4 layers of clothing everyday! BRR!

Anyway, on one particularly awesome day last week, I had a half day of work!  I finished my 6 morning classes at 11 and had the rest of the day to myself. So, I wandered around my school's neighborhood looking for the Shanghai Botanical Garden. Many sections of the garden were in bloom and it was the second day of "Flower Festival 2010!"  There were many, many students there on field trips, so some sections were very busy and crowded.  (And I couldn't escape the middle and high school students waving "hello" at me and giggling.)     However, some sections were very peaceful and relaxing.  Overall, it was a very pleasant afternoon.

Some flowery pictures:

School news:
- Today, I had 3 morning classes instead of 6.  AND, they were all well behaved.  

- I am supposed to be chaperoning a field trip this week for the beginners and book 2 classes. Unfortunately, the weather is not in my favor. =(    90% chance of rain tomorrow and 70% the following day.  The field trip was moved to sometime next week. =(

Zhujiajiao. Ancient water town with many structures and bridges dating from the Ming and Qing dynasties.  It was about an hour bus ride from Shanghai and made a great day trip for our three day weekend. Originally, Lenore was going to join us, but she unfortunately became stomach ill. (She's doing better now.)

Our lunch consisted of all street food including: stinky tofu covered with spicy sauce, steamed lotus root stuffed with rice, and fatty pork wrapped in leaf.  The lotus root both smelled and tasted a lot like a sweet potato.  It was delicious.

Many of the shopping streets were just packed with tourists, but it was pretty easy to get away from the crowds and explore more.  Most of the town was very quaint and traditional.  I've included many pictures for those of you that enjoy pictures.  Remember you can click to enlarge and read my captions. 

With the purchase of a bus ticket from Shanghai, we were able to visit any of the Zhujiajiao attractions with just a show of our ticket.  Below are pictures from two temples in the city.

My favorite attraction was the Ke Zhi Yuan.  This garden and residence was just huge and just very quiet compared to the bustling, crowded streets.

The bus ticket gave us about 5 hours to wander around Zhujiajiao, but since we didn't eat in a resturant, are pretty fast walkers, and skipped the boring art museums, we were ready to go back around 3.  Unfortunately, that just wasn't possible.  (The ticket lady and guide book said the "LAST" bus left at 5:45, which we interpreted as there were many buses returning to Shanghai.  This was not the case.)

To occupy our time after we left the old town, we sat and chatted with a man from the UK here on business, and then wandered around a park behind the parking lot that was actually quite pretty. Cary's blog should have more pictures once he updates.

We met another two teachers from Guangzhou who were visiting Shanghai area for the long weekend.  They were nice and we had a nice chat waiting for our bus.  We had run into them several times throughout the day.