Days 230-231: Slow Weekend, Ending in Some Duck

Saturday not much happened. Finished my reading. We had pork chops, leftover cabbage, and potatoes for dinner. Couple things, though: we booked our trip for going home. We are officially returning to the USA on July 5. Also, Kristen asked about the possibility of staying one extra month in our house--for more money, of course. We are still considering it at this point.

Sunday I did more grading--Short Novel response papers--and Kerry called Delta about their pet regulations. "Try to get off the phone in 15 minutes," I told him. Unfortunately, it became a 90-minute phone call: the first woman he talked to didn't seem to know much; she was reading off a website and constantly put him on hold. We found on that they don't allow cats on Delta Premium Select, which is the type of flight we booked. So the first woman booked us an economy flight instead. Then she switched us to another woman who seemed to know a bit more; she suggested that we could do a Delta Comfort flight and still bring the new cat. I was fine with this, but we couldn't get seats on a Delta Comfort flight for July 5, so we had to switch to July 6.  And now we have our layover in Seattle, not Detroit. But...at least we can bring the cat, and at least I have my window seat, and at least we have reasonably comfortable seats. So it worked out. I also managed to download the Shanghai Disney app today; we plan to go to Shanghai Disneyland on Thursday, May 3 (it's supposed to be nice weather). Originally, we had planned to go May 10, but it's supposed to rain all next week. So we booked tickets for May 3.  I hope I'm not too exhausted from my long teaching day on May 2 to go.

Kerry and I had a "date night" in the evening. We went to Magnolia Plaza (777 Hongqiao Road) and ate at Beijing Dexin Roast Duck: we got duck, scrambled eggs with shrimp, rice, and broccoli. They also gave us salt and pepper duck as well as duck broth, too. Very, very tasty! Afterwards, we bought some pastries at a French pastry shop in the mall and then had ice cream and drinks at McDonald's.  I had bubble tea: quite good! It was a nice evening and made for the 90-minute phone conversation.  I hate dealing with long customer service calls. Kerry has much more patience with this than I do.

Did a bit more grading in the evening. Tomorrow we're going to see a temple or two with Peter and Harry.

From Magnolia Plaza:

Scrambled eggs with shrimp at Beijing Dexin Roast Duck!

The crispy duck, Beijing Dexin Roast Duck!

Random subway girl with a cat on her jacket.

Days 228-229: Boring Day, then SISU Arts and Crafts

Thursday not much went on except that I wrote my Midterm Exam and sent it to Carol. I also found a possible flight to return home for July 5, so I sent it to Sophia Yang from approval. We had spaghetti for dinner...not much else to say.

Friday we had much more fun. We went to the group Chinese class for the first time in awhile.  However, we only stayed until 2:30 because we decided to go to and Arts and Crafts event that the SISU International Club was having.  I was really glad we went!  It was nice to see a lot of people again, including Peter, Damon, Boris, Curtis, and Samira.  I had a nice talk with Claudio about Italian films, and Kerry had a nice visit with Christa (the Dutch teacher) about word origins. I also chatted with a German visiting faculty, Michael, who was the head of his American Studies program at his university back home. It was a nice, bright, sunny day, and we made some Chinese wall decorations. We took silk scarves, placed them on rings, and then some men wrote Chinese calligraphy on them, and some of us attempted our own. I did five of the wall hangings: the calligrapher wrote "handsome," "Shanghai," "love," "dream" on mine. I did one of my own with the word "mountain," one of the few Chinese characters I know (shan). Many pictures were taken; good conversations were had. An enjoyable event all around. Kerry even got to pet some cats on the way back. The event was at the SISU International Faculty House, which was beautiful...and only five minutes from the campus. I have absolutely NO idea why we, as international faculty, were not placed here instead of the Hua Hong Yuan Condos, 20-30 minutes from campus, but there's a lot I still don't understand about China.

I just had beans and Chinese cabbage for dinner and did some reading in the evening. We're doing Maus I in my Honors class on Wednesday and Streetcar in my grad student reading group. My Short Novel students are taking a Midterm next week.

Here are some pics from the Arts and Crafts event:

Kerry with his Chinese name hanging from bamboo.

Group photo with SISU International Faculty: (left to right, the ones I can identify): Curtis (with the tie), Hacer, Samira (smiling), Farras, me, Anna (kneeling), Kerry, Christa (holding a wall hanging), Peter (holding a wall hanging), Claudio, Boris.

Me with my "shan."  Did it myself.

Me with "love", Christa, and Kerry with his.

Days 226-227: Workin' for a Livin'

Tuesday Randy left early: we saw him off in the rain and cold around 9 am. Then I worked the rest of the day: I completed a prep sheet, a midterm review sheet, and 21 graded papers for my Short Novels class. We made chicken caesar salad for dinner; nothing else too exciting to report.

Wednesday was a short teaching day. I actually managed to get up early today and make the 7:15 bus on time. Kerry was very kind and made me scrambled eggs and toast.  As usual, it took 1 hour and 40 minutes to get to school. After hanging out in my office for awhile, I taught class. My computer was unplugged and the screen wasn't working when I got there, but a student (Shen Ruo Yu) helped me out with that. First we finished up the group discussion from last week (talking about Mme. Reisz and Alcee Arobin). Then I decided to read part of "Story of an Hour" to them; this didn't work out as well as I hoped it would. They all laughed and then told me they had that story on some sort of exam that they had to take--oh well. We still talked a bit about how the story compared to The Awakening and I read to them parts of the ending of The Awakening as well. At the end, three students drew names to call on students to answer questions. Most of the students did well with this. (The first student, whom I suspected of plagiarism early on in the class, faltered greatly, which confirmed my suspicions that she's probably not doing the reading.)  I then got on the bus for the long ride home.

The ride home wasn't as bad, though: about 1 hour and 10 minutes. It does strike me as annoying that I have to do over 3.5 hours of transportation for a 1.5 hour class on the "easy" Wednesdays. That is one thing I like least about SISU. I ate my lunch on the bus and managed to get the 1:38 745 home. Unlike when we walked around the Randy the other night, it was a beautiful, clear day today: sunny blue skies and 72 degrees.  Once I got home, I took a four-hour nap: I was that tired. Spaghetti for dinner.

Pic from the day:

Shuttle bus that takes me to the Songjiang campus.

Day 225: The Pearl Tower/Shanghai Municipal Museum Redux.....and MoCA

Today Randy and I did some more sightseeing, but without Kerry, unfortunately. He still wasn't feeling well enough to go running around.

We managed to get a Didi to The Pearl Tower. We bought tickets to the Tower and the Shanghai Municpal Museum--160 RMB, much more than the guide book said. The ticket agent warned us that the view on the 263 meter platform wouldn't be that good, and she was right. But it was okay, and I got some good pictures as I walked around. Randy and I then went to the 90 meter platform, and, oddly enough, got much better views and much better pictures. It was a nice surprise. Afterwards, we headed to the Shanghai Municipal Museum downstairs. Last time, with Zach, we got to see it for only five minutes. What a difference this time!  We explored all the floors for about an hour. It was an amazing museum telling the history of Shanghai. The dioramas were so incredibly lifelike that I had to stop and stare a few times to make sure that real people were not behind the glass. I also enjoyed the dioramas of the places, such as Nanjing Road or the Bund in the 1930s, or hotel ballrooms. They were often all lit up and gorgeous. It was a journey an cobblestone streets, which reminded me of the Detroit Historical Museum a bit. Well worth the price of admission.

Pearl Tower and Municipal Museum pics:

Pearl Tower, from the outside.

View from the 90M platform.

Lifelike person, Shanghai Municipal Museum.

Another person come to life.

An old Chinese silent film: a woman chooses an orphan.

Randy mugs before a screen.

Afterwards, we discovered it was pouring rain outside. Randy didn't bring an umbrella or raincoat, so he had to share my umbrella. Stupid me: I was just wearing a Tiger shirt and short pants, and it was 60 degrees out. We went to Subway for lunch--just as good as an American Subway, I think. I had tuna, Randy had Italian sausage with peppers. We sat at picnic tables near a bunch of Chinese people just standing around under an awning. There were several men near us, smoking of course. Being around cigarette smoke is inevitable in Shanghai.

We then took the subway to the MoCA. The MoCA was in People's Park, and I had a better memory of how to get there this time. I was surprised at how small it was: just three floors and only two major exhibits. The first floor had a display with phosphorescent light--you could press against the wall and make a lasting shadow. Pretty cool. This floor also had REAL couches, so we collapsed into one of them for a brief rest. It was nice to sit on a good couch again. The second floor had an exhibit from a French artist known only as "Seth." His exhibits tended to be multimedia and involve children: photography, sculpture, painting. Very hard to describe but very worthwhile to see. A major theme of his work, it seemed to me, was the dysfunction of children's lives. He would show a child upside in a bird cage, for example, or another in a kneeling position suddenly crumbling to bricks.The third floor was not as impressive: a series of dresses, only about 15 of them. But they were beautiful to look at.  That was really about it, unless you count the bathroom, which had an outrageous display of lilies that were formed by series of curse words. Ah, modern art.

I'm making a shadow on the wall.

My favorite piece from the Seth exhibit.

This head contained drawings of heads from children.

Gorgeous dress.

My favorite dress in the exhibit.

View outside the MoCA.

Kerry contacted us by this point and we met him at the Ciao Cafe for pizza. It was still pouring rain and we were soaked, but the pizza was tasty as usual. I then showed Randy a bit around the Hongkou Campus, even though it was dark outside and the rains were torrential. Then we headed home and Randy started to pack.

The advantage of going around with Randy was that I forced myself to get out and see and do things that I wouldn't do normally. Even though Kerry was ill, it was still a good visit.

Day 224: The Westin Brunch and Anime Street

Today, we did two major things: The Westin Brunch with Randy and Anime Street.

The Westin Brunch, as usual, was spectacular. We had a table right on the stage, so we could see all the acts right up close. I started with seafood and cheese; then, I ate some international foods (Indian, Peruvian, Middle Eastern); after that, some Italian; and I topped things off with chocolate and ice cream for dessert. Randy had his own special dessert: the orchestra played "Happy Birthday" for him and brought him a scrumptious cake: chocolate mousse. The female opera singer did a splendid version of music from Carmen; I never tire of her. We saw an amazing male acrobat balance on top of several metal cylinders. Extraordinary! I plan to go there for my birthday before we leave; they gave us a discount because we were celebrating Randy's birthday.

We then took a subway to the Anime Street that Randy and Kerry, in particular, wanted to check out. It was very hard to find, and, in my view, was mostly a lot of nothing. It was a smelly, dirty street full of a few stores selling figurines, but nothing that really interested me much. There were, however, a couple pet stores. One sold rabbits, turtles, kittens, and puppies. One calico kitten mewed and mewed at Kerry; another kitten was eating a bowl of what looked like oatmeal mush. I'm so glad Kerry didn't pick the kitten up; otherwise, we would have taken it home. I did managed to help Randy haggle for a lower price on a stamp he wanted: we went from 80 to 50 RMB.

We got another taxi (thanks again, Didi!) to go home. None of us wanted dinner; we were so stuffed from the brunch. I just did some reading of The Awakening and some grading of Short Novel papers in the evening. Kerry read, and Randy wrote in his journal. Very quiet time at home to end the day.

Some pics from the day:

Seafood and cheese!

Randy and his b-day cake.

Incredible acrobat!

Day 223: More Exploring Shanghai with Randy--Jade Buddha Temple, Propaganda Posters, Hakkasan

I got a slow start today--we really didn't leave until around 1 pm. This is because I got up about 10 am; I wanted to sleep after yesterday. But we ventured out.

I got us a Didi to the Jade Buddha Temple to begin things. I was just in the process of cancelling the ride, though, because the map didn't show that the driver was moving. However, he did show and took us to the Temple. It was quite remarkable--lots of huge statues of Buddhas and others. And, of course, lots of praying Chinese. They had an incense burner, but it wasn't going when we went there. It was quite a large temple; much more so than most of the others I've seen. Perhaps that is why they charged 20 RMB for admission instead of the usual 10 RMB at most temples. The highlight was certainly the reclining Jade Buddha, located in the Grand Hall in the back. I took several photos there.

From the Jade Buddha Temple:

Women transcribing Buddhist text at the temple.

The Jade Buddha!

We tried to get another Didi to the Propaganda Art Center, but the driver kept calling me, and we didn't understand each other. I managed to flag down a cab. Before we went to the Centre, Randy and I had a bite to eat at a California restaurant. I had a chicken avocado panini; he had a chicken salad wrap. There was a beautiful white collie dog there who kept begging for food. When I tried to pet it, it barked a little and stepped back. Ah well. I didn't give the dog any food.  I asked a white guy in there (he said he was from Oregon, which surprised me because he had a bit of an accent) how to get to the Center, and he gave me some clarity. While we were waiting for the food, I had gone up to the guard and he gave me a card and motioned for me to go around the building.  So that's what we did when we were done with lunch. We had to enter from the back...it was in "Building B" in what looked like an apartment complex. And it was in the basement. Only two huge rooms, but it was quite fascinating stuff. We weren't supposed to take photos, but I did anyway; they weren't monitoring this carefully. The museum was a historical tour of Shanghai through rare posters. All were fascinating; some were quite revolutionary in nature. I found the ones involving children, especially very curious, like they were priming them for the future. My favorite was one called "100 Years of China"--so beautiful! Their gift shop was really cool, too: I bought two poster books (one as a gift), postcards, and two posters (one as a gift). Spent too much, but we definitely had fun.

Two of my favorite posters:

Poster from 1950 depicting the future of China through children.

Elaborate poster called "One Hundred Years of China."

Next we briefly walked over to Costa, a chain coffee shop in Shanghai. Randy grabbed a drink and we went outside and people-watched. We saw a little boy crying because a bike had hit him. The police/security were trying to calm him down. (I didn't see the boy get hit, but Randy did.) Soon, though, we used Didi again: this time to go to Hakksan.

We got there a bit early, and we noticed that it was on The Bund Walking Platform. So many people there! However, we got some great pictures, seeing the Pearl Tower and many buildings across the water. Good stuff! When we walked into Hakkasan, they told us that we had a table with a view of The Bund, but we had to be out in two hours (which, incidentally, they didn't enforce...we stayed well over this). I was not overly impressed with their food: the portions were too small for my liking. It was mostly good--I liked the rice and mushrooms--but the "crispy duck roll," for example, turned out to be a duck mousse in a fried egg roll-type crust. Bleah. The chicken soup was just okay. Randy's carp was good, though.

Raymond arrived a bit late. He and Randy really hit it off, talking a lot about travel. As a surprise, they brought over a dessert for Randy (a lemony cake) with a candle in it. I also got an apple dessert (five spice) that was quite scrumptious. Dessert was really the best thing about the place. Well, the service and atmosphere were good too. People were nice. The manager even came over to our table; that's how he found out about Randy's birthday. They were nice about taking our picture--with the Bund view in the background--too.

Some more pics:

View of The Bund before dinner.

Mushrooms at Hakkasan.

Raymond, Randy, and Me.

The Bund at night.

Afterwards, I suggested that we go to the Fairmont Peace Hotel: I just wanted Randy to see the inside of it. It's in beautiful art deco style. We looked around the lobby, and then decided to check out one of the more elegant bars on the upper floors. After perusing that, we went to the Cathay Room on the ninth floor, where we saw a STUNNING view of the Bund. Unfortunately, my phone was dead by this point, so I couldn't get any pictures with it: I did try with my China phone, though, but it is not as good with the photographs.

Pic from the lobby:

Raymond, Randy, and I then got a taxi through Didi, which we were fortunate to do, for the Bund walking area was VERY crowded. Raymond jumped out near his home, and then I managed to tell the driver--in Chinese--to go to our place on Shuidian Lu instead of Hongkou Football Stadium (originally, I thought we'd stop at a place that was neutral for all of us, but I guess Raymond wanted to get out early).  So the driver took us home.

An interesting day, all in all.

Day 222: Xi'an

So today Randy and I took a trip to Xi'an. We had to get up at 3:30 am and take a taxi to the airport (we planned the trip through TripAdvisor, so it came in advance). Traffic wasn't too bad, but the driver drove really slowly for some reason. Was he trying to avoid police? Who knows. Anyway, we got to the airport, and the line was insanely long: we had to wait in it for about an hour, and I was almost falling over with fatigue. I managed to get on the plane and fell asleep for about an hour while we were on it. When we landed, the guide wasn't there to meet us, so I called Sophia Liu, the woman in charge of the tour, to ask what happened. The guide showed up a couple minutes later: her name was Sasha.

It took an hour to drive to the Terra Cotta Warriors. Sasha talked non-stop about them and Xi'an and I mostly stayed quiet. I could tell she had rehearsed a lot of this information, many times. It was a looooong way to get there. First, Sasha had to get us a ticket. Randy and I chatted with a black couple from Florida while we waited; they were taking a tour, too. We had to walk to a place the a golf-cart-like contraption, then, which took us to the "second entrance," where we actually saw the museum. The warriors were located in different pits. First we saw Pit 1, the most elaborate--with standing warriors, a hospital, and even horses. It was the most elaborate. The other pits were more fragments, or even had warriors under the earth, still unearthed. Pit 2 had a couple warriors standing on cases on their own, including a kneeling warrior and a general. It was fascinating to see the warriors, but the problem was that I was super tired and hungry the entire time, so I was a bit crabby as well. And it didn't help that our guide walked quite fast (I had to tell her to slow down) and even compared the "tummy" (a word I hate) of a warrior general to my tummy at once point. She also asked if I needed to use the elevator to get to the exhibition hall. So the implied weight references didn't thrill me. I know she was probably trying to be kind, but still....I'm not used to such personal remarks.

Here are some pictures from the Warriors:

One of my first views of the warriors.

Sasha took this picture of me. You can tell I'm tired.

Warrior horses.

Kneeling Warrior, survivor from Pit 2. I bought a statue of him.

After the warriors, we were taken to a restaurant for lunch, which was a bit underwhelming: the food was pretty cold, even the soup, and all of it had peppers in it. It wasn't bad-tasting, though: chicken, for example. The duck had like five pieces of duck and 300 pieces of onion.  But it did fill me up. I managed to take a nap in the SUV after lunch and felt better afterwards.

We then explored the City Wall of Xi'an a bit. It was raining by this time, and I had to go to the toilet before exploring. No toilet paper, of course, so I had to get some from Sasha and Randy, who came better prepared. The views from the Wall interested me more than the Wall itself. I got to see a moat, for example, along with a building that had architecture based on the Ming Dynasty. We didn't spend a lot of time there, though. Sasha wanted to take us to the Muslim Quarter, which I was curious about.

The Muslim Quarter was more interesting to me: lots of shopping and food, like Taipei. Lots of color. Randy and I split a bowl of something that tasted like sticky rice and dates. Randy also bought a scarf for his wife from a Muslim woman who, oddly enough, would not haggle. I also saw a young beggar man in the street, with a splint on his leg: I don't see a lot of this in Shanghai. And the rain poured down the entire time, until we left around 6 pm.

City Wall and Muslim Quarter pics:

City Wall, in the rain.

A view of the moat.

The Drum Tower, near the Muslim Quarter.

Muslim Quarter, in the rain.

Randy eating sticky rice with dates.

It was an hour ride to the airport. Sasha made me fill out the survey about her in the car, which I thought was a bit odd, and Sophia even called to see how the trip was. I said mostly good things, except for the food. (Later, the next day, I shared with her my complaints about Sasha.) The driver was nice, though--very fast, Randy noted, and skilled. We might our flight in plenty of time: the wait time for boarding passes was minimal coming back--5 minutes unlike the one hour wait this morning. Then as we waited to board, we had a traditional Chinese meal of Burger King: I had a Bacon Cheese Whopper, Randy a Hot and Spicy Chicken Sandwich. The fries were great there--I haven't eaten at BK in years, and now I've eaten there two times in three days. I'm probably going to hell.

After eating, we waited to bored, but our flight was delayed a half hour. Once we got going, things were okay, I got a window seat again (yay) but we were further back on the plane. I managed to squeeze in an another hour of sleep on the plane, too, and Randy and I also chatted.  Took awhile to get to the terminal: we had to wait on the plane a bit and then the shuttle bus to the terminal took awhile at Pudong. We located the driver and he took us home. We got home about 1:15 am Saturday. I was hungry and wanted spaghetti. :)   And then, finally, I went to sleep.

Day 221: Hanging Out in Shanghai with Randy

So most of the day today I hung out in Shanghai with Randy. Poor Kerry had to stay behind because he wasn't feeling well. He ended up going to the International Hospital near Pudong; he managed to call for an appointment and got one at 4:30. It turns out he has a bronchial infection; over 500 bucks had to be spent at the doctor. I hope Blue Cross will reimburse us.

In the meantime, Randy and I ran all over Old Town Shanghai. Long ride to get to Yu Gardens area--bus to Line 3 (Hongkou Football Stadium) to Line 8 (Siping Road) to Line 10 (Yuyuan Gardens). I had a map, and we followed some street signs, so we managed to get there okay. We were okay, so we first went to a steamed bun restaurant. Very, very tasty: it was the same place we went to with Mark and his family last term, but in a different location. We had buns stuffed with pork and some others stuffed with shrimp and pork. We also had some broccoli, which was cooked in soy sauce and also quite tasty.

After eating, we went to Yu Gardens, which was busy, but not too overly crowded today. I have been here before (last October), but I still had a good time looking around. Before we knew it, an hour had gone by. It was so interesting to hear so many different languages spoken here: Japanese, Chinese, French, German, Spanish, and English. Lots of tourists, obviously. I loved looking at all the beautiful rock formations and all the gorgeous foliage...and then especially contrasting all that beauty with the snow in Minnesota right now. Today it was 82 and sunny--really stunning. Also, I enjoyed looking at the ponds with huge koi fish and turtles...on one bridge they tended to gather and come right up to the people, presumably to be fed. It was cute!

Once we were done at Yu Gardens, we headed to the City Temple of Shanghai. It was 10 RMB. Not bad. I liked it better than Jing'an Temple--so impressive!  There were a lot of statues of gods with offerings next to them: fruits, sweets, and red ribbons as indulgences. I also saw the usual temple features: elaborate buildings with statues, incense burning, a lot of people praying. The smells of incense were wonderful and pervaded the entire temple. We really enjoyed it.

Being the Westerners we are, we made a brief stop at Dairy Queen. I ordered a Cheesecake Blizzard after I was told that they have no regular ice cream (??!). Oh well, how very China. The Blizzard I was given was basically an Oreo Blizzard with two little pieces of cheesecake. Sigh. And Randy's Rum Raisin one unexpectedly had nuts in it. Odd.

I did a bit of shopping in the bazaar area, nothing major. A hat for myself, a panda for Kerry (to ease his pain from being sick), and a couple postcards. Randy only got some postcards as well. One annoying thing about the Yu Gardens area is the constant tourist harassment: several times, people tried to entice us into buying beers, or tea, or watches?  Thank goodness I was warned about the "tea scam" at the Fulbright Orientation; I was very on my guard about this. One girl asked Randy to take her picture: he obliged, but then asked if we wanted our picture taken, too, which was suspicious to me.  That's often how a "tea scam" begins. The scammer tries to be nice and friendly, asks you to tea, and then leaves you with the bill.

The ride back was long and crowded, not surprisingly, but we survived. I made spaghetti for Randy and Kerry when I got home.

Tomorrow, Randy and I will go to Xi'an. Kerry is too sick to join us after all.  :(

Pics from the day:

Randy eating steamed buns.

Koi fish at Yu Gardens, seen on the walking bridge.

Nice shot of what Yu Gardens has to offer.

One of the most beautiful shrines at the City of God Temple.

Ceiling, City of God Temple.

Yu Gardens Bazaar.

Day 220: Bad Start, Pretty Good Finish

So some bad things happen to begin the day. I woke up at 4:30 am, unexpectedly, after a bad dream where somewhere was holding someone hostage in my house. Someone else in the house told me about it, and I calmly dialed 911.  Then I woke up. And I couldn't get back to sleep. So I had only about 3.5 hours of sleep. Then, I checked my e-mail: I found out that I didn't get either position that I applied for at Century--Student Success Co-Coordinator or the D2L Trainer. Ah well. It's not that I expected either, but I thought that I had a chance, at least with the D2L one. I'm curious about who they chose. As I was making breakfast this morning (grilled cheese sandwich), I burned the back of my right hand when some butter jumped from the pan. IT REALLY HURT. Currently, I'm typing this with blisters on my hand. And, of course, Kerry is sick. I asked him to assist me with the Didi. It's a good thing I did....because today mine wouldn't work. I couldn't figure out what was going on. I tried to hail a cab, but he couldn't understand me. So we used Kerry's phone: no problem. I later discovered that my phone had inadvertently been put on airplane mode. Geez!  And, again of course, I missed the 7:15 bus, so I had to wait almost an hour for the 8:15 one. I made it to school with about 15 minutes to spare, around 9:50 am.

Fortunately, though, my experience at SISU today was pretty good. The weather was absolutely gorgeous--it was fun to walk around, and even my office had a normal temperature. My Short Novels class is discussing The Awakening; I also gave a lecture on symbolism. Group discussion with group reports to the class seems to be working for this class. I just have to draw out the discussion leaders sometimes. They don't want to talk unless I say, "What do you think?" Still, they brought up some good points and had interesting things to say.  After the class, Shenghong, Yanmei's friend, took me to lunch at a restaurant near campus that I didn't even know existed. He insisted on paying. I had a chef's salad and some pizza: both were delectable. Shenghong is a bit sharp and pointed in his questions sometimes, but he's very nice, and he seems to support the idea of me returning to China, which excites me a bit. I seriously would consider moving here if I could get a position as a full-time American Literature professor at a university, which has always been a dream of mine. And Kerry would have to find work as an ESOL teacher as well. So...never say never. I think it would be interesting to come back in some capacity. Once lunch was done, I relaxed a bit (including a successful bathroom trip--I'm getting better at the squat toilets), and then the grad students showed up for their reading group. They were eager to talk about "Mrs. Spring Fragarance," a short story by Sui Sin Far about a clash between American and Chinese values. They all seemed to have opinions today. Most of them said the story was "old-fashioned," but they could see Chinese culture within it. One student noted that the protagonist's name, "Jade Spring Fragarance," should have been translated as "Spring Fragrance Jade."  "Family names are always only one character," she claimed. This is a perspective I wouldn't have gotten from teaching this in the USA!  We also had fun talking about Chopin's "Desiree's Baby"; they liked the surprise ending. Lots of laughter and sharing of cultures with this group--so wonderful! Then I headed to my Honors class: lectured on contemporary American literature, and then we talked about some poems by Angelou and Alexie, as well as Tim O'Brien's story "The Things They Carried." I wanted them to discuss what they learned from the story about American culture. I also collected their proposals for their presentations today; I'll look them over later--at a glance, they seemed interesting. One student, Alison, asked good questions after class about lines from the Alexie poem that she didn't understand. I marvel at how these students ask content-based questions.  After class, I hopped on the bus home.

However, things took a different path for me. I called Kerry from Chifeng Station, and he hadn't started out to get Randy yet. I knew he was feeling crappy, so I offered to accompany him, and he accepted. I bought myself a fruit tea and Kerry a milk tea at Heetee.  And then we were on our way: we had to change lines twice, but we finally did meet up with Randy at the Science and Technology Museum stop. This turned out to be a good choice because it wasn't crowded there at all, unlike People's Square (which we had to transfer through there and back). We stopped at Hongkou Plaza on the way back to nosh at Burger King (first time in Shanghai--I got a Whopper), and then we noticed that the subway entrance was closed. It was about 10:06 pm by this point, so we decided to get a cab. I flagged one down (pushing some guys out of the way), and told the driver where we were going, mucking up the number a bit, but Kerry managed to show him the correct address. So it all worked out this time. We showed Randy around, he gave me my Century gifts to give to others, we chatted a bit, and then Kerry and Randy went to sleep and I started typing this blog entry!

Tomorrow should be interesting--Randy wants to go to Yu Gardens. Kerry will probably stay home and rest.

Here are a couple pics:

Randy and Kerry at the subway.

Me and Randy.

Days 217-219: Prep--School and Getting Ready for Randy

Not much to report from Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday. Stayed inside, did reading and grading for my classes. Prepped a lecture on "Symbolism in The Awakening."  We're reading the Chopin novel for my Short Novels class; Alexie, Angelou, and O'Brien for the Honors class; and the grad students are reading Sui Sin Far's "Mrs. Spring Fragrance," Chopin's "Desiree's Baby," and Hurston's "How It Feels to Be Colored Me."  I did get an invite to lecture at Shanghai University, at the end of the month. They want me to do the Donald Trump/African American Lit. lecture that I did at Jilin U. We'll see if it pans out.

Tuesday I helped Kerry clean up for Randy--swept and did the living room and part of the bathroom. We're looking forward to his visit, but it will be stressful, too, especially since Kerry's not feeling too great: he's stuffy and has a cough. 

Days 215-216: Friday Prep and Saturday Fun

Friday was somewhat of a crummy weather day in Shanghai. It rained a lot. So it was a good day to stay inside, and that's what I did. Therefore, I just read The Awakening and graded many papers. I went to bed fairly early because I had to get up at 2:30 am Saturday for the TYCA-Midwest meeting. I had a heck of a time accessing it through GoToMeeting, but I finally got on. I'm certainly not used to attending meetings in the middle of the night, so that was strange.

Saturday was a very long, but good, day. After the meeting, I slept until about 10:15. Then I got up and hurriedly showered. I was a bit late getting done to meet Richard to go to the market, but Kerry was late getting back from tutoring anyway. He told me that he might need to find a new place to tutor--details on this later.

We managed to find a cab with Didi to go to the market with not trouble, which shocked me a bit. But the ride to the Jiashan Market was long. The weather was a bit nippy today--windy and a bit cold--but I can't complain compared to what they're going through in MN right now. We enjoyed the market a lot. We bought some plates as gifts, noshed on quesadillas (yay Mexican food!), bought some brownies and cheesecake, and even purchased some tea towels and coasters from a small business called Pinyin Press. I also bought two fans from the fan lady in the alley: her price has gone up from 40 to 50 RMB, though. Tsk tsk.  Overall, Richard is very enjoyable to hang out with--a down-to-earth guy who seems very nice. Probably because he's from Wisconsin.  :)

Once the market was done, Kerry and I took the subway to the Museum of Contemporary Art. We had a heck of a time finding it: we didn't know that it was in People's Park. Once we got there, much to our chagrin, we received confirmation that it was closed for the day (a British couple we met on the way warned us of this). So we just waited for Janetta and Elliot to show--they were a bit late, but they finally did appear. We started chatted with them, but a beggar kept hanging around us. "Zou kai!" I kept saying. "Zai Jian!" (Go away! Goodbye!) Janetta and Elliot had a yen to go to the silk market, so that's where we headed: another subway ride. Lots of high-pressure sales people at the market. Elliot was quite skilled at haggling with them, though, in spite of the fact that I knew more Chinese. I admired how tough he was!  Elliot and I bought socks; Kerry bought belts; and for awhile Janetta couldn't find anything. But she came upon this one store that she absolutely adored and bought a lot of black-and-white fabrics there. It was fun helping her select things!

After the market, we went to dinner--yet another subway ride (#3 of the day)--and decided to go to DaDong in the IAMP Mall (where Morton's is). We arrived there, but we were told it was a two-hour (!!!!) wait. I was extremely suspicious of this because that's exactly what Carol was told when she tried to make reservations for me at two different DaDongs in Shanghai. That seems insane to me, but I wonder if it's actually true. Regardless, we weren't in the mood to test this, so we ended up at Grandma's Home in the same mall. By contrast, they had only a 10-minute wait: it was one of those places where you check things on the menu (and it was in English and Chinese!).  We got chicken, beef, veggies with tofu, and sweet and sour ribs. Janetta and I got iced teas; Kerry got Coke (of course). I think I liked the chicken the best--same as the Grandma's in the Hongkou Plaza. (I think it was a similar menu.)  The ribs were too chewy, though, and I thought the beef was too fatty, even though Kerry liked it.

Once we were done, we saw Janetta and Elliot back to Shanghai University in a cab, and then we hit the subway again: there's a station right at the Mall (South Shaanxi Road), so that's nice. But we had to switch lines twice on the way home. We took the subway to Chifeng and then hopped on the 745 and walked home.

One negative note: coming home from the subway, I noticed that I lost my subway card for a second time and had to buy a new one. It's okay, though: I had only 17 RMB (about 2 bucks) left on the one I lost. I have no idea how I lost it, but oh well. Kerry hasn't lost any, so I have him beat 2-0 in lost subway cards so far.

I didn't do schoolwork today, but that's okay. Sometimes it's fun to have an off-day.

Saturday pics:

Richard and Kerry, in the alley at Jiashan Market.

Janetta at the silk market.

Janetta and Elliot at Grandma's Home (the restaurant).