Days 259-261: Back to the Grind in Shanghai

Sunday the main thing we did was go back to the Westin for their brunch, which if you've been following my blog, you know we love. The theme for this brunch was Italian food, but oddly enough they didn't have any pizza and not much pasta. I love the food, of course, since they had interesting things like carrot yogurt, hummus, octopus-potato-pesto salad, caviar, and even rare prime rib, but I actually think I'm getting a bit tired of the entertainment: it's the same songs again and again from the opera songs. The male singer sings "O Solo Mio" and they do the same duet each time. Zzzzzzzz.  We decided to take a taxi home, which was cheaper than the one going there--the guy taking us to the Westin took the freeway, which always takes longer and is more expensive: I'm guessing he did this on purpose. We were wiped and strangely hot when we got home, so we took a nap. In the evening, I did reading and prep, but not before I organized gift bags for people (which is harder than it sounds--we have about 20 bags), and Kerry packed some suitcases. With each passing day, coming home is becoming more of a reality, and actually packing some bags made it seem more real. After today, we have only 39 full days left in China. I even created an updated list of things we still need to do.

Westin Brunch pics:

Drinks before brunch. So tasty! The blue was the best.

Look at all the seafood!

I like the DJ there; I think she's cool.

Monday we had another Chinese lesson with Deborah. Today we focused on types of food, and she had us practice some conversation with that. She also answered some cultural questions for us, as usual. I did some grading of response papers in the evening...we had chicken caesar salad for dinner. Kerry made it when I took a nap--pretty dull day overall. One interesting thing did happen, though: our neighbor, who has been yelling, swearing, and screaming at his wife off and on during our stay here, finally owned up to his actions. After he was shouting at 2 am today, I said something to Grace. She confronted him and he owned up to it (to her) and claimed it wouldn't happen again. I hope this is the case, but I'm not betting on it.

Picture of me and Deborah that Kerry took during our lesson:

Tuesday I mostly just graded response papers during the day. Around 3:30 pm, we left to go have dinner with Kate and her two sons at La Creperie in the French Concession area at 5 pm (yes, it took over 90 minutes to get there...mainly because the buses are so slow). Anytime we want to go somewhere in Shanghai, it takes all day. At least 3 hours of transportation. This is the frustrating thing about living here. We had a nice meal, though. I had an Emmental cheese and sausage crepe for the main entree, with caramelized onions. It was somewhat disappointing that we didn't have a French waiter, at least not initially. I was hoping to practice my French. When we did get a French waiter, he insisted on speaking English. Okay...  I got the same dessert crepe as last time, La Bar a  Bar, with coffee ice cream, raisins, and bananas--flambe!--they set it on fire.  Ooh la la.  It took us another 90 minutes to get back home, of course. I then did some final prep things for class tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.

Pics from La Creperie:

La Bar a Bar! Magnifique!

(left to right) Peter, Isaac, and Kate.