Day Seven

For the first time since we got to China, I had the chance to finally get to do something I rarely do … even back home: sleep in! Back home, I always felt like sleep was a waste of time and didn’t like to do so since I figured there were far more important things for me to spend my time on, such as working on homework, working out or playing video games. After numerous days of riding buses around China following plane rides, I figured I could do myself the favor and just relax for one morning and sort of lounge around the beautiful hotel room that was provided to me. Of course, knowing me, I should’ve known better since I wasn’t able to sleep and instead woke up and watched some ping-pong on television, complete with Chinese commentary, naturally. All the while, I looked forward to what I figured would be another great day in the city of Shanghai, complete with more Chinese food and sightseeing that I would never again get to experience.

 Of course, when the time came to meet up at the bus, I wasn’t disappointed. I eagerly made my way past the friendly hotel staff onto the bus, taking my regular spot towards the back of the bus, and prepared for whatever Lili and Molly had in store for the group. Our first stop took us to yet another Chinese food restaurant where we indulged ourselves yet again on the delicacies of China before we headed out to a silk place where the showed us some lazy silkworms whose lives consisted of eating all day and making silk whenever requested. Following the natural progression, we then went into a shop and looked around before heading over to a theater where … me, Jorge, Jill and Lili ditched to go to a local mall so we could go shopping. Back home, a trip to a mall isn’t anything special, but here in China, it’s different since virtually everything is foreign to us Big Noses, the nicknames the Chinese used to describe American tourists. We looked around for a while before realizing that the items there weren’t for us, which led us to another store, which was across the street. Lili, not being completely familiar with Shanghai, led us to an underground subway where we ventured underneath the streets and appeared on the other side inside of the shop which we had seen. Following a few more trips of this nature, we decided to head back and soon realized that it was raining outside. Because of this, nearly every cab was taken and we spent a good hour or so trying to hail down a Shanghai cab. Jill and Lili were able to take shelter under Lili’s customary red umbrella, but Jorge and I had to endure the conditions that nature had laid upon us. Drenched, we finally hailed a cab and ended up back to the hotel late that night.

Normally, this would have been a poor way to end the day, but frankly, I didn’t care. There was something that was just enjoyable about being in China, running around looking for a cab among the hundreds of cars and bikes that passed us, drenched but laughing, being in a country so far from home while the rain poured down on us, that just made it so fun. I went back to the room that evening, shook myself off like one of my dogs, kicked off my shoes and hopped in the shower, still chuckling over the evenings events.