Getting used to it, kinda...

Things we've done so far: Shanghai Museum, Propaganda Poster Art Museum (sounds more interesting than you think - picture of Mao playing ping-pong), new calligraphy phrases ("white sword in, red sword out"), plans for the weekend, today was the ceremony to mark the 50th day until the Expo, and yesterday the students set up a fundraiser by selling comics, (signed) posters of celebrities, toys, candy and other things.

At the Shanghai museum, there were 12 exhibits with 4 floors to explore...Mrs. Briggs had us do a scavenger hunt (which only Hannah did) but we mostly viewed art, pottery, jade, clothes & masks...you know....art stuff. As the days go on, by living with our host families, we're (kinda) improving our Mandarin. Gesticulating is at an all-time low.

We've realized recently that Malia is the best at translating ever, so that's always helpful. Hannah has the all-around language brains, and Addy has the looks. 

(And Now Hannah is typing 1 week later:)
On Wednesday the 17th we went to the Jade Buddha Temple. It was pretty cool seeing the big sitting Buddha, even though they were trying to sell us stuff before we even saw the Buddhas. The 2nd Buddha was made of marble so we felt kind of cheated. It was also in the middle of a huge gift shop full of over priced jade.

Sunday:

Oriental Pearl Tower. Space Needle and Eiffel Tower combined. Haibao everywhere. I thought it was boring. The only cool part of the Tower was the touristy revolving restaurant. We had to ask for chopsticks. Apparently it makes a complete turn every 2 hours.

From the Tower you can see the Bund and buildings. On the windows they had arrows and said how far away cities like Beijing and Nanjing are.

Afterwards we went to Yu Yuan Gardens. Feeding the fish baozi and leek dumplings. I even gave them the french fry I packed with me. You could literally reach down and pet the over-fed, giant koi fish. Outside in the shopping area there were Haibaos everywhere, with baby rattles, even in tiger suits. It was very creepy.

Incase you were wondering Haibao is the mascot for the Shanghai World Expo. He looks like Gumby and Colgate's love child. Link to picture: http://images.beijing2008.cn/20071219/Img214218719.jpg

The longer we live here the more we get used to eating with chopsticks, etc. Like "ai ya!" we now say reflexively instead of choice words. Some table manners are still grounded in for me like not slurping and using a napkin during the meal, which for the Chinese they use it at the end when they are full. Examples of different manners: Pushing someone and not saying you're sorry, not saying excuse me/you when you/some burps/farts/sneezes, bring a bowl of rice to your face when there's little rice left.

Check the other blogs for more info.