This morning, my dad left for the good ol' US of A... Jason and I were officially in China with no parentals! We had a very lax morning, that I spent figuring out how to mail postcards from here and writing note after note to friends. Jason and I also packed up and switched rooms; now that he was the only male guest, he'd be staying in the single bedroom while my cousin and I would share the king-sized bed. After our lunch, my aunt and uncle took us for a college visit...of sorts.
I don't know whose idea it was, but they said that it would be cool to visit and drive around Shanghai Jiao Tong University, aka 上海交通大学. Obviously school was out for the summer, but they said it was one of the best schools in China and we should take a look around since we could. Okay...I mean, the four of us aren't really at the specific point in our lives for more college tours, but whatever. I mean, I just finished that whole thing and Im thankful to be done done done. Jason's not nearly there at all yet, and he should enjoy his youth while he can! After driving around, watching an utterly atrocious game of soccer played by students still on campus, and looking at the buildings and deserted campus, we decided we were done. Whew.
My aunt called up a colleague and asked her if there were any other places in the area we could check out. She recommended a little-known park nearby on the river. After getting lost a few times on empty streets, we finally found this place. It had a few pretty paths and lawns, and a walkway on the river. I was disgusted by how filthy the water was...oh, pollution. The river was filled with these huge cargo ships and it was pretty cool to see them all so close.
On the way back, my aunt stopped at a little eatery and ordered Jason a big bowl of spicy noodles since he said his favorite thing to eat was spicy noodles with soup (辣汤面)...lol. I had some Shanghai pork buns (上海小笼包), one of the city's most famous foods. We also stopped for some bubble tea (Yuuuus. My absolute fave.) before heading back to the apartment, only a block away.
That night at dinner, I had some more vegetables, and a massive amount of watermelon. I've eaten so so so much watermelon every time we come back to China, since everyone buys it and offers it to guests...the 6 watermelons my uncle bought (I don't think he got nearly enough) were all going to go bad, so it was an all-out "let's stuff out faces with watermelon" fest that night...I ate almost half a watermelon single-handedly. I definitely think I did my part.
We stayed up again tonight for the Argentina-Belgium game...this time, all four of us stayed up. I finished writing all my postcards while we waited for the game to start at midnight. Once Argentina was proclaimed the winner, we all dove for our beds...night!
A terrible shot taken of the main entrance of the university while the car was driving past...I wouldn't have included it in here, but it's the only photo I took of the school. Oops.
A massive ship in the water
My Shanghai pork buns...are now in my tummy.
The place where we got bubble tea was named Demi Moore...what?
It was still delicious, so no complaints here...
Late-night soccer watchers! Those time-zone problems..
