Today is the last day of our program.  Last night, we were warned (very harshly) not to get too out of control, in order that everyone could wake up and make the departure time of 11:30am for the airport.  Of course, I’m staying in Shanghai, so that doesn’t directly apply to me, but I still made sure everyone stayed in line last night.  We went to the Park Hyatt Shanghai, on the 83^rd floor of the SWFC, courtesy of Yeongjun Chang (we all pitched in a little), and it was incredible.  The best part was that we all made it.  Remember what I was saying about everyone starting to hate each other?  We were getting worried that we all wouldn’t show—but we did, and it was a great time.  Mostly, we just talked about the good times we had had in China, and called each other out on our apparent faults.  Of course, nobody got drunk (otherwise, our teacher would have given us a D, and we wouldn’t have made it home!), and we all made it home with plenty of time to make sure we were all packed and ready for the morning.

In the morning, checkout went without a hitch.  No one lost keys, was (too) late, or a general mess, so around 12am, my class left me.  I stayed behind, and watched the bus leave with all my friends.  Finally, I was on my own, and it was scarier than I had imagined.  I walked around for a little while, still without money (save the Y100 that Liu Laoshi gave us as a refund), and managed to order a cheap lunch before I took refuge in the air conditioning and free WiFi of our hotel for a few hours until I attempted to fight the subway to get to my next destination.

XiaoXia didn’t get off work until 5pm, so I was supposed to meet her at the entrance to the Shanghai Museum (again, where she works) when she got off.  I got there—with my 50lb suitcase in tow—at 5:20pm, at the wrong entrance.  Luckily, she found me 15 minutes later, and we took the subway back to our new temporary apartment.  It was rough.

We made it though, and I met my wonderful new “landlords”, Alan and Kristin, graduates of Amherst studying language in Shanghai.  The apartment is beautiful—great views of this part (far west) of the city, and plenty of amenities—pictures will surely come soon.

Also, I made plans a few days ago to visit Yeongjun in Seoul, South Korea.  This adds another dimension to my trip, and I can’t wait.  Shanghai will be exciting for sure, but I want to fill up my passport as soon as possible with as many experiences as possible, and South Korea is a place I’ve always wanted to go (thanks Albert!).

I miss the structure of the class already though… of course.  And the people, believe it or not.  I think I’m excited for what next semester holds, and can’t wait to continue learning Mandarin, whether it’s just with Rosetta Stone or if I get to sit in on Liu Laoshi’s lectures.

Man I love Journey.  But that’s beside the point.  Today’s our last full day in China with the program—we started in Beijing, then went to Xi’an, then ended up in Shanghai.  Most everyone’s going home on the same flight tomorrow—I’m pretty excited to be staying here in Shanghai for a few more days.  Except for the fact that (no big surprise here) I still can’t get money.  We’ll see how long Y100 ($15) can last me…

All that was on the agenda for today was our final group dinner in the French Concession and then just walking around that area until we were done with it; the rest of the day was ours.  We ate lunch at a French (duh) restaurant called La Saleya, and it was incredible.  They didn’t get our reservation right, but we got to eat at the sister restaurant right next door, with the same menu.  Being French and all, this is probably the first full group meal we’ve had that we didn’t have to eat family style, which was refreshing.  The 3-course meal was beyond delicious, and a welcome reprieve from the spiciness and similar smells of the Chinese meals we had been eating.  The coolest thing about the restaurant I’d have to say was the bathroom—next to a poster of 40 hand drawn penises, there was a little button.  If you had James Bond-style instincts (like I do), you’d know that the button opened a secret door that led us to the bathroom.  Other than that the bathrooms were fine, but come on—a secret door?  Sweet.

Turns out I didn’t want to spend too much time walking around the French Concession, and neither did about half of the group, so we went back to the hotel to nap/pack.  I had already been to the French Concession (we went to Zapata’s there one night and walked around a bit), and others wanted to go find some fashion markets to spend the last remnants of their cash.  I did the whole nap/pack thing for a little bit, and put in my request to get emergency cash from Visa—they said they’d have to wait until tomorrow because the emergency cash department has normal business hours.  Thanks, Regions.

On the schedule for tonight, it said (and I paraphrase, with bolded words quoted), “YOU CAN GO OUT TONIGHT, BUT DON’T LOSE YOUR SANITY OR SAFETY.”  Which we took to mean, “go party tonight, but be safe!”  Apparently, we make Liu Laoshi very nervous, because all evening she’s been patrolling the halls to make sure we’re not drinking… oh well.  I’m headed to Yeong’s hotel at the SWFC tonight, and it’ll be time to party like pros.

Last night, we went to this American sports bar called Windows Scoreboard, and it was very similar to Pyro Pizza in Beijing, replacing pizza with hamburgers.  It ended up being a pretty crazy night—after indulging in burgers, fries, and cheap drinks, we went to a bar called M2 that was in that Plaza 66 place we had found that same day, on the top floor.  It’s one of the hot spots in Shanghai apparently, and that night was no exception.  We did manage to go on the night they had booked a transvestite singer/dancer, so that was fun too (thanks Pride week! …).  We made it home by a reasonable hour, and I had fun hanging out with XiaoXia again.

This morning was the second part of Dr. Greenspan’s lectures, and it was not nearly as interesting as yesterday’s.  This part was all about the little nooks and crannies of Shanghai, which was interesting, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a tougher time staying awake through a lecture before in my life.  Everyone in the class felt the same way.  We still had some interesting discussion, and I got to see a darker side of Shanghai, the “developing country” aspect of it that hasn’t been glossed over by the glory and futurism of Pudong.  Hopefully the World Expo 2010 will do to Shanghai what the 2008 Olympics did to Beijing, as far as modernizing the entire city.

After lunch, we went to the tallest building in Shanghai, the tallest building in China, and the world’s tallest habitable floor/observatory—the Shanghai World Financial Center in the Pudong district.  It was incredible.  We bought the high roller tickets, meaning we got to go as high as they let people, almost ¾ mile above ground—the 100^th floor.  The view was absolutely absurd, and they definitely did the trip with style.  The elevator we took (of the 91 in the building) went straight from floor -3 (they don’t really do B1, B2, … here) to floor 97.  In about 20 seconds.  Suck it, Towers elevators.  We frolicked up here for a good while—the only disappointing part about this event was the air quality—not clear enough to get a really good view of Shanghai, but definitely good enough to see the Pudong side (and get some great pictures!).

We went to a big commercial shopping mall in Puxi after this, and had a great lunch—my first experience with hot pot, which turned out to be incredible.  I had veal, and cooked it myself (in hot pot style), and it was delicious.  I also discovered a new love for peanut sauce.  I’m sure I’ve had it before but not by choice, and I pretty much covered all my food at this meal in it.  Mmm…

Our intention for the evening was to walk up the Bund to check out the French architecture and the scenic views of the river, but because of all the construction and cleaning of the river they’re doing, the Bund was almost completely sightless.  So as everyone else headed back to campus as the sun was setting, Zach, Yeong, and I went back across the river to Pudong to check out the Oriental Pearl—the first of Pudong’s futuristic sights, and the tallest building in the city for a long time (until the Jinmao tower and now, the SWFC).  Night conditions were much better for sightseeing and picture taking, and when we found the glass-bottomed observatory we all almost peed ourselves.  Zach had an extreme fear of heights but he conquered it and we all probably acted pretty gay jumping around, 360m above ground, with nothing between us but a piece of clear plastic.  Pretty cool.  This was probably the best part of the trip, if only because we a.) planned it ourselves, b.) exercised group management (more than 4 people = major hassle), and c.) everything worked out really well.  Thanks to Yeong for spotting me the money to go up!

Last night, we went to this American sports bar called Windows Scoreboard, and it was very similar to Pyro Pizza in Beijing, replacing pizza with hamburgers.  It ended up being a pretty crazy night—after indulging in burgers, fries, and cheap drinks, we went to a bar called M2 that was in that Plaza 66 place we had found that same day, on the top floor.  It’s one of the hot spots in Shanghai apparently, and that night was no exception.  We did manage to go on the night they had booked a transvestite singer/dancer, so that was fun too (thanks Pride week! …).  We made it home by a reasonable hour, and I had fun hanging out with XiaoXia again.

This morning was the second part of Dr. Greenspan’s lectures, and it was not nearly as interesting as yesterday’s.  This part was all about the little nooks and crannies of Shanghai, which was interesting, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a tougher time staying awake through a lecture before in my life.  Everyone in the class felt the same way.  We still had some interesting discussion, and I got to see a darker side of Shanghai, the “developing country” aspect of it that hasn’t been glossed over by the glory and futurism of Pudong.  Hopefully the World Expo 2010 will do to Shanghai what the 2008 Olympics did to Beijing, as far as modernizing the entire city.

After lunch, we went to the tallest building in Shanghai, the tallest building in China, and the world’s tallest habitable floor/observatory—the Shanghai World Financial Center in the Pudong district.  It was incredible.  We bought the high roller tickets, meaning we got to go as high as they let people, almost ¾ mile above ground—the 100^th floor.  The view was absolutely absurd, and they definitely did the trip with style.  The elevator we took (of the 91 in the building) went straight from floor -3 (they don’t really do B1, B2, … here) to floor 97.  In about 20 seconds.  Suck it, Towers elevators.  We frolicked up here for a good while—the only disappointing part about this event was the air quality—not clear enough to get a really good view of Shanghai, but definitely good enough to see the Pudong side (and get some great pictures!).

We went to a big commercial shopping mall in Puxi after this, and had a great lunch—my first experience with hot pot, which turned out to be incredible.  I had veal, and cooked it myself (in hot pot style), and it was delicious.  I also discovered a new love for peanut sauce.  I’m sure I’ve had it before but not by choice, and I pretty much covered all my food at this meal in it.  Mmm…

Our intention for the evening was to walk up the Bund to check out the French architecture and the scenic views of the river, but because of all the construction and cleaning of the river they’re doing, the Bund was almost completely sightless.  So as everyone else headed back to campus as the sun was setting, Zach, Yeong, and I went back across the river to Pudong to check out the Oriental Pearl—the first of Pudong’s futuristic sights, and the tallest building in the city for a long time (until the Jinmao tower and now, the SWFC).  Night conditions were much better for sightseeing and picture taking, and when we found the glass-bottomed observatory we all almost peed ourselves.  Zach had an extreme fear of heights but he conquered it and we all probably acted pretty gay jumping around, 360m above ground, with nothing between us but a piece of clear plastic.  Pretty cool.  This was probably the best part of the trip, if only because we a.) planned it ourselves, b.) exercised group management (more than 4 people = major hassle), and c.) everything worked out really well.  Thanks to Yeong for spotting me the money to go up!

Early morning with the last of our lectures, an NYU professor teaching at their Shanghai campus, Dr. Greenspan.  She’s been living in Shanghai for a while now, and has made it her mission to find all the nooks and crannies of Shanghai—she even has written for a tourist’s guide book for the city.  Her work has focused mostly on “figuring out” the city and the direction it’s going in, and that’s what her lecture was on.  The lecture was very very interesting, and we went a half hour over the 90 minutes the lecture was supposed to last, just asking questions.

Apparently, the age of modernism missed China—while America, Western Europe, and the rest of the first-world countries were building skyscrapers and developing a credit system, China was struggling to get on its feet.  Now that China has found solid footing, it’s going through a phase Dr. Greenspan calls “neomodernism”—the same stuff that everyone else did a hundred years ago, but with modern technology and a few more people.  I guess I could kind of see it in Beijing, a little bit in Xi’an (which looked like Las Vegas at night!), but apparently Shanghai is where it’s at.  Pudong is a case study for neomodernism—what was once a swamp, even just 15 years ago, is now this bustling urbanopolis that is the ideal set for every futuristic movie made now.  The Oriental Pearl, the new Shanghai World Financial Center (we’ll go there tomorrow!) and the planned Shanghai Tower, along with the Liujizang district and an incredibly futuristic look at night, I can totally see how Shanghai can be called “The City of the Future”.  While I realize that Pudong isn’t a good representation of the entire city (and man—it’s a big city), Dr. Greenspan pointed out how the rest of the city is also finding itself, and not really struggling either.  Like the 798 Art Village in Beijing, there are art communities all over the place, there are districts that are known for something special, there’s a vibrancy to the city that I’m excited to explore a little bit.  This just happened to be the first every gay pride week in Shanghai.

However, we spent the afternoon in one of the less Shanghai-y areas of town—we went to the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Shanghai, which was next to the Plaza 66, featuring at least one of every designer store you could possibly imagine, and some you couldn’t.  Way to upper class for me—I walked around there a bit, gawked, and left.  The AmCham visit was really interesting—we met with one of the company executives, and then had a Q&A session with an AmCham member, the president and CEO of a company that handles risk management for new companies starting in Shanghai.  He had lots of advice to offer, lots of stories to tell, and not much encouragement to throw around.  It was really funny to watch—all the business minor people started really sucking up to this guy, trying to get “in” with him.  I’m probably one of them, I just hope I asked more tasteful questions than some of the others…

5am came surprisingly easy for me, as we woke up in order to make our 8:30am flight at the airport an hour away.  I ended up staying in last night, which was ultimately a good decision.  Today’s definitely a full day, getting to Shanghai, sightseeing, and getting checked in to the hotel.  Now that we’re Chinese-domestic-flight pros, checking in to the flight was much easier.  Most people didn’t buy a bunch of junk in Xi’an, so the same people had the same overages, and all was taken care of with ease.  I was excited that my new ATM card was waiting for me in Shanghai, so I splurged on breakfast.  Turns out my fresh orange juice—and after thought—was more expensive than my beef noodle soup.  Go figure, airport food is a ripoff globally.

The Shanghai airport is about an hour away from the main city, so we didn’t get to see much right off the bat.  That was drawn out by our detour through Shanghai Maple Automobile factory, our substitute for the GM factory we were supposed to see (thanks bankruptsy!).   We were taken to the show room (we had lots of fun with the half-cars), and then taken to their cleanest of assembly lines.  That one workshop supposedly puts out around 160 cars per day, and they let us watch as they installed engines, door handles, linings, etc—the entire car was made in front of our eyes.  SMA is a new car company, but they’ve already got some international deals and are hoping to make a major dent in the Chinese car market—one right now that seems about as diverse as American cars.  There are lots of Japanese, Chinese, and (surprisingly) German cars here, and it’s not uncommon to see Buicks, BMWs, and Mercedes driving around.  In Beijing, I’m proud to say that I saw my first ever Lamborghini “in the wild”.

We were told that Police cars and cars with white license plates (government officials and friends) have no traffic laws whatsoever, though it’s hard to believe that anyone follows any traffic laws here.  I think I mentioned it earlier, but I’ll say it again—I’m so incredibly impressed by the driving here.  It’s orchestrated chaos, and it seems like everyone’s running at breakneck speed, together.  I still have yet to see an accident here.

Our hotel—the Carolina Hotel—is absolutely ridiculous.  Actually, there’s nothing too special about it, except that it’s a complete 180 from what our accommodations were in Xi’an, and it’s very welcome.  Working AC, a mini-fridge, an incredible rain-style shower, and complementary breakfast every morning, along with a hotel staff that speaks English?  It’s a beautiful thing.

I think I’m going to meet up with my friend XiaoXia tonight to celebrate making it this far—there seems to be a lot going on tonight, and we’re all ready to party.

I learned how to spell Xi’an today in Chinese characters (??), and what it means—Western Peace.  I’m starting to recognize and read the most basic of characters, and recognize the individual parts of the really complex characters to associate things with them.  Learning the written language will be a long, long journey…

Today was a short day so that we could get enough sleep to be alive tomorrow morning at 5:30am when we leave for Shanghai.  We went to the Xi’an History Museum in the morning, which was interesting, but I didn’t stick with the tour guide, so read all the English labels there were and then waited for everyone else to finish (with the rest of the uninterested people).  Lunch was paid for again (thanks Professor Liu and the Global Summer Fellowship!), and I had the most delicious vegetable dumplings—they had basil in them, a first for me in China, and reminded me of pesto sauce, a favorite of mine.

After lunch, we did a quick visit to the ancient city walls of Xi’an, and then back to the hotel.  We had all made big plans to go out tonight and stay out until our flight in the morning, but Professor Liu seemed pretty insistent that we stay in.  I definitely stayed in, but I napped all afternoon so I still stayed up pretty late.  At sunset, I found a way to climb onto the top roof of our 11 story hotel (of course).  This was probably the scariest climb I’ve ever attempted—I got really freaked out, but am very proud of myself that I managed to get over my self doubts and make it to the top without hurting myself (too badly).  The view was incredible—see the pictures below.

All in all, I very much enjoyed Xi’an, but 3 days was the perfect amount of time.  I liked being in Beijing because even in 2 weeks I started to get a feel for the area and a glimpse of what living there would be like, and I felt a little bit of ownership of the campus.  I barely have a mental image of what Xi’an’s geography looks like, which is not normal for me.  I’ll be in Shanghai for 3 weeks, so I’m sure I’ll get a good feel for things there, even though I’ll be living in three different places while I’m there.

My least favorite thing about this leg of the trip I’d have to say was the tour guide.  Not the man himself—he was great, telling jokes and asking quizzes, and seemed to know his stuff really well.  I just hate the act of being a tourist.  Granted, we didn’t have matching hats or a big flag or anything, but I don’t like being ushered around anywhere by someone telling me why I should thing this place is important.  I’m sure it was necessary, and made things much much easier on our professor.

Bedtime now, 5am is sooner than I’d like it to be… see you in Shanghai!

We were prepped pretty hard for this day by Professor Liu—up and out by 9:30am, and not back to the hotel until 9pm.  This was confusing because there didn’t seem to be too much on the agenda.  We were planning on going to the Terracotta Warriors, the Huaqing Hot Springs of Emperor Tan, and then a show at 8:30pm.

First item on the agenda was the (one of many) 8^th Wonders of the Ancient World, the Terracotta Warriors of Emperor Qin.  I think absolutely incredible that the Warriors weren’t found until 1974, purely by chance.  It makes you wonder what else is out there that hasn’t been discovered yet, just under a few feet of dirt.  They were discovered by a farmer who was trying to dig a well—the farmer who discovered them actually works at the museum now, signing autographs (of course, you have to buy the book to get the autograph…) but that was awesome.  They’re still in the process of uncovering parts of the Warriors, too.  There’s an entire pit exhibit that all you get to see is the roof support of the rooms the statues are in, but we hear they’re working on taking off the roof to uncover the soldiers, horses, and chariots inside.  We also stopped by a “Terracotta Warrior Factory” on the way there, where they make the most incredible art—mostly replicas of the Terracotta warriors of all sizes, but also furniture cut out of stone, swords, other metalwork, and art from house artists.  When I’m designing my mansion when I’m rich and famous, I’ll probably have a few somethings from this place featured.

We had lunch and dinner at the same restaurant.  The first meal was on our tour guide, because he showed up an hour late to pick us up (turned out to be a good thing).  It was apparently a bit more traditional Chinese, but was incredibly delicious all around.  The only weird thing about the meals was that there were people trying to sell us art the entire time.  During dinner, it was auction style.  The prices were attractive (~$15 for a full 8-foot banner size painting), but no one ended up buying anything.

The Hot Springs were pretty boring, because we didn’t have time to climb or cable car up the mountains.  There was a naked statue, and so we took some pretty mature and austere photos with her, but other than that we just twiddled our thumbs after we felt the pee-temperature water.

However, the 8:30 show is definitely a highlight of the show.  We were told we could take photos, but turns out we couldn’t, so I don’t have much to show you, you’ll just have to take my word for it.  The stage was split—the back half was a normal stage, but the front half was a big pool.  The craziest things would come out of the water—most commonly a stage that sat 5cm below the water that would light up, giving the actors and dancers the illusion of walking on water.  There was a line of fountains that created a “water wall” that was used as a projector screen, and the craziest pyrotechnics.  The main plot was the love story of Emperor Zong Xuan and his favorite concubine, Yang, who killed herself because he spent too much time with her and not enough on the state, causing China to get ransacked (the fire came in during the fight scene).   It was difficult to understand, because it was in Chinese (despite me being fluent and all) but the dancing was beautiful—reminded me of ballet—and the visual effects were stunning.  The theater was outside with a mountain behind us, and they used the entire mountain in the show.  If it was a night scene, they’d turn on individual points of light all across the mountain, and a GIANT screen half a mile away would show a moon just over the mountain.  Overall, an incredible show.

The other great part about today was that I didn’t spend a dime—lunch was on the tour guide, dinner was on Professor Liu, and all admission prices (around Y400 total—that’s like $60!) was covered by Professor Liu and our program costs.  I’m going to have plenty of money to last me—I’ve got around Y250 left for two more days—Xiaoxia told me that she got my emergency Visa checkcard in the mail, so as soon as I get to Shanghai I’ll be able to withdraw money again.  This trip has been incredible, and Shanghai’s going to be the best part.  Get excited.

First morning in Xi’an-Professor Liu brought us bananas, so that was definitely a plus.  Things are just as cheap here (if not cheaper?), which is also a plus.  We don’t have a good water boiler here, or a fridge-two things we were given at Bei Da-so I went last night to stock up on water.  Three 1.5L and two 20oz bottles of water cost me a grand total of 7.60rmb, about $1.15 US.  All the sugary and starchy snack foods are so good too, and there’s SO MUCH ice cream.  Eating this crap on top of stuffing myself every meal, I’ll need an extra seat on the plane in order to get home.

We got to sleep in a little bit this morning-around 10:30am, we left to go meet up with a bunch of English-speaking Chinese students from Shaanxi (where we’re staying) to have the next of our “issue discussion” sessions.  There were about 10 students this time, and they all had the same major-teaching Chinese as a second language (in English speaking countries).  They were very interesting, and were overall very talkative.  There was one guy in particular, a recent grad school graduate, whose English was very good, and he asked us a lot of questions just as controversial as the questions we were asking him.  We asked about how their government officials got elected, he asked about the Iraq War.  Then he asked about gays in America, and we asked about gays in China.  Though he denied it vehemently, we all suspected that he himself was a closeted homosexual, and some of the girls got to know him well (every girl wants the gay friend, even internationally apparently).

After the discussion and lunch, we went to downtown Xi’an, a bustling metropolis, where there’s lots of “real history” as our tour guide liked to put it.  Remember a few days ago, when I was so bummed that the Drum and Bell Towers in Beijing were closed?  They have Drum and Bell Towers in Xi’an too!  Not as tall, but they were open, and we went in and climbed up.  Each tower had a drum show or bell show (respectively) that we got to watch (drum show was better), and they gave us a good view of the surrounding area.  Xi’an is in the process of building a subway system (part of the Y4 trillion stimulus package), so there was a lot of construction going on.  I imagine that’s pretty much the norm everywhere I’ll go in China.

Last item on the agenda for the day was the Muslim sector of Xi’an, featuring the Muslim Market and the Great Mosque.  The market was pretty much just like all of the other markets we had been to, except none of the street vendors were selling pork.  The Muslim people there for the most part weren’t Chinese, but just lived there, and probably had for a while.  While we were there, the skies opened-fortunately, I didn’t have my big camera bag and did happen to bring my rain coat, so all was well.  We ate some of Xi’an’s famous dumplings for dinner, along with tofu noodles and fresh vegetables (and they were delicious-pray I don’t get sick!).  We didn’t make it in the Mosque, but it was nice to look at.  Most of the group got pretty sullen and moody when they got wet, so we just went back to campus at that point (it was pretty late) and called it a night.  Only 2 more days here…

Getting to Xi’an was an absolute breeze.  It might have been the shortest 2 hour plane ride I’ve ever taken-Danika and I listened to some music and then we were there.  Crazy.  The 20kg (~45lbs) checked bag weight limit really messed a bunch of people up, as most everyone went crazy buying junk at the Pearl and Silk markets in Beijing.  Fortunately, it’s not too expensive if you go over, but it is a hassle.  One girl had her lighters thrown away, one guy who’s addicted to hand sanitizer had to throw it out, and another girl freaked out because she (edit: thought she) lost her debit card.  I, fortunately, was completely drama free, and was very comfortable on the flight.  They even served dinner on the 2 hour flight.  They’re very nice.

We had lunch with all of our professors (laoshi in Chinese) at a nice restaurant before we left.  I really love the food here, and pretty much anywhere you eat, the food is served family style on a lazy susan.  Of course, all this means is that the gluttons (yours truly) get to stuff themselves silly at every meal.  If it weren’t for such big dinners, I’d probably lose a ton of weight here from all the walking I’ve been doing.

The place we’re staying here in Xi’an, at Shaanxi Normal University (Xi Da for short) are very similar to our international student dorm at Bei Da, except it’s disgusting.  Bei Da wasn’t nice, but it was clean-this place is shoddy and dirty.  It’s ok though, because we’re only here for 3 days, and the Carolina Hotel we’re staying at in Shanghai pulls a glorious 4 stars.  We’re one the 8^th floor though, which makes for some really nice views.

And… last night was absolutely ridiculous.  It took us a while to get going, but once we did we got rolling quickly.  We went back over to Pyro Pizza in Wudaokou-their happy hour is form 10pm to 12am.  5rmb (~$.80) tequila shots and 20rmb (~$3) pitchers got us where we needed to be mentally.   At midnight, we left Pyro-most people went back to the Lion King KTV for karaoke; Summer, Chavon and I went straight to Vic’s again, back at the Worker’s Stadium in Sanlitun.  Unfortunately, we had to pay the 50rmb cover this time, but we stayed there from midnight until 4am, so I guess it was worth it.  Craig, Chelsea, Danika and Yeong met us there around 2am, and we danced the night away.  After about an hour of being there, I needed a break, so I went across the street to the urban mall area.  Knowing me, I found my way onto a roof or two, and spent about a half an hour taking pictures from above.  I love roofs.  And I didn’t have to hop any fences to break in here (though I did squeeze through some bars in order to climb the second ladder).  No incidents here though.  The night ended great, and we got back to campus around 5am, as the sun was rising.  Champions.  We got to sleep until 10:30 the next morning anyways, so it all turned out fine.