It's been a few days since I've written anything; I've been traveling and doing schoolwork. I think I'm going to break this into two entries, because I had some things to put down even before we went west to Henan Province to see the Shaolin Temple and Longmen Grottos.

Last Thursday was the first day of classes, which will be MWF: 9-11am for the Uncovering Shanghai culture course (at the CIEE study center) followed by 1-4pm for Mandarin Chinese on campus at East China Normal University ("Normal" is the English translation for "teaching university"). Tuesday and Thursday we meet in the afternoon for the language class. The campus is really nice, with lots of trees, grass (and quiet!) aligning two central streams. Chinese classes are taught by future "chinese-as-a-second-langauge" teachers...I believe they are graduate students. All of the teachers are young chinese women, and are really nice and fun to talk with. My class was juggling a few of the teachers around for the first three days of class, but finally we have our permanent teachers assigned and I think they will be alot of fun for the next seven weeks. The teacher for my dictation section is Dong laoshi, and the smaller section is taught by Chang laoshi-laoshi refers to their status as teachers. The language class will supposedly be "no english" within the next week, which seems a little overwhelming so soon, but after a week in the homestay I'm getting better at understanding what is being said.

Last Thursday we went on a cruise of The Bund, which is the area directly across the Haungpu River from Pudong. Right before we got on the buses to get down there, we had to wait out a Shanghai thunderstorm, which was very impressive. At about dusk the wind kicked up to 35 mph, and the sky got almost black. Water came down in sheets for about 20 minutes, and I was lucky enough to be watching from my chinese tutor's dorm window. Waiting in the lobby later, we met some students from Washington DC who are living on the ECNU campus studying Chinese culture/history. The drive through Shanghai was pretty stunning, with huge lightning bolts streaking across the sky and lighting up most of the city. For dinner we took a break from Chinese food: Pizza Hut. Traffic didn't stop when we got on the water; we were in an antpile of barges and other random boats. A lot of the boats seemed to barely be making it, the engines were sputtering and their crews were huddled in tents on deck trying to get up/downriver. The city was lit up, and actually kind of looked like Vegas at night...all of the tall buildlings have pretty well designed lighting, and some were almost completely covered in neon.

I've posted some pictures, go to http://students.washington.edu/mkuffel/Shanghai.

Lastly, I cannot see comments that are written on blogspot.com, as apparently the Chinese Government has blocked the website (whatever the reason, blogspot.com doesn't load in China). I can edit, but just cannot see the published blog for myself.