Ever visit five Burger Kings in less than a day? I did for my group’s marketing project. It’s not that fun, but it’s certainly an interesting experience. Unfortunately, there aren’t many BKs in Shanghai, so the ones that are here are pretty scattered. Basically, our day looked like this:
Zhongshan Park -> taxi to Xujiahui -> taxi to Jing’An Temple -> metro line 2 to People’s Square -> metro line 2 to Lujiazui -> taxi to Shanghai Stadium -> metro line 3 back to Zhongshan Park
With my sleep schedule in complete disarray, I felt absolutely terrible when I woke up. I was tired, but luckily I only had Chinese. Not so luckily, I had a test today! Like the first test, the listening was my least favorite part. I really can’t differentiate tones, initials, and finals that well.
After class, Wei wanted to visit the Long Hua Temple, so I went with him and Pulton. I finally got to take the 3 line on the Metro, which is on elevated tracks. Sure there are elevated tracks everywhere in the outer boroughs in NYC, but this didn’t feel quite the same. Maybe it was the cleaner tracks or the smoother train.
The temple was located in this really dusty area. There was a lot of construction going on nearby so the dust and the already-not-so-great-air didn’t make it very pleasant to walk around. The temple itself was very pretty and tranquil. It didn’t seem like a big tourist attraction and it was Monday afternoon, so there weren’t many people. That made for a very pleasant walk.We got sticks of incense, but I didn’t burn them since I didn’t pray. They did break in my bag later on. Is that bad luck?
Today was a day to recovery. My stomach problems didn’t go away and basically sapped my appetite. I don’t think I ate anything significant enough to call a meal the entire day. And I’m supposed to be gaining weight here too…
Because NYU decided to make Chinese class four days a week, I had class today instead of a day off. I’m not happy about this because we weren’t informed until we got here. Even worse, I got put into the early class which starts at 9 AM. So much for sleep and a four day weekend.
Luckily, there’s a bus that parks in front of the apartment and takes us straight to the campus. This saves a lot of time and walking, as neither the public bus nor Metro are really that close. It’s at least a five minute walk to both. It’s even worse when arriving at campus. With the bus, it’s still at least a five minute walk to the building NYU is in. With the Metro, it’s apparently a ten minute walk just to the front gate of ECNU.