Leaving Shanghai and beginning in Pengshan

The Shanghai institute was over before it really began. We had several notable adventures with the institute—going to the Chinese circus, going to a famous Chinese garden, visiting the Bund, going up to the top of the Shanghai World Financial Center, and visiting a Buddhist monastery in Shanghai. I ate tons of good food, bonded with fellow Shanghai institute friends over everything from being really tall to reading Nietzsche, got lost, got found, practiced Chinese, and lots else. Despite the institute seeming much too brief in retrospect, it seemed to last forever when I was there, probably as a result of all of the stuff I did. By the end, everyone seemed to be getting the hang of China, and most of us seemed pretty excited to move on to our respective universities and settle down.

While pictures explain much of the above better than words, there were a couple of experiences that are worth writing about (because I didn’t take any pictures). On our last night in Shanghai, our group went out to KTV. KTV is Chinese karaoke, where your group rents a room with several karaoke screens and a few microphones for an hour or two and belts out whatever English songs you can find on the KTV register. This is unbelievably fun. I had a great time singing: whatever backstreet boys I could find, “Since You Been Gone,” “Lose Yourself,” and many more. I discovered not too long ago that I love playing rock-band (thanks cousins) and KTV is kind of like that, but with a group all singing and no scores to tell you how bad (or good, in some people’s cases) you are. I learned that at my university there are a couple KTV rooms provided specially for teachers, where they bring you snacks and drinks for free. I plan on making this a part of my weekly routine for sure.

The other experience was playing some ultimate in Shanghai. I found out about a pickup game online and emailed the organizer about times, and decided to go play with the team. Thanks to Jeremy, Matt and I both had China Ultimate jerseys to wear. A couple days before the game we decided to go to (it was a 2 hour trek on the subway to get there) my friend Phil from the China team that went to worlds contacted my because he saw that I was in Shanghai on facebook. He and I had traded jerseys after our game at worlds. At the game, I was surprised to run into a bunch of other people who I know from ultimate: Matt Knowles, Miranda Roth, Jia Xie, and this guy called John who I played against in Fort Collins when Matt and I played for The Worst Team Ever. After practice Matt and I were invited to play on the Shanghai team at any tournaments that we can attend. The first one was too expensive, but hopefully we’ll get to go to one in Hong Kong in October.