End Credits

End Credits

Firstly, I would like to thank Kojo, obviously.

Please excuse the random lady to the left.

The hilarious organizer of this trip and teacher of our class (and still managing to survive), Kojo keeps his upbeat self with his duck voice and *sometimes* bad jokes. Throughout the trip he planned everything well and even let us enjoy our trip, despite all the work we had to finish. (He planned that too. -.-) This trip would definitely only be a dream if he hadn't made everything work out so well. =) The future kids that leave for China are lucky to have him arranging all this, to the delicious group dinners to the exciting surprises. And to think that he brought everyone back in one piece (or rather, twenty-five pieces). Whoo-hoo Kojo!


Then there's the lovely Posing Group chaperone, Amy!
Amy is easily the best group chaperone ever. Even though she's a grownup she doesn't let any fun escape our grasp. She makes even the scariest situations (example: running for the train) seem like little races or parties that we should enjoy rather than rush through, and she encourages us to take our time and breathe in China. Nothing is hopeless when she's around! I was allowed to use her laptop to write the blog entries when we were staying at Scholar's. Also, Amy takes many pictures--at least 100 each day! (Every picture i've used for my blog entries before this one are all taken by her.) And of course, like any mom, she loves to embarrass her kid. Heh heh. We couldn't wish for a better chaperone!

Self-explanitory? =)
The one on the far left is mine. ALL MINE MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
...
LiDa Middle School Students and StaffLiDa, even in a crucial testing time for all of their students, managed to house every single one of us and take good care of us. Everyone had a story to tell! They let us use and explore their beautiful and very spacious facility, and we made friends and learned more about Chinese culture than we thought we ever would have. I believe we all felt welcome and enjoyed our time in SuZhou.

And readers and commenters...THAT'S YOU!
Hehe! Last and anything but least, family and friends and anyone who cared. Especially you commenters, you made me encouraged to keep posting almost everyday, despite how often I complained about how tired I was and sometimes felt obligated. But knowing you guys all read and enjoy what I write, droopy eyelids and sleeping later don't matter at all. Some of you check daily and that makes me feel like everything is worth it. Who knows--with the words of support and excitement that you guys give me, maybe someday I could be a famous blogger or something, haha! Anyways you don't know how special each one of you makes me feel. =)

With that,
I now conclude my side of the CRR 2009 trip. Of course I will still check every so often for comments and stuff, but I don't think I'll need to post any more. (This makes me sad!) Maybe I'll look back on this years and years from now, and maybe you will too.
But most of all, I really hope that next year, for the CRR 2010 trip, that someone else will blog for the people in America, like I did, so I can see what happened to them when I was sleeping.
I look forward to reading a blog that is better than mine next year.

For now...
~~~Reporter Poh...
...because there's always room for more!

The last two days

The Class~! Well, at least the kids.

Day --. The last two days

Now as I sit at the computer I think back about all of the wonderful memories I share with my friends, who are even closer now because of these two weeks. Everyone's home safe and sound, and if you didn't hear about the last two days (or possibly just came back to hear my point, or see Amy's awesome pictures), you're at the right place.
We all left LiDa in the morning, after saying goodbye to our lovely homestays and taking a class photo (shown above). Then we saluted their flag with the entire school, and walked a bit before loading ourselves (and our luggage) into a tour bus.
The ride was longer than we thought it would be. We were stuck in rush hour and didn't have much to do except snack on some weird tasting chips (cool cucumber) and Oreos (Oreo knockoffs, at least, which tasted horrible), toss around stuffed animals and poke each other with a big wooden sword (Allen's). Kathleen then found two young friendly truck drivers to wave at, and throughout the time we were in the freeway she and I exchanged ecstatic waves with them. We named the two Spenser and Timothy, and they were really one in a million that would wave back so enthusiastically at crazy little American kids. They didn't even get bored--in fact they looked like they were enjoying themselves.
Eventually we sped up and left them behind, and despite our constant begging to slow down we lost Spenser and Timothy. Sigh~!
Just when we had run out of things to do WE ARRIVED AT THE METROPOLE!
=D YAY!
It was a relief to escape from the bus and into Shanghai's...umm...not very fresh air. But anyway it took awhile to get organized, like each pair of students getting room keys, dropping off our stuff, and girls changed their clothes of course. It was definitely in a much nicer condition than Scholar's Inn. Some rooms were bigger than others, like Emily and Angela's room was teeny and Jet and Maya IH had their own little corridor. Me and Kathleen had a room on the larger side, which was nice.
Shortly after we settled in we left for Floor 0, and met up with Kojo (and other chaperones, of course), who got us excited with a SURPRISE at night he said! (But then again, the last SURPRISE at night he said was a boat ride which most of us fell asleep on because we were so tired. Who knew what Kojo would do?) We went to a nearby chinese restaurant for lunch, and pretty much everyone was eager to eat. The kids got their own banquet room with two tables and a perfect amount of seats, and the food was great. Conversation made the waiting time pass and the tea cool. The only downside was the fact that we couldn't get any clean water without paying and some students left to run across the street for soda and water.
Anyway we then walked walked walked to a nearby shopping mall street and got two hours to do whatever we wanted.
*after doing whatever we wanted*
We all met up at the front of a big building, having gone our separate ways. Kathleen, Clare and I had shaved ice, french fries, gelato, cheesecake, and ice cream all the time that we had, and Kathleen bought a bag of candy worth 100RMB (Antonio did as well, but it didn't seem like he got as much.) Other than that no one really spent much. The clothes were much too expensive and we missed crazy bargaining again.
Back at the Metropole some girls changed again, dropped off a few things and then got back down to meet up with Kojo.
A few students got stuck in the elevator for awhile, and it took some more time before they were rescued. From then on no one really dared use the middle elevator...
...anyway, we all climbed into three taxi vans, with one grownup at least in each car. Pam, the vice principal of Cleveland who recently joined us, was monitoring our taxi van. Let's just say that we talked a lot and a bit too loud, and we kept urging the driver to hurry up a little so we could be ahead of the others. Then we shared memories of elementary school and sang loudly.
(I have a feeling that it was a bit too much for Pam and the driver.)
Ahem.
BUT KOJO'S SURPRISE WAS AN ACROBAT SHOW!
It was absolutely AMAZING.
Compliments of our dear Amy, who captured some shots that I can share with you~!

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE AMAZING SHOW~!

Those aren't ropes. They're poles, which hurt terribly if you A) jump from each one, B) climb on one without proper equipment, C) aren't holding on with both hands, and D) slide down upside-down.
All of these boy troupe acrobats did the four DO NOTS just listed, and even made it look easy as pie in their performance~!!!


Okay. You see those weird things above her head? Since the lighting is strange, you probably didn't know that THOSE ARE HER FEET!!! It's like she dismantled herself, or is one of those rubber people you see in movies. And she looks only around eight too!


It's the boy troupe again, but this time they're tumbling--through hoops! It's difficult, so difficult that the youngest one knocked the hoop over when trying to get through, but we gave him some slack because the rest of the time he was awesome! This is the highest the hoops got stacked. Note the acrobats' cool pose on the sidelines. We have GOT to learn that!


This was performed when the Titanic's theme song was playing, along with a few clips from the movie. This couple, meanwhile, was dangerously swinging and twirling around on two silk ropes that hung from the ceiling. It was very touching and made everyone gasp at certain points, like when the woman had a rope around her neck that the man was swinging her by.


This particular biker is underneath a swarm of girls, who just so happen to be experienced trick bikers as well. He can't see anything buried underneath everyone, and each girl is standing on the bike, or on him. It's shocking how they can all stay on so well, even when moving at a decent speed and leaning constantly to the left!!


It's the boy troupe's last performance and here they are, juggling hats like little rubber balls. They also ran around tossing them like frisbees, and no one even stumbled while they did so. Every single one of them stayed in sync with the rhythm of the music, and each other. If only we could be so organized.


Finally, the famed and catchy BALL OF DEATH, a metal sphere cage where a motorcyclist is led in one by one, driving around in circles, side to side, upside down. It's like a nightmare rollercoaster where you'd be lucky if you didn't throw up at the end! Look at the picture and you'll count, 1, 2, 3, 4, FIVE cyclists, and one of them being a girl that wouldn't let the men take the show. She unfurled a cape, a China flag, in the end when she was circling about. It was sooooooooooooooooooo coooooooooooooooooool~

Only a few of the performances were left out: spinning plates, standing on stacks of spinning chairs, standing on pipes and diabol tossing. I think that was it, aside from the first performance...i forgot that one. But that was the general summary of the entire show, right on your computer screen! Of course to see the TRUE AMAZINGNESS of the group you'd need to go watch them yourself. I believe they are called "Charming Shanghai"!
We all left in vans again, singing all the way back to Metropole hotel. Fortunately we got to sing and all without being yelled at.

The Next Day...
We headed out for breakfast in the morning, which was continental and very yummy. The fried rice was popular among all of us, and afterwards we got a few hours of free time, because supposedly we were already packed before we ate. During that time it was my last chance to get MANGO MOUSSE POCKY because there isn't any in America!! >< Goodbye, MMP! So we all got on a van and once everyone was in and set to go, we left Metropole and headed for the airport. Except, halfway through the trip the gas line leaked and this weird water stuff started dripping on Clare's head and we had to get out and find a safer bus. And then we got on our first flight, the long one that was going to take eleven hours. We started off a bit late, but by the time we got to the connecting flight we had delayed it by an hour, since we were about half of the plane. Luckily no one was very mad at us, even though we all had to wait for Mitchell who was a victim of the 'random physical check'. Poor guy.
Then we got back and our parents were waiting for us with happy grins and open arms and of course, flashing cameras. =)
And nowww...we're safe and sound~!
...Sorry if that was a bit sudden. But I still have one more post to get done with and my eyes are already drooping, even though it's only 9:30.
It's nice to be home, even though i'm really sleepy right now...must stay awake...to finish up the blog and ohhhhh...
*snore*
~~~Reporter Poh