The Class~! Well, at least the kids.
Day --. The last two days
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~!
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~
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
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
Alex,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great finale. It has been fun reading about your experiences these last two weeks and seeing the CRR through your eyes. Next year's reporter has a lot to live up to. You were really able to capture China and your audience. If you ask me, you were the "eyes of Suzhou"and China. Thank you for your wonderful writing and honesty. Welcome home.