Bali hai, um, I mean Shanghai....

So yesterday, a bunch of us went to Shanghai to a smoozy party with the rest of SCIS. We had a few hours in the classrooms before we had to board the bus. I got a lot of stuff done and around 1, I went home. I found 2 men in my apartment, fixing my shower. I had come home Thursday night only to find grout covering my shower. I figured "Won't be showering tonight."

So when I get home Friday, my showers is grout-free and these two men are finishing up. They hold up a sign.

Soooo, do I need 3 days when I'm available or do I need to wait 3 days to shower? From all the hand gestures, I assume it means I need to wait 3 days.... Not a good thing when I was planning on showering before Shanghai....

Ah well, I changed into a dress and walked back over to the school. Though Kory was strict on everyone being there at 2:30, we didn't leave til around 2:45. We picked Kory, Klara (their adorbs baby), and Ember up and then we were on our way. We had cold pizza, beer, and wine on the bus. Even so, it was a LONG 4 hour bus ride. We stopped once at a rest stop for the bathrooms. You could smell them a good ways away. What do you expect when you throw the toilet paper into a trash can? I hiked my long dress over my shoulder as the tissues were held under my shoulder and I prayed I wouldn't pee on myself. La, the joys of squatty potties. Did I mention there's NEVER any soap!?!?!?! Good thing I have massive amount of hand sanitizer.  :)

We ran into traffic once we hit Shanghai because, hello! It's like 6 and it's rush hour.

I thought of you, G!

We drove past this lovely place and everyone wanted to stop. We're all getting mattress pads from there. Finally around 6:30, we had it to the Ritz Carlton, where the shindig was being held. First stop for all was the bathrooms, which took quite a while to find. It was up on the 3rd floor. J spoke her amazing Chinese to get us there. All the girls were walking determinedly with Andres following when we hear someone shout, "Sir! Sir!" We turn around and there is Andres, following up into the ladies room. We all died laughing. He didn't realize where we were going.

As soon as the door opened, the laughter stopped and we all went "WOW!" It was the most beautiful bathroom I'd ever seen.

Marble everywhere. I just wanted to live there. We went up to the 52nd floor and I gasped.

Trying to show air quality, just wait.

It was like we were in a black cloud. It was disguising. We took another elevator up to the 55th floor, got name tags, and AN appetizer. Yup. HZ campus was late so we missed ALL the food. :(

We went outside (I know, I KNOW!!!) into the cloud, but the view was amazing.

See that lovely haze?

The Bund

 Shanghai really is pretty. We all started taking pictures.

blurry pic of me and some of my fellow newbies

Some of the gang plus Ember, my teaching partner. She's in the front. <3 her

We had a lot of fun doing that. Then, came the boring part. Everyone was talking with people at their school. There wasn't really any mingling. The food was gone. It was pretty meh. I spent most of the evening talking with Hannah.

I was glad when it was over. Chris, Julie, and I had an elevator adventure. There were like 20 different elevators to take. We got in the first ones that we saw, only to realize that these were the one for guests and they only went to like 10 floors. :( We had to wait til everyone got to their floor and then take it back to the 52nd floor. We finally found the right one. We got in. It went down to the 10th floor, and then, for some odd reason, it went back to the 52nd floor. My ears kept popping and un-popping. We were a little worried because Kory said the bus was leaving at 8:30 and it was past 8:30. We finally made it down and we were like the only people there. I guess everyone else was having problems too. Some people stayed in Shanghai, but a good amount of us chose to come home.

It was another LONG ride home. Most people tried to sleep. On extremely uncomfortable seats. I got home and crashed.

This morning, I was back at school, getting more of my classroom set up. Josie had a good idea to take a picture out my window every day to document the air quality. She said it would probably be really depressing. I'm going to try it. I got an app that will put it into video form so I started doing that today. It was the AQ is 110 and it looks like it today. There is no mountain view. :(

I talked with G today at school via Facetime! It was so nice to see and chat with her. I miss her so much. Josie mentioned how much she loved the squatty potty pictures that all my ladies took. I adore that one. It hangs on my wall.

I need to go to Van Guards to get something to clean my floor with before I get an ayi and go to the store. I'm down to yogurt, tomatoes, and rice. That does not a meal make.