Today was Victoria's 17th birthday! We sang happy birthday to her at breakfast, which was fun. Then we had LGM, where we played a trivia game. My team won! I was so proud that I knew who Chiang Kaishek and Hu Jintao were. The more time my LGM group spends together, the better our meetings become because we are more willing to share our feelings and participate in discussions. LGMs are really, really great now!
After our LGM, we boarded the buses to see The Bund, which is a busy avenue parallel to a river walk overlooking the beautiful Shanghai skyline. Like Beijing, Shanghai is smoggy, but definitely cleaner and newer.
(The Bund)
(A different street view)
(Top: Janine, Red Sky, Chava, Claire, Jay, Me, Lucretzia, Mariana, Katty, Azhan, Victoria, Miguel, Ayesha - Bottom: Aaron, Allie, Alexis, AJ)
(Shanghai Skyline)
(Artsy photo of Mariana:)
(Mariana and Ayesha)
(Chava, Katty, Mariana, Me, Jay, Ayesha, Azahn, and Lucretzia)
(Me and Miguel looking pretty cool...)
(Miguel and Victoria)
Next we had free time at Nanjing Lu to buy lunch. I ended up in a Chinese mall with Katie, Adam, and Victoria. We went to a steakhouse and then Häagen-Dazs, and had a lot of fun together. A funny thing about the mall was that the only music they played was Taylor Swift. It's amazing how far-reaching American music is!
(Mall in China)
(Nanjing Lu)
(Adam, Me, Victoria, and Katie in Häagen-Dazs)
Our next stop was the Shanghai Coca-Cola factory. We all got a glass bottle of a Coca-Cola product to enjoy during a presentation and Q&A session, which was nice.
(Outside the factory)
(Chinese Sprite from the factory!)
The coolest thing about the presentation (besides actually learning about Coca-Cola as a business) was that we had to use an interpreter. The speaker talked in Chinese and then our really awesome travel manager Terry translated what she said into English. What's really neat is that some things that take a really long time to explain in English can be explained in one word in Chinese and vice-versa. The factory tour right afterwards was short, but interesting - we got the chance to see Sprite being bottled and labeled. Here are some more pictures!
(Ayesha, Mariana, Me, and Avery)
(With Katie:)
(Avery, Katie, and the Coca-Cola Bear)
(My two roomies Victoria and Muriel from Germany)
(Me and Kirk)
After the factory, we went to dinner at Dai Jai Cun restaurant. It was the traditional Chinese restaurant that we've grown used to (with turn tables and dozens of food options), but with a special twist. This restaurant had live entertainment - singers, dancers, the works.
(This man was such a good singer!)
The boys were particularly interested in this one belly dancer who had rock solid abs (which is kind of weird for a belly dancer). The boys were all whistling and hooting until they later found out that the belly dancer was a man! The looks on their faces were priceless.
Before we left, we had a chance to go up on stage to dance with some of the women in the show. Here's a picture of Jay with one of the dancers.
At GYLC, the way we make sure we have everyone on the bus before we head to the next destination is by doing bus count. Everyone on the bus gets a number (eg. I'm #14) and we count off until we get to number 45. It's a really efficient system to make sure we never leave anyone behind. The GYLC coordinators decided to make a little game out of bus count by seeing which of the 4 buses could finish bus count first. The one who finished first would get a prize, but more importantly pride and bragging rights. And guess what? My bus, Bus #1 (aka the best/party bus), dominated!
(FAs Jenny and Zach, my fellow LGM member Mack, and Terry with our dragon poster prize)
We were so excited about winning that we decided to celebrate with a bus party. We plugged someone's iPod into the stereo, turned off the lights, and sang and cheered until our voices were hoarse. Unfortunately, the fun was short-lived because our driver accidentally took off someone's side mirror. I feel bad for the person and the bus driver...
Everything was okay though and no one was hurt. We went to our next destination, a Chinese acrobatics show, unscathed. The show was wild, dangerous, and SO exciting. People flew, contorted themselves, and raced around the theatre (and a spherical cage) on motor cycles. It was such an impressive way to end a crazy fun day!
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