2005-05-02 - 1:44 p.m.

Oh joy of joys it's a National Holiday here in China, and the entire country has the week off. Officially it's only a 3 day holiday, but schools and businesses are getting around that by having people make up the extra days ON THE WEEKEND!!!!! How insane is that? Wait, I'm being culturally insensitive.....How interesting is that? I get the week off, but I have to make up for it by teaching school on Sunday. SUNDAY!!!! It's just a little nutty in my opinion. This holiday (I think it's for their Labor Day) has only been around for 6 or 7 years and I read in the newspaper that the government is thinking about scrapping it because they didn't realize that everybody and their mamas would be traversing across the Republic, wreaking havoc on the ecosystem as they go. (or something like that) The transportation systems can hardly support the billions of people who are trying to get somewhere, and to top it all off, people annoy me. Lots of people have flocked to Shanghai, and I am becoming agorophobic. Yes, this is all about me. Mike and I want to go SOMEWHERE this week, even if it is with a boatload of other tourists. We went to the Shanghai Tour Bus Center, picked up a brochure(all written in Mandarin) of someplace that looked cool, took the picture up to the counter, pointed at it, and said "2 for Thursday" in Chinese, and now we are all set. We will literally be on a boatload of tourists. The picture on the brochure shows a raft-like contraption made of bamboo (think Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn) with about 10 people on it floating down a peaceful looking river. They look happy enough, so I think it will be fun. We have no idea where we are going though. Mike's fabulous Mandarin skills did not help us find out the name of our destination. It's 3 hours by bus. I am so excited. In the meantime, we've just been walking around Shanghai. Guess what MAJOR sporting event is in town this week? If you guessed the WORLD TABLE TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS, you are right. How cool is that?

Look, even dolphins play ping-pong here!!!!I am trying to get Mike to go to one of the matches, but as of right now, he refuses. I might get him liquored up and trick him. Don't tell him my plan. We are both so busy we haven't had time to really enjoy the city, so it's fun being a tourist again. We found these cool statues at a museum.

They are very realistic. One of them even has a pager on his belt...Shanghai has got to be one of the world's largest construction sites-buildings are coming up and going down by the second.

Mike caught these kids playing in rubble during a split second lull in construction...Hopefully our trip down lazy river will be very relaxing and if I don't drop the camera in the water (which I am bound to do!) I will show you lots and lots of pictures. Until then, adios. I love vacations!!!!!!!

?lt;/P>

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