June 20th

Today was packed with activity. We woke up early in the morning and visited the Jade Buddha Temple, housing the largest statue made out of a single piece of jade. The temple felt, looked, and smelled exactly the way China should have been like in my mind—huge oriental arches, smoky-sweet incense, enormous gold statues adorning decorated rooms where monks bowed reverently. Everywhere, Chinese people were knelt in prayer or offering burning torches of incense. Despite the large number of tourists, the temple felt very serene. Max found a penny on the ground which he was able to balance on a wishing well, bringing him the custom of good luck.

Next we visited a silk-making factory, where we toured to see how silk was spun into clothing and sheets from the worms in cocoons. It was incredible to see that one silk worm could provide 1,000 meters of silk!

After the silk factory we took a tour of a beautiful garden tucked away a street market. It started to rain, and the over-congested market felt stifling and dirty. There is a quality to the air, a sort of smog that never goes away, as if the smoke from millions of cigarettes is drifting up into the air and blanketing the city.

Brooke, Jason, and I went off on our own for lunch and discovered how hard it is to order off even a McDonald’s menu when everything is in Chinese. As we sat on a stoop to eat our lunch, we noticed that every single person who passed by stopped to stare at us. It was kind of like being celebrities.

The day became increasingly more amazing when we visited an EF language school in Shanghai. During the presentations made by the Indian group and the Chinese students, I discovered just how different American education is from Indian and Chinese education. I got to meet my penpal, Amy, and talk to her a bit about her school. Her English wasn’t very good, and she was a bit shy, but I was able to deliver my letter/picture to her.



We picked up a quick dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and then headed out to take a boat-tour of Shanghai at night. Shanghai completely transformed when the sun went down, and from the windy deck of the boat we could see all the amazing buildings illuminated. It was absolutely incredible, and I got a lot of amazing pictures.