Nanjing, Shanghai

Well I will tell you one thing about international travel, it does mess with your sense of time. We are on our last day in Shanghai, and I wasn't planning on having time to blog again but since I decided to wake up at 5a.m., two hours before I'm meeting Matt and Rich for breakfast I guess I have time to tell you about Shanghai.

I arrived in Shanghai on Saturday afternoon to eerily beautiful skies, was able to tell that taxi how to get to my hotel and arrived around 3pm. By 4pm the beautiful skies were gone and the typhoon that originally had been heading for Hong Kong was heading up the coast. From about 4pm on Saturday until last night (Monday night) it has rained pretty steadily. Unfortunately that put a damper on any sightseeing.

I have been talking with my friend Michelle, who I met in Anhui when I visited China last time, for a long time about meeting up and luckily she was able to come to Shanghai Saturday night. It was wonderful to see her but she arrived at 11p.m. at night! We hung out for a while and caught up on everyone else and where they are (Bai Ma, Mei mei says hi) and eventually I had to go to bed because we were planning on leaving very early Sunday morning. I was able to get to bed by 12:45 and woke up on time at 5a.m., took a shower and headed downstairs for breakfast at 6a.m., only to find the place dead and closed. I asked one of the hotel employees why the cafe was not open, she proceeded to tell me it opens at 6a.m., I told her it was 6a.m. but she only laughed at me and told me it was 5a.m.! I was still on Seoul time. So I didn't meet Michelle at 11p.m. or go to sleep at 12:45, I was an hour ahead! Anyway luckily I was already wide awake.

On Sunday morning Rich, Matt and I took a train from Shanghai to Nanjing. The trainride was about 2 and a half hours so we really got to see the "countryside" (really it just looks like one big city, with skyscrapers throughout the country). Nanjing is famous for the "Nanjing Massacre" that occured before World War 2. It has been said (By the Chinese Government) that over a million people were massacred and raped at Nanjing by the Japanese. Most people believe that around 200,000 died in this massacre, which is still a significant number. Unfortunately we weren't going to be able to see any of the history of Nanjing as we were only there for the day. Today we were visiting the High School Affiliated to Nanjing Normal University, with a bunch of students who had just begun the first class of the IB program. All of these students were Chinese Nationals, which was a great find by Rich! Most schools we visit in China are international schools, who are prohibited from enrolling Chinese Nationals. We spent an hour speaking with the students about how to choose a college, how to finance a college and how to apply. We then spent the afternoon meeting one-on-one with any student who would be interested in our respective universities. I believe we all had a steady stream of students. Afterwards we returned to Shanghai on the bullet train (reaching speeds of 206 km/h at one point) and enjoyed some native chinese dishes at a restaurant before heading to bed.

On Monday we didn't have a school visit until 11a.m. so I was able to sleep in a bit (that might be why I woke up so early this morning). September 15th is the Mid-Autumn Festival in China, an new national holiday started this year by the Government so most schools were closed, however we were still able to visit Shanghai Community International School's Hongqiao campus and Pudong campus. We spoke to about 40 students at the first visit (all foreign students) and about 15 at the second campus, with about 7 students being Chinese nationals who came to hear the presentation. Overall the day was great, and we were able to see a bit of the city while driving between the schools.

Everything is cheap here (except for the beer). Most taxi rides cost between 3 and 4 dollars and meals are on average less than 20 dollars for a nice dinner. Unfortunately today we are on to two schools that are on the way to the airport and we won't have time to see anymore of Shanghai. In the end it has been ok since it has rained everyday. Maybe next year I'll be able to get back to the Bund or Xintiandi.

Tonight we are off to Malaysia, I'm really excited about this visit as I haven't been able to get any information from anyone I know, since not many have visited! Travelling with Rich and Matt is great. Our three schools compliment the spectrum of available colleges and universities across the nation both in geographic perspectives and size and style of school. Pepperdine is on the west coast above L.A. with about 8,000 students and is considered a comprehensive university. Colorado College is in Colorado Springs and has roughly 2000 students and is considered a liberal arts college and Northeastern is on the east coast in Boston with 15,000 students and is considered a National Research University. It really gives the students a good idea of the different types of colleges they can attend. Thats all for now, sorry about the lack of pictures, the camera died and I forgot to recharge it, but I hope to post new pictures soon! See you in KL.