Left behind...

I woke up a bit earlier than I usually do this morning to see Justin off to the air port. He and Dan will leave this morning around 9am. This means that I am now on my own, but not entirely because I have made many friends and met many students on campus. However I don't have that little piece of home that has made this trip much easier. I hope the guys have a nice flight and get that first class upgrade that they've been hoping for. They will be getting in Wednesday around 4pm and I hope the storm doesn't leave them stranded.

We've been doing some "it's their last week so let's do..." kind of stuff. Saturday we went to Nanjing Road and did some shopping and things and ended with a foot massage. This was very nice and we got a little language lesson while we were there. Dan had to leave after that, but Justin and I had a blind man massage. This was nice and works like this: You lay down on a typical massage table and they put a sheet over you and then do the typical massage. It was a dark room and relaxing. I did notice that I had a lady who had her sight. Don't know exactly how that works, but she did a fine job.

It's been an interesting week of seeing Shanghai get really cold. That's cold for Shanghai at least. In the end it's the same reason that ND is cold, loads of wind. My students don't have heaters in their rooms and one student proudly told me that they have 6 people in their room and when they keep their windows closed their room is 10C. To put this in perspective my room with a heater stays at about 19C-20C. They make due the best they can. Many students have plug in hand heaters and hot water bottles. The classrooms do not have heat either, so during my class I teach with my jacket on. My students always ask if I feel cold and I tell them that where I'm from is much colder and is about the same latitude as the city of Harbin in China. They always seem pretty impressed by this and especially Monday when it was a bit warmer so I wore a skirt. It was the topic of discussion for quite a while.

I've realized that I have about 5 weeks left. I will be putting the finishing touches on my final exam and making plans for traveling with my mom. Seeing the guys leave has made me wish that I was going home, but there's still a lot of exploring yet to do in this city and I'm up for the task.