Well! So much has been going on, but I guess I should start with the week before National Holiday, since... that happened first!
So J's birthday was on Sept 26th so Christina, Kevin and I decided we should throw him a surprise party the day before. After all the necessary planning (inviting everyone, buying supplies, ordering a cake, making a giant card, etc) we still had one task... getting J's room key so we could sneak in and set up everything. Christina and I came up with an elaborate Plan A and B, but Plan A went so smoothly, we didn't need the backup. I told J I was taking him to a birthday dinner on Tuesday and during that time, Christina and Kevin were supposed to get into J's room and decorate it, letting everyone in before we got back. But of course, J decided that that was the day that he needed to hang around his room an extra hour before coming up to meet me for dinner! I was huddled by the window waiting for him to leave his room and Christina and I were making calls to everyone telling them to hold off on coming over. Once J finally came up, I demanded his wallet so that I could "look at his ISIC card" and Christina lured him to the computer. I switched his room key with mine - leaving his under my pillow for Christina to get when we left - then we headed out. Dinner... was another hour just to choose a restaurant! Kevin gave us wrong directions so we wandered for a long time and then I had to rush him through dinner. After conferencing with Christina via texts, we were walking up to his room when the fuwuyuan wished him a happy birthday. He thanked her then was like "wait... how did you know?" and I waved my arms around which is apparently universal for "shh! it's a surprise!!!" so she said that no one told her, she just knew.. haha! Anyway, so we got to the room and he tried to open the door. of course it wouldn't open and realized it was my key, but as soon as he pointed it out, the door flung open and everyone screamed and shot silly string all over him/us. It was amazingly perfect. So yeah! Here are pictures from the party.
A couple days later, Bailin and I went to eat lunch and were out walking and decided that we should wander over to Green Lake park. After chang liang-ing for a while (a Chinese phrase for strolling around a park) we sat down by some people playing violins and singing. I got really anxious and after one of the guys put down his violin, I went over and asked if I could play it a bit and he said I could! It was really exciting but I was so full of nerves I could hardly play anything. Every single person that walked by HAD to stop because they had definitely never seen a westerner in the park playing violin. About 7 couples took pictures of me, that I noticed anyway. Hilarious! Anyway, props to Bailin for putting up with my weird tendencies of accosting Chinese people and demanding that they let me play their violins. :]
Shangri-La trip on the next post!
(more in the photo album)Labels: Christina, School, Shanghai