After eating all that food, I still had time before church, so I stopped by McDonald's again (yes, I went yesterday, but I went again). I had wanted the Mango Chunk Smoothie, so I was planning to go back anyways, but I felt like this was a good opportunity. Luckily, the fast food restaurant wasn't too crowded today, so I took my time and actually attempted to use Chinese to order my drink. The drink was so good. Man, while I drank the smoothie, I just continuously thought about how awesome it would be for McDonald's in the States to sell the smoothie, too. It tasted exactly like how I imagined a mango smoothie to taste like, but I loved how they placed mango chunks on the top of the smoothie, which added more texture and freshness to the drink. I plan to go to McDonald's all the time for the rest of this week; I really wished I had found out about the beauty of Shanghai's McDonald's earlier.
After eating all that food, I finally headed to the subway to head to church. Since today was my last day, I wanted to change it up a bit, so I headed to the second floor of the church for service. It was really nice upstairs, and I ran into the praise team leader Josh while sitting upstairs, and we had a quick talk, which I also enjoyed. The church had baptisms planned for today, too, and because they practice water baptism (whereas my church at home sprinkles water on an individual being baptized), I enjoyed watching people going fully into the water and coming back "reborn." Today, I also had the chance to finally listen to the sermon of the church's senior pastor, Pastor Dale. What a great way to end my last visit to church! He talked about his time here in Shanghai and the road that God has planned already, which I'd heard many times growing up but found interesting to to hear it from a different viewpoint.
I'm going to really miss this church, but it honestly is another reason that I just will have to revisit Shanghai in the future. After coming back from church, my professor took us to the Beijing Opera (which is actually in a theater in Shanghai). It was kind of like a musical, except the singing was very loud and sharp. The costumes and makeup were all beautiful though. To be honest, because it was all in Chinese, we all had a hard time understanding everything, so the show, to us, was very tiring, but it was definitely cool to see an aspect of Chinese culture, which I definitely don't regret attending at all. Basically, what I got from the show in terms of the story was that two parents were killed, their child was switched with another child, and the two deceased characters' child grows up in the hands of a general. The child grows up, learns about her true parents, and learns to follow her "new" dad (or the general) more. I hope that's right, but if not, you can go back, watch the same show (if it's offered), and let me know!
Just as with the Acrobat Show, the people at the Beijing Opera didn't allow pictures or videos, and because we sat close to the workers at the opera, I couldn't really take pictures. After the two-hour show, we had to take a taxi back to the hotel, but no taxi would stop for us, so we waited for a taxi by stopping by the CoCo's near the theater. I got this mango-smoothie-like drink that wasn't as good as the mango green tea I got previously, but I still really liked it. Wow, today was a really mango-filled day! My last Sunday in Shanghai was spent very well in my opinion as I participated in a lot of wonderful activities and ate delicious food and drinks.
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