Day 39: Although our professor who was in charge of teaching our Modern Chinese class left for a conference yesterday, we still had class today with one of our other professors as a substitute. Our last lesson focused on China's history, and as an individual who's always been interested in Asian history, I really enjoyed today's lesson, and I also loved seeing our professor explaining everything with tons of enthusiasm. We went through all the dynasties of China, went through some key points of some of the major dynasties, and still continued to learn new vocabulary and grammar structures. Personally, I thought today's class was a great way to end our course (although we technically still have class for the next two days for our final exam, final presentation, and diary presentation). After class, we also had our final tutoring session with our tutors, and I spent my time wisely by going through my final presentation script. After I got done with everything scheduled for today, I went with my friend and my roommate to an area near 小南门 (AKA Xiǎo nán mén) to pick up my friend's tailored dress. [The address of the store is in our LBAT book!] Aside from getting to see my friend's new pretty dress, I was happy to have had the opportunity to see "real China" again after my last visit to the residential area of Yuyuan. Instead of seeing shoppers and high buildings, I found it nice to see an area where people actually "lived." Definitely something that I would recommend you to go see! Also, like the Yuyuan area, I found it interesting to see development and change happening right around the residential area as I saw cranes pulling up new, high buildings. China, like I've seen in the news and like I've heard while in class, is definitely going through rapid changes!
Day 40: Today we had our written final exam and our diary presentations! Again, I'm still amazed how close we're to the end of this program. We now only have our final presentations left! After spending the night taking naps while studying for our final exam, I came back from class, and basically, I passed out and ended up missing my last day of Taichi class. Yes, again (I know I've been saying this every week), I'm sorry for being a bad student. I woke up right in time for dinner though. Funny, right? Technically, according to the schedule that our professors had prepared, we were supposed to have a group dinner on Thursday and our final banquet on Friday, but because so many of us were heading to Korea on Friday (due to Chinese visa errors, many of us received 60 day multiple entry visas, so those of us with the wrong visas had to leave China and reenter the country, so as a result, many people chose to visit South Korea during the weekend in which our program was moving from Shanghai to Qingdao), our professor moved everything forward, so we were set to have group dinner on Wednesday and our final banquet on Thursday. Unfortunately, only have of our group showed up for group dinner, so our professor was unhappy, but on the bright side, we had double the amount of food to eat. Everything was good as usual, and it tasted even better because it was free (although, technically, this was all part of the program fee)!
After eating dinner, I went to McDonald's again to try drink on my "List of Things to Try." Along the way to McDonald's, I realized that I really hadn't taken pictures of the campus (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) we had stayed at for more than a month. I feel like I naturally thought that I had more than enough time to take pictures because we were set to stay on the university's campus for 6 weeks, but that wasn't the case anymore, so on the way to McDonald's, I took some pictures. According to the professors, the university really cleaned up for its 120th Anniversary by limiting cars from parking on campus and by really decorating the campus. It's a shame that I really took in the beauty of the campus so close to the end of our stay here.
In terms of the McDonald's drink I wanted to try, it was just something I'd seen on the menu and something that I'd seen so many people carry around on the roads near campus, so I'd wanted to taste it. I didn't even know what it was to be honest, but it was so pretty that I wanted to try it. It ended up being basically Green Apple Fanta topped with vanilla ice cream, and it was definitely really good and refreshing. Again, I was very disappointed that I hadn't tried it earlier though.
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