Courtney in China, Letter 07

Dear family, 

Yesterday for the 4th of July I was able to sleep in until 11! It was so nice!! I have had a cold for like 4 days now, so sleeping really helped me. That night we had invitations to two separate parties, one was an official university social (so our professor strongly encouraged us to go) and another was a B-B-Q that was put on by other American students. The official social gathering was pretty lame, we had to make a powerpoint about American culture that we put together an hour before we left. It was interesting to learn about other countries, but there were only about 25 people (and we made up 13 of the 25). The B-B-Q had amazingly delicious american food and american music and american fireworks and american languages (english) so we all could understand everybody. After the party ended we came back to the dorms and about 8 of us played cards and watched the world cup until 3 in the morning. We played hearts for like 3 hours. I was winning the entire time by like 20 points, until I tried to shoot the moon, but ended up 1 heart short! It was torture!!!!!!!

Today was the day of the Amazing Race challenge in Shanghai. So a little after 10 this morning we all received an email telling us who was in our group, a team name (we were Huffle Puff there was also Sytherin and Ravenclaw), where the first pit stop was and some other instructions. So we all drop our breakfasts and computers and literally take off running. There was 2 groups of 4 and 1 group of 5. My group was 4 people 2 boys 2 girls. In our group we had two bikes so one person would drive and the other sat on the back and we went off to the subway stop about 8 mins away from our dorm. The first leg was by far the most intense leg and maybe the most intense thing I have ever done. The winners of the first leg had the opportunity to change their team name to Griffindor (the most coveted Harry Potter house, Belle can explain this all to you). 

So to get to the first leg, which was in a tea house in the middle of old shanghai we had to transfer to 3 different subways. The first subway we were on, line 5, the Ravenclaw team was also on. So as soon as the train pulled into the station we booked it up and down and around to get on line 1. We were literally going soo fast. Lindsey (the youngest who just graduated high school and is 18) was in the lead and as we were running down the stairs the train is there and she jumps on and the doors close right behind her and she starts banging on the windows and trying to open the doors, but she was stuck on the train and we were off the train. So we just hoped that she knew where to go and she did, she was waiting right outside for us. The next train that we had to get on was line 10 which required going out of the station crossing a street and going down an alley to find the next station. Unfortunately the next team caught up to us at the light to cross the street, so we just decided to not wait for the light to change but to trust that the cars would stop (I know this is a really bad life choice, but we wanted to be Griffindor)! The cars did stop and we were able to get 1 train ahead of the others, so when we did arrive that the tea market (which was a maze of shops and gross smells) we were the first people there, we even beat the Bridgewaters. 

When we did finally find the Bridgewaters they gave us a packet of instructions and maps of the next couple pit stops. The maps had 2 more pitstops shown, but along the way they had starred locations where if you had a picture at this place you could earn 5 points. They also had some other point gaining options like if you find up to 10 uniquely Chinese things then you get so many points, or if you get a picture of the other team you get 5 points, if you are the first team at a pit stop you get 20 points, etc. The funnest rule they had was if no other team has a picture of your team then you get 25 points. This made it fun sneaking around buildings, because we were all going to similar places. It was a really fun day that allowed us to see a great deal of Shanghai, but it was exhausting. At one point we bought tickets to the double decker tourist buses and rode that around to the various stops. 

At the end they took us out to eat at a Korean B-B-Q place that was so good! It was probably because I was starving, but it was delicious - I even ate some bacon because I was so hungry! We just got back around 10 pm, and we are all extremely tired from our 12 hour exploration of Shanghai. 

Tomorrow we are going to church in Shanghai at 10:30 and maybe doing some more sightseeing in the city? I'm not sure what the plan is exactly. I do know that I have a blister on the bottom of my pinky toe that is painful and is yellow, so it might be Jaundice, but its more likely just a blister. 

p.s. I'm so happy to hear that the yw are doing well, tell them I miss them! Also I do feel quite tall in china when we walk into places because the ceilings are so low, but we have some tall people in our group so I don't feel tall for too long.