May 20, 2008

Tuesday, May 20, 2008, Shanghai

Hello again. This picture is of Me and my new friend Michaela and my friend Erin. We are in the Botanical Gardens in the middle of Shanghai.

We we to the gardens this morning it was beautiful. There were lots of people and many doing Tai Chi and lots of grandparents with their grandbabies.

We also visited the Pearl TV Tower, which is sort of the Eifle Tower of China. It is very tall and I got to take pictures from a birds eye view of the city. The elevator ride was very fast and my ears kept popping so I know it was pretty high up. I still don't have the metric system down so I don't know exactly how tall the building is. But It looks like a needle with three pearls strung on it.

The Yangzte River runs through Shanghai and out into the Pacific ocean and we walked along this river today, it is called the "Bund" I am still not clear why they call it this but there you have it.

I am continually amazed at the culture surrounding me, it is so different than anywhere I have ever been. There are really no space boundaries, people cram into you and push and shove, this is not rude it is just how they do things. The people also sound like they are shouting at each other but it is just how they talk, it is the inflection in their language. I am learning a lot.

I will be visiting the social welfare policy office tomorrow and I am looking forward to that.

More to come....