Tonight I finally got the chance to meet up with a friend from TCNJ, Valery! We took our last semester of Chinese together and realized we were both studying abroad in Shanghai this summer! She’s here on a really intense language program at Shanghai University of Finance & Economics (SUFE), and seeing how much her Mandarin has improved makes me wish I had chosen a really intense program like hers. While I have learned a lot here, I still feel like I could have learned so much more if I were pushed to it. It’s so difficult, because I suppose I underestimated my Chinese abilities and when I met the rest of the group it turned out I was one of the most advanced students. Valery has a 24/7 Mandarin only pact (which she broke meeting up with us), but that’s next to impossible with our group, since 3/4ths of them arrived knowing 0 Chinese.

Sorry ISA, you were fun and all, but if I had to do it again I would choose a different program.

Anyway, we had a great cheap dinner with Valery and then went to make our way back to our hotel. The metro here closes at 11 city wide, with a few buses running later to 11:30 or 12. Even though it was only 10pm, the metro near her university (Line 10) had already closed for the night! So we wandered over to the bus stop, trying to ask the locals which buses to take to get to Zhong Shan Park, asking the rickshaw drivers if they could take us (because a cad would have been 70+ kuai), trying to read the bus routes, etc. Eventually we called the Shanghai Help Line and they advised us exactly which buses to take. Two and a half hours later we finally got back, and we only spent 14 kuai each! Hooray, public transportation!