Shanghai Knights

So we decided to head to Shanghai for a couple nights just to do something different. It's only an hour and twenty minute train ride and we had a nice place to stay at for free, so me, Pat and Dean headed up. Had a pretty good time exploring the city and the weather couldn't have been nicer for middle of January. It got up to around 65 degrees in the sun. We took motorcycle taxi's at one point which was an experience to say the least. These guys were total maniacs, just flying around with little regard for anyone else on the streets, whipping through sidewalks and through tunnels. We had such a good time we thought we'd continue it by getting a few drinks and hanging out on the balcony of a restaurant on the top of a building overlooking the Shanghai skyline and river. After that there were drink and dinner specials at a pretty cool pub not far from where we were. It was good to get out of Hangzhou and do something different, should happen more often.

Back in Hangzhou not a whole lot new going on. Wednesday night started out as usual, then a friend suggested we go to a Chinese club for the hell of it. It was a pretty good time, there's almost always a group of people that will approach foreigners and want to drink with them. One of them was a bit over-friendly, and I realized this after he nearly tackled me onto a table that people were dancing on. Pat ran over and pulled him away, turns out his friend told Pat that he was gay. It was incredibly weird and awkward, and we discontinued drinking with them.

After weeks of putting it off, we finally planned a trip for the Chinese New Year. Originally we had planned on going to Bangkok and Phuket, but the flights continued to be ridiculously expensive, so we booked a flight to Seoul, South Korea. 9 days to check out the country, haven't figured out much of an itinerary yet but I'm looking into it. I'm gonna see how close to the 38th Parallel I can get, maybe throw some rocks over. Somebody get in touch with Bill Clinton

Back in China

So I made it back without any real issues, being home was a nice break but it's good to be here. I did weigh myself when I got home but forgot to on the way out, but was kindly told by several of the Chinese teachers at my school that I looked like I had gained weight. They're very subtle. I was up for about 30 straight hours and just crashed when I made it to my apartment, so the jet lag hasn't really been effecting me all that much. Construction in our building is still going strong which is miserable at times, but I'm not letting it get to me. It's been pretty rainy for the most part, which gives me the opportunity to whip out my blue pancho when I'm riding my scooter around to really blend in with the locals. Other than that nothing new to report.

Transferring trains and making the commute from the Shanghai airport back to Hangzhou was a real pain. Having to carry two 50 pound bags around doing it really didn't make it easy. At one point while I was cramming into a train in Shanghai it reminded me of a youtube video that I had seen a while ago. If I wasn't holding onto my bags tightly they would absolutely be gone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz_lRBpk76Q&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh+div-1r-2-HM