SF's Summer Program to Shanghai: Day 9: 14 July--Martial Arts; Beijing Opera; Pudong

The day began early with martial arts class in the morning. Fudan engaged an external coach to teach us martial arts, which was to be held indoor at the Guanghua building. Unfortunately, the security guards didn't allowed the class to be held indoor, we were all shoo-ed outdoor. It was HOT to do martial arts under the very scorching sun. Even wearing a sunglass and cap doesn't help. In mins, we were all perspiring like hell. Moreover, our persistence level for the class got lowered when we realised that the class will stretch to 2hrs long. Really no joke doing martial arts under such terrifying hot weather. Anw, martial arts was more fun than I had expected. I had assumed it to be boring and a waste of my time but it proved to be otherwise. Moving from 1 position to another needs some discipline and concentration. During break time, our dear Ms Wang kindly bought 2 big packets of ice-cream back for us, which all of us cheered. Tt was really v sweet of her la. Aft some resting, martial arts class continued till abt noon and thereaft, we were given some time back to our hotel for a bathe and lunch.

The afternoon continued with lessons on Beijing Opera, which again, Fudan engaged a Beijing Opera Actress to engage and teach us. We had our share with playing with the opera props while the lecture on opera went on. However, only during class time did we learnt tt the Beijing Opera Show which was scheduled in the prog was cancelled. Cos Fudan couldn't get the tix. Haiz...this sent many of us grumbling. I was quite indifferent as to whether we'll go to the opera show at night, cos even if we had went, I doubt I'll understand. I can imagine myself engaging in the show for the 1st half and by the 2nd half, I'd be amusing myself with sth else, like chatting or fooling ard with the rest. So in anycase, I was somewhat pleased when the opera show was cancelled. Tt means TIME OUT TO EXPLORE MORE OF SHANGHAI!!! So right aft class ended, I shifted my planned "itinerary" upwards, which means we'll spend the night at Pudong.

First stop, was to get to the laser tunnel (上海观光隧道) at The Bund which allows us to travel in a cabin across but beneath the Huangpu River to get to Pudong. Since we knew we were going to Jin Mao Tower at night, we bought a joint admission tix at the laser tunnel, since it's slightly cheaper. Anw, the laser tunnel was somewhat disappointing. The lights doesn't feel and looked like it's laser. It juz seems to me as lights "lights" (or mini light bulbs). When we reached Pudong, we headed to the Superbrand Mall--Asia's largest mall to shop 1st and have dinner since it was sometime till night falls. We only wanted to ascend up Jin Mao at night so that we cld catch Shanghai night lights, which was mentioned to be beauftiful. At 6:30pm, we met up fr our shopping for dinner, which we settled at a Korean Restaurant aft some scotting. As we couldn't afford the time to have a Korean BBQ dinner, we had to settle for ala-carte/ set dinner, which was faster. By the time dinner ended, it was time for us to get to Jin Mao Tower.

We were surprised how packed and long the queue was to enter the Jin Mao Tower (金茂大楼). We managed to wringle our way into the building w/o queueing, but come inside, we needa get into the queue to take the lift up to the 88th stories. I cn't believe that even to enter the lift, we needa queue. Anw, once up the tower, all of us were busy snapping pics of Shanghai night lights and scenery tt we kinda got splitted. Only when some of us caught one another joining the queue to enter the lift to descend down, then we gathered tog. By the time we reached the 1st level of Jin Mao, we were all ready to head back to Superbrand Mall to continue shopping again, cos many of us couldn't finish our shopping earlier. We shopped till the mall closes and by then, realised the difficulty in getting cabs back to Fudan. All the taxi drivers were very selective in choosing their customers--they wanted pple who travel v far OR if not, there were few taxis on the rd. Given these situations, we had to walk to Shangri-La Hotel to take a cab, which of cos, we had to fake as the hotel guests, otherwise, we'll get chased out.

We returned to our hotel pretty late that night, but it was a fun and fulfilling night out. We had a fair share of sight-seeing, shopping and dining tt night.