This morning I woke up a bit late, so i decided to just grab breakfast at the conveince store right outside of my apartment (Lawson's are the 711 here). I bought a japanese fast-food rice and crab roll and then noticed a carbonated beverage that said "grapefruit" on the outside.

"mmm, grapefruit juice" I thought to myself as I left the store. I opend it up in the taxi on the way to school; it was alcoholic, a carbonated grapefruit mixed drink for 40 cents. Not wanting to waste money I drank the whole thing.

So ya, I was a little loose for the first half hour of school. This morning I taught a lesson on the bill of rights.
First I had the students come up with a list of what they thought the job of a government is (they came up with the same list that I think american college students would, but in a different order: For instance the first thing they listed was "preserve harmony through strict laws," and then "ensure jobs for everyone and redistribute wealth through taxes" and then finally "ensure the rights of citizens"). We then discussed what rights the government should support--education, fair judicial system, free press, property, etc (they came up with everything except for "fair judicial" on their own). This all took about an hour.

Then I listed the bill of rights and we spent the next hour discussing the first and second amendment. The students were wary of protecting freedom of religion and freedom of assembly (wary doesn't mean they were against it, wary means that they came up with good reasons for fearing that those two could lead to unrest). And they were all staunchly against gun ownership, though we discussed reasons why it might make sense for people to own guns.

After this discussion, we split the class into groups of five (we combined all of the students for this activity, so there were 20 total students) and had them come up with the bill of rights/basic laws they woudl enact if they started their own country. (one of the groups decided that a basic right should be the right of euthenasia--this group inluded my student Alps [yes, Alps; the kids decide their own english names so we also have students named Kingdom and Mr. Bean] who believes the entire practice of marriage should be abolished).

After school today a big group of us went to a karaoke bar (yes at 3 in teh afternoon) where we sang and got drunk utnil 7PM; when we went to dinner.

I walked from dinner home alone (I just wanted to wander a little bit) and had two recountable experiences. First, as a recognizable American, street vendors constantly try to sell me worthless shit (I've taken to responding that I don't know what they're talking about in chinese), but today I was pissed. A guy came up to me and tried to sell me wheels that attach to my shoes, and he was being really pushy "you want to buy, very cheap, good price, just for you," so I pulled the first thing i grabbed out of my pocket and got right up in his face and started saying "ni yao jigga? Ni yao jigga?" (you want this? You want this?). Of course the first thing I grabbed out of my pocket was a nail clipper (I don't know why that was in my pocket either), but he still backed right off. Secondly, I was crossing a street and a cute young woman came up to me and asked if I spoke chinese ("pu tong wa") I replied "yi dien dien" (a little bit) and she started motioning towards herself, another woman with her, and then towards me and speaking quickly.
this was around the time that I realized she was a prostitute (look a few lines up and you'll notice I'd had a few drinks--otherwise I would have already realized instantlythere would be no reason for a random chinese woman to come up to an american and ask him if he spoke chinese); so at this point I start loudly saying "bu yao, bu yao" (I don't want it, I don't want it) and regardless of this she followed me for a block.

i'd say that pretty much sums up my day.

On saturday I went to the Jade Buddha at a temple in Shanghai. It was amazing, the first room has these three 15 foot tall buddhas, each doing different things with his hands (one is holding a lotus, one is doing the meditation hand, and another is holding the sun)--and then along each wall there were 15 10 foot tall wood carvings of other buddhist deities. There were small birds perching in and on the statues of the buddha. Don't worry, I took a ton of pictures.

In the back of this pagoda was a 4 story carving of many Buddhas. The Jade Buddha room has a buddha carved from jade, but also 1000 small buddhas in all of the walls. You're not allowed to take pictures in that room, but we did anyway (taking them whenever there was no one in the room praying, it feels weird being a tourist in a place of worship).

After the temple I went to the top of the Jin Miao tower (currently the tallest open building in shanghai, though a taller one is opening soon).

And on Sunday I spent the whole day wandering around the Bund area (the river bank, which is the french colonial area, and the big shopping district). I bought myself, finally, the fake rolex I wanted (and got it down to 80 quai, see my earlier post to find the desire for cheaper, so I felt hosed, but not too hosed). And I looked at a lot of pearls.

More to come later.