dinosaurs and table scraps

alright...well, 'day 2'! ha...it's obviously going to be hard to do this everyday...but to help, today's will be exceptionally short, i imagine.  in fact...let's get to the bullet points for a run-down of today/random events:

• so the first thing i remember is how i couldn't find my shoes this morning...perplexing, seeing as i left them on the floor in the hallway before bed...however, after going down for breakfast/lunch, [yes, aka brunch in some sense], i found that lu chao's mom had hand washed/cleaned my tennis shoes!  not that they were spotless, but they had been horendous...and now looked at least cared for in some way!  how freaking nice was that of her!?  [and] why isn't that a common theme in the states!?  it made my day that much better...i might need to start that upon return actually...
• one thing i forgot from yesterday was that while lu chao and i were waiting in the train station in shanghai, a guy tugged on my shoulder.  upon turning around, i found a coworker of mine there, smiling, and just wanting to say hey!  ha...it was so funny/weird at first, but after thinking about it, it was a really nice/surreal feeling to have someone random recognize you in a city of 19 million people...a little taste of home!  [embarrassingly enough, i can't remember his name...and i will def. be learning that in the upcoming internship days!...although, in my defense, if i wasn't the only white guy, with a bright yellow rain jacket, with a frisbee and monkey in a bookbag...standing in the middle of a see of blair heads [blair='black haired'...also, simply a typo i've chosen not to correct, but charter as a slang word of my own! :p]...if not for the slight dissimilarity, i have a feeling he, too, would not have noticed me.
• today we went to dinosaur park--a 'famous' chinese theme park located in changzhou.  long story short, i would compare it to a larger liberty land [memphis] in that it was trying to be cool and fun, and some of it kinda was, but for the most part, it just seemed pretty run-down, out-of-date, etc.  we did, however, ride a couple of rides [which, sidenote:  the freaking lines to every ride were soooo lonG!  it was as if every single ride was the tower of terror or space mountain at disney...and they weren't even on that same level!]  anyways, so the finale was this big swinging, spinning disc ride...which lu chao 'went to the bathroom' while we were waiting in line for, and somehow failed to rejoin us.  such a sissy!  anyways, so me, and, oh yeah...forgot to mention that one of lu chao's friends from middle school who still lives in changzhou--and actually had worked at 'konglong yuan' [dinosaur park] previously, wang bing...joined us today and helped us make our way around the park.  she and i ended up doing the ride anyways, and i gotta say, it was a lot of fun...but very scary for me at times!  i'm not exactly a rides kinda person anyways...so it took a lot for me to do it.  [although] at first, i was just being brave/calm about it for lu chao's sake, so that he would ride it with us.  when he jumped ship...i had to tell wang bing that, in fact, i, too, was pretty nervous/worried! haha...but obviously i made it, and it was great! soo...ya know, there's one point for 'going for it'.
• last point i have is family.  i ended the day/trip by having dinner with lu chao's family, as well as having a nice little photo shoot with the whole family and getting some good photos of them alone as well.  it's crazy, because as is epitomized by western views of china, lu chao lives with his parents, grandparents, aunt.uncle.and cousin., and has a dog [lulu, remember?]...it's soo funny and stereotypical, but i gotta say, they really do love and care for each other, especially lu chao.  he's very luck to have such a caring and interesting family behind him!
• okay, okay, absolute last point:  you know how in america, we always say 'don't give the dog table.scraps; they should eat their dog food!' ??  well i thought it especially funny that the way they do it, is that we all sit at this little square table [2 on each side] and we do the traditional chinese-sharing-style food setup, and when you're eating something, if you must spit anything out or simply bite off parts of foods like shrimp, etc., you simply allow the bits to drop inbetween you and the table to the floor...where, nevertheless, lulu is camped out awaiting such donations!  ha...it was very amusing! :p

okay...done.  gotta get some sleep--tomorrow's set to be a busy/long day, running errands and getting ready for yet another trying week of classes!  let's hope i make it back tomorrow for day #3!

until then...

w/p

[04.25.09]  [1:50am]  [shanghai]

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