China: Shanghai, Day 3

It was hard to believe this was our very last day in this marvelous country. It also happened to be the Fourth of July. How ironic. During one of our times on the bus today, our tour guide was telling us about how housing works with the government and how they pretty much control everything, including where you live. It was interesting that she was telling us this on the same day that the United States of America back home was celebrating their freedom and independence. It made me appreciate my country even more. To start the day, we had breakfast at the hotel and then explored the newest area of the city called the Pudong New Area. There are some pretty amazing-looking buildings, including the Oriental Pearl Tower and the brand new Shanghai Tower, the second tallest building in the world, just behind the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. From a distance, one can see just how massive it is compared to the other buildings beside it. Our next stop was lunch at a local restaurant. By this time, I was pretty tired of Chinese food, but this was the best I had ever had! I had like three helpings of fried rice. Oh, it was so yummy! After lunch, we rested at the hotel before heading over to the Oriental Arts Center for our final dress rehearsal and concert. Talk about an amazing building! The architect designed it to look like a giant flower with five petals, which consist of the Entrance Hall, Concert Hall, Opera Hall, Performance Hall and Exhibition Hall. I honestly don't know which hall we were in because I just now looked it up on Wikipedia. Don't judge. I wish I had gotten more pictures of this magnificent hall, but I didn't have tons of time in between the rehearsal and concert. We were given sandwiches for dinner. I was hoping there would be a KFC within walking distance, but the closest was about a mile away and I only found that out after the film crew brought some back for themselves. I told them I would have paid them to bring me some, but oh well. Our Rhapsody in Blue soloist for the evening was Jessie Chang again. She is super nice. (She and I had a nice conversation in Yantai on our way to the French restaurant.) Anyway, the concert was a rousing success and I cried during the encore of Dahai as the audience was singing with us. We said our goodbyes backstage after the concert amidst more tears (even though we were technically still going to see each other afterward.) I got to meet my roommate's mom who lives in Shanghai and say an official goodbye to my fabulous roommate who brought me much joy during the tour. (She was off to her mom's house the rest of the time.) We all boarded the buses once more and those of us in group 3 had to wait quite a bit to leave since the orchestra director and soloist were in our group and I guess they were pretty popular after the concert. We then drove over to our celebratory dinner at Hai Di Lao Hot Pot. It's similar to the Melting Pot, where they provide you with raw meat and vegetables and you cook it yourselves in the two different broths at your table. The waiters put on a show for us spinning giant noodles around in the air. All nine chaperones were honored by someone in each smaller group, some with gifts, but all with sincere appreciation for their dedication in making the trip enjoyable. In group 3, most of us were non-chaperoned alumni, but we did have two chaperoned groups on our bus, so we got to know those chaperones pretty well. In addition to honoring the chaperones, we also honored all the people who made the whole thing possible, including our orchestra director, SDYS staff, tour guides and visionaries. Everyone involved put in an incredible amount of work to make the tour a success. What a way to end our time in China.