Random Blog Post 1

We felt like we hadn't posted anything in a while (mostly because it's been a largely uneventful week) and we are in the process of memorizing hundreds of Chinese characters for our final, so we decided to post some of our random pictures from the past few weeks that haven't related to anything else. 

Not really sure why the pictures won't move to the center, so you'll have to forgive me for the formatting.

FOOD

These are the street noodles that we get outside the gates of the University for 6 Yuan ($1). 

These were found in a grocery store.. one of my favorite English candies.

For when you need both orange juice and pepsi with your meal (not an uncommon thing here where very few people drink water).

A type of restaurant style called hot pot. They give you a pot of broth and all the raw ingredients and you cook it all and eat it out of your pot. It's very tasty and has good ingredients, but is also a hassle to have to cook your own food (not exactly the reason you go out to eat).

One of the meals from the dining court that we call a "sizzling plate". It consists of rice, meat, peppers and onions with a sauce over it that sizzles when they put it on the hot plate. It comes with egg and tomato soup which is a favorite among the group. All this costs 10 Yuan ($1.50).

Freshly pulled noodles from the dining court. As you wait for your plate to be made, you can watch them pull the noodles from a ball of dough. 

Joe's new favorite type of chips - numb and spicy hot pot flavor (kind of like barbeque with a kick).

Love these little panda cookies (these were Joe's, for those of you who know me, you'll know I only ever get the chocolate kind).

Weird individually wrapped potato crackers with a blatant rip off of the pringles dude on the front. 

No matter where you go, there's always a McDonald's. We haven't caved yet, but most of the group has. 

A store dedicated to selling milk since it's not widely consumed  here.

A Hersheys chocolate store in People's Square- always packed with people.

PEOPLE

Joe messing around on the subway.

Me at the wet market looking great as always.

Joe got a little sleepy on one of our bus rides. This one wasn't as good as when he was drooling, but unfortunately I didn't snap a picture of that. 

SJTU Graduates celebrating on the lawns outside of the school. 

Little kid outside of the Shanghai museum posing for a picture.

Things get a little weird in our hotel rooms when we have to memorize Chinese or read a whole bunch of Chinese history....

OTHER

Shaq on a beer ad.

  

This is a tounge twister we learned in Chinese class. We all had to go around the room and say the whole thing. If it looks like all of the "si" and "shi" words sound the same, we would say you were right, but our teacher would disagree. The joys of learning a tonal language. 

Snapped a picture of the company my mom works for while in the industrial park looking for the company we were visiting.

This is a hot water bottle I bought for my knee. You can't see it clearly, but the packaging actually says "flot water bottle"- a combination of "flat water bottle" and "hot water bottle"?

Cool lantern in a temple decorated for new years.

Love this guy's grin around the brass door knocker.  

Live shark embryos at the aquarium. They show the fetuses at different stages of development and you can see them all moving around in there.

This guy's eyes are on hands in his eye sockets. Not really sure what old Chinese guy came up with this one. 

Statue at one of the temples we went to - a hugely muscular warrior and his beasts.

Couldn't help but take a picture of the head-to-body ratio of this stuffed animal.

Anyway, we hope you enjoyed that random little collection of pictures that we've picked up along the way. Hopefully we'll have a more exciting weekend to blog about in a few days.