Day 3

Day 3 was the first day of classes. I woke up before the alarm (!), went for a run with Shannon before breakfast (!), and managed to shower and get back out the door for class in about 20 minutes! Not bad. Quite amazing actually, and I only had one cup of coffee...

We started with an orientation, giving us basic info and a few dire warnings about traffic, drugs, and the like. I switched all of my classes, since International Business Transactions and WTO Law were both overfilled. Besides, I may use International Environmental Law and International Labor Law more. Classes went an hour later due to the orientation, and a bit longer for us when the door closed. Apparently, no one inside or out can open these doors without a special key or mojo or kung fu or something. Our Environmental class started late due to the door being locked, then we all paniced when we all collectively got locked in the classroom. Our Chinese students luckily called the admin people on their cell phones, and eventually we were let out. But it happened again after Labor class, and about 7 of us, including me, got locked in the classroom again.

We did get lunch delivered from the cafeteria, and the only utensils we had to eat with were spoons. It was amusing. But the food was ok, and free, so we dealt with it. One thing definitely holds true, regardless of cultures - cafeteria food is nothing wonderful, esoecially after the amazing dinner we had had the night before.

Back to the hotel again, and since Mom wanted to chill in the room for a while, Shannon and I went back out to head to the department store. I was a bit sketchy about walking that far, as it required crossing about 5 major intersections. But we managed to make it safely there. The crossing guards seemed to take special interest in the unpredictable, crazy american chicks, and made sure we made it safely across their road! But I'm glad we walked as we managed to find a facial salon as well. Or really, they found us through their little promotional man on the street. He took one look at us and dragged us over to the salon. It was rather affordable, and a 2 hour facial is a lovely thing :-) We got slathered with all kinds of stuff, steamed, plumped, exfoliated, and massaged. About halfway through, their English speaker arrived, and we traded words with the help of my little Rough Guide Mandarin phrasebook. She spoke excellent English, and we managed to get across that we were law students for the summer at the university. She also helped explain the slatherings and plumpings we were getting a bit. They were facinated by Shannon's dark green eyes. And Shannon finally let me know after about 45 minutes of being slathered that she'd never had a facial before! I found that terribly amusing, but tried to explain things as they happened so she'd have a clue. We all learned a few new words, and it was entertaining.

Then Shannon decided to ask them if they knew of a tatoo parlor, as some folks in our group had wanted to get tatoos. We got walked over to the place by two of their promotional boys (they were probably in their 20s, but they looked young to us). It was definitely an adventure, punctuated by us passing the phrasebook with characters and English in it back and forth to try to communicate. I think they asked us to dinner more than once, but I was keen to get back to the hotel.

Mom had gone over to the restuarant from the night before with a few fellow students. They hadn't fared as well in the Chinese food bingo game. They hadn't managed to order as much food, and ended up with a plate of deep fried crispy chicken cartiledge. Mmmmm, yummy, nothing like southern fried cartiledge. I declined to try it, but got included on the beers as a result. Nice work on my part, eh?