Day 13: June 17, 2017

In the morning, a couple of students, Dr. Jacoby, Michael, and I went out to do our laundry at a self-service laundromat at a hotel nearby. While we waited for our load to finish, we went to a Starbucks just around the corner and started the day off with a nice iced caramel macchiato. We came back and had a little time left to get ready for the day to visit the Shanghai Tower, which is one of the tallest towers in China. The view at the 110th floor was beautiful, but it was interesting to see how western the city was. We had a quick lunch at a Singaporean restaurant, which was nice to eat after being away from home for some time now. And after, we went to a really good pastry shop that served green tea soft serve, which with my new obsession with green tea, I had to get. Our next excursion for the day was to a water town called Zhujiaojiao. We had a lot of free time, so a bunch of us went and visited a bunch of stores and looked for wooden beaded bracelets that we eventually found at a couple of stores and bargained with the shop keepers, which was an interesting time. Dinner time quickly came around, and our table was really fun. We talked a lot about our bargaining tactics, and we somehow got into the topic of sports injuries, which are always very painful to hear about. After dinner, we got to walked a little around with the disgusting scent of stinky tofu around corners of the streets. We ended the night with an amazing concert called Water Heavens. The music was riveting. The performance was absolutely astounding. There was a string quartet made up of two violinists, a violist, and a cellist that combined with someone who played a traditional Chinese instrument. Water was a main component of the performance that was directed by a Chinese man named Tan Dun. The music was traditional, religious, but also modern. It was so interesting to see the musicians mix the three and incorporate significant parts into the music. The monks were a huge part of the show, who dang and swayed the lanterns side to side from the other side of the river. The singer and dancer who incorporated modernism into the concert, and the tune of the music was very traditional. 

Overall today started out pretty slow, but it soon turned into an afternoon and night full of highs.

High: the concert

Low: I had a lot going on in my mind

Shoutout: emily for trying to bargain for bead bracelets