Celebrating 130 Years with the Cha Cha Slide: Lilah's Blog!

Today I woke up well rested after going to sleep at 7:00, and ready for a new day.  By 8:30 my host sister and I had taken the underground and arrived at 上海市光明中学, or Shanghai Guangming Highschool. Guangming Highschool has a long history as it was built in 1886. Today was actually the 130th year anniversary of the school, so a celebration was held. The celebration consisted of a number of performances, from Beijing Opera to us....doing the chacha slide. It was hilarious to perform such a silly song! At the celebration there were also two french schools who performed with us. Since the school is so old, alumnis visited Guangming to reminisce and celebrate it's history. My host sister even told me that some of them were as old as 100! Something that I think we all found interesting and quite funny was how many people were taking pictures of us, we felt famous! Everytime we turned there was someone else with their camera out. It actually made me feel very welcome because that was a sign that they were all very happy to have us there. After the celebration, my host sister took me again by underground to her home to have lunch. I then had some relaxing time which was well needed. My host sister and I watched twilight, opened gifts, and played with her cat named lucky, who she believes brings her and her family good luck. After resting we went out to have soup at the mall. The restaurant was nothing like I have ever seen before. There was a stand full of fresh ingredients such as Chinese cabbage and tofu, and we were given bowls to pick out which ones we wanted in our soup. I think tonight's meal was the best I have had so far, it was 很好吃 (delicious)! After dinner we went shopping for a little while and then headed back to her apartment. I was pleasantly surprised by the incredibly low prices of everything, the noodle soup was 13 ¥, which is equivalent to a little under 2 USD! I'm going to end this blog here as I am going to go to sleep, but I am more than grateful for what I have been able to experience and I am so excited to continue on this journey!