国庆节 Chinese National Day

For the Chinese National Day on October 1st we got an entire week off school because this is one of the biggest holidays in China. The week long holiday also coincided with the Chinese Independence day which was the 60th birthday of the Chinese Communist Party. Then for me it worked out really well because Yom Kippur was the weekend before so I left school early and flew to Shanghai for the long holiday. Then I met up with my friend, Katrine, who is teaching English in Wuxi (1.5 hrs from Shanghai) and we went travelling around the area for the holidays.

I flew to Shanghai so I got to ride the famous Maglev Train from the airport to Pudong. I guess I'm a sucker because I paid a whopping 40Yuan for a 7 minute ride on what's basically no more than a fast subway... Oh well, it's one really futuristic subway and it was REALLY KEWL!!!! And you can see on the ticker up above that it was going 301 km/hr when I took the picture.






First, the Chabad in Pudong, Shanghai is on of the best Chabads I've been to. The Rabbi is Israeli and his wife is from Michigan so the services were in English and Hebrew. And of course there weren't any Chinese people there!! So I was really glad I went all the way to Shanghai for the services even if it was Yom Kippur, lol. It's just too bad Shanghai is so far from Tongzi or I'd go more often.

After Yom Kippur I had a day to wander around Shanghai. Although the weather was terrible and rainy and I wasn't too motivated to see a big city, but I did go to the big shopping street, East Nanjing Rd, and to the old French area, XinTianDi, where you can buy overpriced western food. Then I went to the old street, Lao Jie.
Left: A square and fountain in XinTianDi

LaoJie






When I got to Wuxi a couple days later I got to see Katrine's adorable little first graders. She's got it so easy there in Wuxi, she's making bank teaching these 8 first graders in an International school where there's only 60 students total. Most of the students are from Korea or other Asian countries and they can speak English and Chinese fluently and of course their mother language. They're smart little kids, but also a little devilish.