Poked and prodded

So last night we went to a really local restaurant near the first veggie and fruit market we went to. I went with three of my friends, and they wanted to order crawl fish. I really didn't want any, but I tried it and crawl fish is SO GOOD! You eat the crawl fish like a lobster/shrimp in the sense that you break the fish in the midsection, then you open up the tail and eat the meat there. Bonnie and Simon also told me that you can suck the stomach (the other half) out, but I wasn't that adventurous. We had 2kg of crawl fish, 2 plates of veggies, another plate of some veggie, four bowls of rice, and two things of beer for 88kuai, about 22/person (almost 3 dollars). What a great meal.

This morning I had the pleasure of waking up at 5:45am to get to the school at 7 to depart for my wonderful medical checkup. Alice also had an appointment, so we took the van where we went to the Hongqiao campus (in Puxi) to pick up a few more people who also had appointments. It took us about an 45 min to get to Hongqiao, and then we got to the medical center around 9am.

Talk about Chinese efficiency. They had us fill out paperwork (as always), then wait to be called. When called they asked a few questions, took a picture of me, then ushered me to a second room to pay the bill. I panicked a bit because they were going to charge me 700kuai and wanted me to use my credit card, when I had never been told that I needed to pay for my own examination! Eventually everything worked out though. In the third room I was given a hospital gown thing, put slipper things over my shoes, and stored my clothes in the locker. This was followed by about 5 tests: bloodwork, an ultrasound(??!), EEG, x-ray, and an eye exam. I interacted with about 10 different people. Even though there really was no real patient-doctor bonding, my time spent there was a heck of a lot quicker than any time I've spent at my own doctor's, or at the hospital.

I've spent most of today doing lots and lots of work to prep for tomorrow- we will have an open house for parents tomorrow afternoon, and classes start on Wednesday! Laura is coming to visit sometime Friday, and she'll stay in my spare bedroom. We may see Cirque du Soleil this weekend. Also on the note of performances, Geoff's tour of 42nd street opens Sept 5! I'm so excited about that as well!

Also, I'm going to be in Bali from Saturday, Sept 29-Thurs Oct 4. My friend Linde and I may travel somewhere else from Oct 4-Oct7, but we're not sure yet.


That's all that's new here!