June 5

Class didn’t seem as bad the second day. I guess we’ll get into the groove of it. I get tired about halfway through. And we’re definitely learning something, I’m just not sure how well it will stick with us. We’re in a new building now, this huge tower that was built to celebrate Fudan University’s 100th anniversary (in 2005). It has wireless internet, but so far we’ve only managed to pull up google related sites.

After class, and another cafeteria lunch, three of us returned to Shanghai Immigration Bureau to try the visa thing again, this time with the form from the hotel. Another 100 people ahead of us, so we waited another hour, but handed the girl all our paperwork, she typed some stuff up, stuck our passports into envelopes, and handed us a form that we’ll return with on Tuesday to pick up our passports with new visas. Glad that was easy, because we didn’t have the guide with us this time, and had they asked any questions we of course wouldn’t have understand, or been able to explain.

Despite the beautiful day (omg, you can see the sun) we didn’t stay in the city, because we needed to be back for a farewell dinner. The MBA program director, assistant director, and our Chinese guide, were all returning home (Baton Rouge and Beijing, respectively) Wednesday morning, so they planned a last supper at the hotel. They picked the menu, and did a superb job. We had this amazing beef and asparagus dish, that was seriously cubes of steak that were so tender. We also enjoyed some pork dishes, kung pao chicken, spring rolls, various vegetables, and our choice of dessert (I went with the cheesecake). We stuffed ourselves, said our goodbyes, and then sat ourselves in the hotel’s wine bar. It’s unfortunate that things within the hotel are so expensive, because while I could forgive a $3 dinner for being bad, a $10 glass of wine better wow me (and it didn’t). Back to our Wal-mart bottles of Jacob’s Creek.

Skipped the nightly workout. We were too full. We’ll double up tomorrow.