Saturday Morning

Time: 1030am Saturday

Weather: 2C, 36F

First: http://cid-359512ac45bb5a76.skydrive.live.com/play.aspx/Shanghai%20Xujaihui?ref=1

This week was full of school.  I'm not going to talk about that here.

Peking Opera

Our Chinese Culture class took us on a field trip to see the Peking Opera school of China.  Every three years, they take the best 100 opera kids from across China.  We saw them perform basic kung fu on Wednesday during their final exam tests.  Flips, crazy back bends, and simple gymnastics.  We had the option to go back the next day and see their full dress rehearsal.  It was an experience.  Aside from the very loud wood block player, it was rather enjoyable.  I couldn't stand much of it, but I guess thats not really the point.  We saw a very professional show put on by "12" year olds.  I saw twelve like that because I believe that there are some exceptions - these privileged children also get the privilege of skipping what appeared to be 5 yrs of their life as there were some children who couldn't pass for 8 yrs old in my opinion.  You'll see a few pictures in my album above.

The Food

I'm really doing alright people.  In the album above you'll see some of the different kinds of food thats served.  The taste is usually pretty average, it is just sometimes hard to get warm food unless you know where to go.  We are all learning as a group where the best places to eat are.  A group I wasn't with went out last night and got a fish at a restaurant.  I guess they picked it out of the tank, then saw it clubbed, and prepared at their table.  It is not bad, just different.  One friend of mine said he ate the eye adding it popped like a blueberry, this is not something you'll expect to hear in my stories when I return.

Odd Things

Going to shop for chopsticks last night, I saw a lady in the park with a VERY fast dog on a leash.  It was puzzling and when I got a bit closer I saw the ears of the animal.  She had a bunny on a leash and was taking it for a walk.  It was quite an odd thing to see.  The chopsticks store had plenty of selection.  Chopsticks on the walls for not much money.  A usable pair cost about $2usd.  I took a picture of the small store in and it's in the album above.

Camera

My Kodak Zi8 is doing pretty well.  I found that it is not very good at taking still photos.  The aperture time is much too long maybe as long as 1/2 second.  It makes still photos quite worthless.  The videos are pretty good looking, sometimes spoiled by my shaking hands.

Medicine

I still have a bit of a sinus issue.  I went to the pharmacy and tried to describe a z-pack with what little Chinese I've learned.  I must of gotten the point across because she handed me azithromycin tablets.  They were only $2.07 usd.  Good deal, hopefully they contain active ingredient.

The weather this weekend won't be amazing, cloudy / overcast / smog and mid 40s.  Smog is really a disappointing reality.  Might go to Yu Yuan gardens today, some people I know went to the fabric market this morning.  Apparently it is 3 floors of tailors.  I would have liked to have gone, but there is some homework I need to do with a group in a bit.

UPDATE:
If anyone has a good idea on how to stream the Colts game to me, live and at a low bitrate.. I will wake up Monday morning at 4am to watch it.  Last week I tried everything, I even bought the $70 nfl gamepass to watch the post-season online, but like most things on the internet in china, it didn't work.  I got my money back. myp2p.eu didn't work and Justin.tv failed too. I need a direct link to a server.  Everything I've looked at doesn't work so far.
Doesn't work:
-Sopcast
-Justin.tv
-Streamtorrent
-TVants
-Webguide for WMC
-Windows Media Encoder

Rumor has it that slingbox works, but the internet doesn't usually connect well enough to watch it  - but if some one is willing to let me try it i'll test it out this weekend!

JBiber