I'm so itchy everywhere. I mean, bitching won't get me anywhere, I realize that. But I have 17 mosquito bites on me. FREAKING SEVENTEEN. WTF. Die mosquitos die. And six of the bites are on my face. Yeah, it's pretty gross and unattractive.

So this morning my friends and I left the large, historic Astor hotel for the Captain's youth hostel. Not as fancy but it's clean and simple. Plus there's tons of international kids to hang out with which should be fun.

Today is also Nina's last night here. She's headed to Nanjing for five days, then Harbin for an intense Chinese language program for the rest of the summer. And then Brian will leave in a couple of days for his language program in Beijing, and it'll only be me and Dylan left. Aw, how sad.

Today I visited the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, and wow I'm impresed. It has the entire history of Shanghai as well as a city plan for the next 20-30 years. It's interesting because in the States cities are planned out only for the next four years because that's how long the leaders are in office. I also visited the site for the first CPC (Communist Party of China) meeting house. That was pretty cool and propaganda-ish. Haha. I also had the most amazing lunch with Nina. We sat like on this sofa matress type thing. So the table was on the matress and we sat cross legged. There were mirrors on three sides of us with pillows along them. It was so relaxing. And the food was excellent. The 120.00Y I spent for almost a two and a half hour lunch was well worth it...the best part of that being that the money wasn't mine =]. Oh how I love CPGC.

CPGC is the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship at my school and they sponsored this trip to China. They gave us a $2,100 grant for the trip, which translates to about $16,000 in Chinese money. I've spent a little over half of that amount, and I only have 7 days left. I guess I'll just have to eat really expensively. I think I can handle it =]

I'm taking an overnight trip by myself to Suzhou the day after tomorrow. It'll be nice to get away from the city for two day, relax, and walk around some gardens and temples. And with all the money I have left to spend I guess I'll have to stay in a really nice hotel and get a massage.

Our professor left today. It was kinda sad. He has been so much fun to travel with. He treated us like traveling companions and not students, which was good because otherwise the trip could've been really boring. But he's such a funny guy, and so knowledgeable. But really he says the funniest shit...

When we were in Yannan and our taxi driver spoke a different dialect, Paul says...
"Sorry pal, I don't know what the fuck you're saying."
When we were in a boat in Lanzhou and our driver walked off, Paul says...
"Hey! Fuckhead! Get back here."
When we got stuck with a tour guide we didn't want in Yulin, Paul says...
"Mr.Ma...that fucker."

Oh, there's so much more, but those were some of the best moments. I'll see how much I like him after he grades my 20 page research paper. Ha.

Ok homedogs, I'm going to go out and buy some shower shoes now. Later.