Start of my Shanghai Adventure

Currently sitting in my best friend, Charlotte's apartment in... Shanghai, China! Back in October, I spontaneously bought a round-trip ticket to visit her during my winter break. At the time, I needed something to look forward to and I was becoming increasingly more envious of my friends abroad as I spent more and more hours in the classroom. Charlotte works as a GAF (Global Academic Fellow) at NYU Shanghai. She is perfect for this job. At NYU, she studied Journalism and Chinese. She is basically fluent in Mandarin. She studied in Shanghai in her Sophomore year of college. She spent spring break of her senior year in Shanghai and is now back, potentially staying another year after this one, too.
I met Charlotte my summer before senior year. She worked as one of my Program Assistants for NYU Precollege. We stayed close because we were then both in RA Council and we both worked as Residential Assistants for the NYU Abu Dhabi students in NYC for J-Term.
She is an awesome person and the perfect person to visit/stay with/explore China with. She has my whole week planned out for me.
Where to begin... Charlotte met me at the airport. We took a train that went up to 400 km/hr back - proved to be very fast! We then transferred to a subway and got to Charlotte's apartment. I emailed my parents before crashing. This morning I woke up at 7 a.m (jet lag not yet so bad.) We went outside and got Baozi around the corner from her apartment. Baozi is this large hot dumpling. I ordered two - one vegetable one - which was EXTREMELY, MOUTH WATERING GOOD. And a red bean one (Charlotte's favorite), I liked it, but not as much as the vegetable one. I wasn't expecting the red bean one to be so sweet. We then walked to the NYU and ECNU campus (about a 45 minute walk in the air polluted streets.) We walked through a big park called Zhongshan Park. Lots of elderly Chinese people - couples dancing - was quite a sight to see. We walked though the ECNU campus. We went inside one of the NYU buildings. Saw where Charlotte works and what a typical classroom looks like. We then walked to the Wet Market back where Charlotte lives. We bought bread, dragon fruit, almonds, acorns, and pumpkin seeds. Went to Charlotte's for lunch. I had dragon fruit for the first time in my life. The verdict - delicious! Very refreshing. It was a great light lunch before our adventure continues to some of the more touristy spots in Shanghai. Face mask back on! (Kidding)