We were supposed to be joined by our Japanese Kyoto University teammate on this day, but unfortunately his flight got cancelled due to the typhoon. This was such a bummer because we were really looking forward for him to join, and he was essentially the reason why I booked a nice hotel for Shanghai. He was the first person I connected with when I inquired about the team, and when Cole and I first arrived to Kyoto, he treated us with such great hospitality. He never charged us for dues besides jerseys, so booking a nice room with a view of the Shanghai skyline was our way of thanking him! Maybe next time though! Not that many photos today as it was another rain day 🥲. Because of the typhoon, almost everything we did in Shanghai was a bonus since a lot of things were closed. This day was also a split between solo and joint exploration. The rain was so heavy during the morning, but Cole was determined on going to the Shanghai Aquarium. I did not want to deal with the rain, and I am pretty fortunate enough to have visited Monterrey Bay aquarium numerous times, so I was ok not visiting! UCSD also has the Birch Aquarium too, so I do not think I missed out on much! I was perched up in the hotel room until about noon when the rain finally took a break. Using the break in the rain, I set out for brunch, and landed on a Cantonese Char Siu rice bowl!  I said, "doh zeh" (thank you in Cantonese) to the waitress, and she started conversing with me in Cantonese. I had to put my hands up and tell her I do not speak Cantonese, Mandarin, or Shanghainese. Yes, Shanghainese is a language. Well it is technically a dialect of Chinese. To be honest, I cannot tell the difference between regular Mandarin, nor can I speak Mandarin either, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. I love Cantonese food though. Every time I eat it, I always have a good homey feeling in my stomach! 😁 After brunch, I headed out to Nanjing Road to do some shopping, mostly window-shopping though! Here's what Nanjing Road looks like during a typhoon:   There were a lot of vendors on the street trying to lure tourists into going to their fake markets. They kept saying, "Copy market! Come!." Originally I did not hear that, I kept hearing "Coffee Mart! Come!" My response was "I just got done eating brunch. I do not need coffee!"  There must be some LEGO 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) x AI software that takes these real life buildings and renders them into LEGO form. Maybe I become an intern at LEGO 😁. I think my GPA is too low for that type of work though 😅.   Really sad there's not a "x" mouth emoji. Maybe Dick Bruna trademarked it! It's very interesting how Miffy or Nintje is Dutch, but absolutely took off in Asia! Hard to believe, but it's true that I have known about this character since birth 💀 I walked around Nanjing Road for a good hour or two before I headed across the river to Lujiazui to meet up with Cole at IFS Mall. I wanted to go up Shanghai Tower or Oriental Pearl Tower, but ultimately decided against it because it was costly and with the weather, we probably could not see much.  Such a good call to not waste money and go up either of the towers 😮‍💨 Instead of walking around malls the whole day, we decided to sit down and watch another movie, *Obsession*. In China, the title is translated to "Infatuated," which is a more fitting title for the movie. It was an alright movie, pretty over-hyped, and not as spectacular as people on social media, but the young director shows a lot of promise. I will review it on LetterBoxd soon.  I take back what I said about HeyTea in the Chongqing log. It's very good, but it ain't as cheap and satisfying as Mixue. After the movie, we decided to head to People's Park. I guess every Chinese city has a People's Park 🤷‍♂️. Here are the photos:    Maybe that's the building where the *Superman* comics illustrator drew inspiration from 🤷‍♂️.  For a country with gun laws, it's pretty bizarre to see so many statutes of soldiers with guns and soldiers marching with guns (Beijing especially)! It's like China wants its people and tourists to know that they got guns and are not afraid to use them. I think their demonstrations and presence is blown way out of proportion and completely unnecessary because the world is not the way it was 75 years ago. I am in no position to talk about geopolitics or push an agenda, but people should not have to live in fear! Does not get as plain or simple then that, and that's my opinion! After People's Park, we decided to head back to Nanjing Road to eat dinner, then head back to the hotel. Back to the photos:          Money as in real currency because the pearls they were selling were ridiculously expensive, yet Chinese shoppers bought them so casually. There are really levels to wealth I guess 😅.  I swear everywhere in China felt like I was at Taylor Swift concert. You can run, you can hide, but you cannot escape the crowd in China!