Laser Fight

Saturday I went with a group of students to play Laser Tag. It was my day off, but who can pass up the chance for a free day of laser tag (besides I would have only sat around the office on my day off anyway). I noted that they didn't call it laser tag, but laser fight, which made it sound much more violent than it really is. Then again, once I get the pictures (I know I say that a lot, but sit tight, pictures at the end of this post!)

Anyway, I had to wake up about 3 hours earlier than i'm used to (for my own protection I won't tell you when that was). We took a bus (we being me and the other teacher, the organizer and the 22 students) an hour and a half outside the downtown to a little rural patch where the laser tag was. We divided into 3 teams (me being captain of the red team), and were dressed in army fatigue and given guns and vests. Now when I say guns, these were serious replicas, they were heavy, they looked real and they didn't have orange tips. Mix this in with the bamboo huts and natural terrain, and I swear it felt like I was stuck in a past US war (probably Korea). The battle fields were small fenced in areas with man made, but natural protection. There were elevated huts to shoot out of, ditches to jump and bushes and trees to hide behind. We played 2 games that morning, winning handily each time. The guns and vests didn't match up always, so you could be point blank and seemingly miss. No matter, a good time was had by all - rolling in the mud, jumping ditches and running around executing masterfully conceived battle plans.

For lunch we went to a native Shanghainese restaurant, serving dishes exclusively of fish (we were less than 1Km from the sea). A really nice meal considering it was real Chinese food that I don't get otherwise (i usually eat noodles and dumplings). After lunch was more fighting (though less organized, more of a general fighting scrum). We all had a very fun day and I was exhausted and sore at the conclusion. Students and teachers (thats me), mixed well and everyone got along, many of the students were of a very low level, so a few key students did a lot of translating, but I enjoyed my excursion as did the students who also got exposure to a native speaker outside of the classroom.


More Pictures!!! See up there, thats a picture of the Shanghai Skyline from the Bund. Its looking east towards the area of new development called Pudong. Its a beautiful skyline, especially at night when they light it all up. So I did a little research and the JinMao tower is supposedly the 3rd highest in the world (but that could be wrong). The JinMao is the one on the right side with the pointy top next to the one with the hole in it. The one with the hole in it is under construction next door, but will be taller once completed. It looks even cooler than the Jin Mao I have to admitt, but this skyline rocks no matter where you look at it from.

Oh yeah, in other news I finally moved into my apartment and will have more to say on that later, for now Shanghai has become very cold (as in 1st snow of the year), and while I know Boston is colder in winter, the shock (and poor heating) is making this very very uncomfortable.