I'm a Shell; I Have Nothing Left to Give!

Ok, so I'll try to keep this one short, as there will be no photos accompanying it. I did take photos today, but only on my iPhone, which you may have to wait a few weeks before you see.

Today was the great day of subway. I had looked up an international church I wanted to visit, mapped out the route, and took it. This particular church met weekly in a Marriott.

Surprisingly, I did not get lost while taking connecting subways. I surprised myself. One of the metros is above ground and has a beautiful view. Somehwhere between computer searching and the actual trek to the church, my brain must have had a mini-stroke and switched the name of Marriott to Ramada in my brain. Therefore I was unable to find until after the first service had started. There was another service at 11 though, so I decided to wait in a nearby Starbucks.

 It was there that I started creeping on a conversation of international expats nearby. Hearing trigger words like "fellowship," I asked them who they were. Turns out, they were a group of locals who were promoting and dealing out tickets for Hillsong, who just so happens to be coming to Shanghai soon. When I told them I had only been here two days, they all let out a hearty laugh and invited me to sit with them.

They told me about another church that most of them went to in another part of town. So I ended up going to that church in the afternoon. It was in this beautiful brick chapel, with vines falling down. The service was amazing. Everybody in there was just so passionate, awesome.

Upon leaving the church, however, I get super harassed. It felt like I was a celebrity whose location had been found by a hive of paparazzi, but instead of journalists, it was beggars. There at least 7 people who started yelling at me and sticking cups in my faces, two of them little girls. I gave out as much as I could before trying to get a way, a few of them following me down the street a ways. It was a bit jarring.

I was so exhausted by the time I got back to my hotel. I had spent around 3 hours in the subway yesterday, so I just skipped the hassle of dinner and got Pocky and Green Apple Fanta from the little Family Mart.

So that was yesterday!