Teaching Mia

Chapter 17 - Shanghai, Baby!

As she laughed and chatted the night away, Mia thought about how lucky she was to be there. This trip to Shanghai with her classmates was truly a once in a lifetime experience. An experience she should be making the most out of, savoring each moment, and stretching it out to its fullest.

Although it wouldn't be possible without having Leo in it. But he had rejected her. He didn't want her anymore, he had made that very clear. She would have to put it behind her and move on. She decided it was time to start living her life again.

The next days passed all too quickly. The visit to the Shanghai Expo had been really fun. Mia had felt like she was in Orlando. They had gotten special treatment at the Spanish Pavilion, and Mia had joined a group of people who were interested in visiting the Latin America section. The Expo was a sea of people, the lines to enter the pavilions were ridiculously long and she had never seen so many people together in one place. But they had managed to enter the pavilions from Latin America without getting in line since they were from those countries.

The funniest part had been all the Chinese people who had stopped them to ask if they could take pictures with them. Mia's group had gone into the Cuban pavilion to get some Mojito's, when they had been practically cornered into a wall and picture after picture was taken of them. It had felt like they were celebrities being pursued by the paparazzi.

Another day they had lectures at a business school in Shanghai. That had been a killer day. While it had definitely been interesting, they had straight lectures from 8am until 5pm and had only taken a quick lunch break. Everyone had dozed off at some point, even the director of the program. Most of the pictures that day had been of people falling asleep!

They also had company visits to Coca-Cola and Li & Fung, which were really great. They actually had to present a case study on Li & Fung on the last day of the trip, so everyone had made sure to ask a bunch of questions to their tour guide there.  The presentation would count towards a big chunk of their final grade.

Mia's group had prepared most of their presentation already, even before they had arrived to Shanghai. They had decided it would make them better prepared and give them more time to enjoy Shanghai without doing so much work during the week.

She had been relieved until their professor had announced only three people from each group would be allowed to present since it would be a 15 minute presentation. Mia hoped it wouldn't have to be her, but it was basically a 50-50 chance since there were seven people in her group. Who knew? Maybe she could get out of it somehow.

*****

Mia was having dinner with Victoria at the hotel buffet. They had received vouchers to use every night, so they were certainly not going to let them go to waste. She had served herself a hefty dose of steamed pork buns she just couldn't get enough of. Every time she went to have dim sum in New York's Chinatown, it was all she ever ordered. The hour wait at Golden Unicorn was always well worth it.

"Can you believe the trip is almost over? We practically only have two more days left!" Victoria commented.

"I know right? I feel like we just got here. It passed by way too quickly," Mia responded.

"Well let's do something about it. Let's go out tonight! Enjoy it while we can. Hay que aprovechar."

"I think that's a great idea," Mia said.

"What is?"

Mia turned around to see Omar approach them with a group of people. They had just finished having dinner and were on their way out.

"Oh, we were thinking of going out to some place fun tonight," Mia responded.

"We were just saying the same thing. I heard there's this Irish bar a few blocks down from the hotel that has live music. We should go check it out," Omar suggested.