Thursday, November 30, 2006

Thanksgiving in China

We ate turkey and mashed potatoes with Audra and Donna (our family in China) forThanksgiving at Moon River Dinner. We spent the dinner talking about things we are thankful for. The coat that I'm wearing is a new one that I had made in the cloth market.


Dr. Pepper in Shanghai


This is at one of our favorite restaurants, Moon River Diner. We can buy Dr. Pepper for about $2.50 USD here! When you have a craving, it's worth every penny.

Cooking Chinese food

Russ, me and a couple of friends went over to Jane's apartment. (Jane and her dad on the left). Jane is a local friend. She works as an architect for the city of Shanghai. Jane's dad taught me and Donna how to make several Chinese dishes. Since he couldn't speak English and we couldn't really speak much Chinese, it was all hand motions. I learned that Chinese cooking is really complicated- tons of chopping and adding lots of ingredients. Russ ate chicken heart that night. He's so brave!



Dinner at our house

We had a couple of our friends over for some of my Mexican stew. Below is Ron, Audra, Emily, and me. To the left is Ron and Russ. As you can see, my couch is a lovely bright neon green!

SMIC Parade

The company has a sports day parade every year. We were asked along with some other teachers to walk in the parade. We were told to wear dresses, ties, etc. Mandy and I thought it would be fun to wave like Miss America. After we walked around the track, the master of ceremonies had us run around the entire track (1/4 mile) in our dress shoes. It was one of the wierdest experiences we've had yet.

Karaoke Stars!

A group of us from the school went to Karaoke. This is a very popular pastime in Asia. Everyone is a star at Karaoke! To the left is Russ, Phyllis, Donna and me. Below is Dan, Brian, my Russ, John, and Rob.


Phyllis, Mandy, Me, MaryBeth, Dan, Brian, Russ, and Rob.




Visiting our friends

Russ, Audra, and I went to Shanghai Normal University to visit our friend Ron and his brother, Leo. Ron is senior at Shanghai Normal University and Leo attends another University as a freshman.




Yummy pasta

Some of our friends at a restaurant. Left side, Russ, me, and Roland. Right side, John, Mandy, Audra, and Dianne. This restaurant serves really good pasta and is only a 30 minute bike ride away!

Sunday, November 19, 2006

These are pics of Russ, me, our friends, John and Mandy, and Audra riding on the subway. You can get just about anywhere in Shanghai by subway, bus, and taxi.




Saturday, November 18, 2006

Acupuncture

Adventures with acupuncture. For those of you who already knew, I tried acupuncture three times the first month Russ and I were here. The first couple of pictures are me waiting patiently, trying not to freak out. If you'll look carefully, you can see the needles sticking out of my arms. The last pic is me with this box of smoldering Chinese herbs to "help increase the effectiveness of the acupuncture." It just smelled really bad to me.