Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas all!!! By wishing you all a Merry Christmas, I am not as politically correct as Fox, I was watching a NFL game earlier that before every break they would flash a graphic saying Happy Holidays, I mean come on, we know what Holiday everyone is about to celebrate, just say it. I am currently watching the Ravens play Seattle live and well, its not the funnest game to watch if you are a Ravens fan (note it is about halftime as a write this).

I won't let the game bring me down, we are about to go to Sanya to stay at the Hilton for Christmas, I will update you all on our trip after we get back later this week.

Happy What???

Last year we began a new tradition of making a birthday cake in celebration of Jesus' birth on Christmas Day. Renee is doing a talk with the high school and middle school students today at church and wanted to go through some of the traditions that different families have at Christmas, including ours of baking a birthday cake. In her haste, Renee wrote the following on the cake:

I guess we have been in China too long as our spelling is getting pretty bad. But indeed, Happy Birtdady Jesus.

Christmas Party

Last weekend we celebrated a Christmas Party with our small group from our church over here in Shanghai. Here are some pictures that include the nice spread of food for our big meal (unlike Thanksgiving, we got to enjoy turkey at this party).

As a part of the program, we got to sign Christmas Carols and the children decorated the Christmas tree above. Besides the incident of Jacob walking around with the turkey carving knife, and the incident where Jacobs fingers were almost crushed in a door, fun was had by all.

What are you teaching the kids?

So there are many things that get lost in translation and words that are used in posters and other displays that just appear to be wrong. Can you see the word that made me take a double take in this kids poster?

Yes, that's right folks, here in China, M is for Fondle????? Even more apropos to the picture is the fact that it has an adult with a baby in it. Fondle and babies are just two things you don't see put together in the US ... unless the statement is followed by going to jail. I am not sure what this picture is trying to teach my kids, but whatever it is, I think it is a lesson that we will skip over.

Hammer Hands

I am typically the first one up in the mornings and sometimes I am awoken by my alarm right next to my bed. The other night Maddie wasn't feeling great, so she ended up sleeping in the bed with Renee and I. Somehow, over the course of the night, Maddie rolled over and was laying on both my arms. When the alarm went off that next morning at around 5:30am, I moved my arms out from underneath her only to find that I had no feeling in both my hands and I basically couldn't move any of my fingers. So I attempted to turn off the alarm, by at first trying to gently turn off the alarm, then after about 10 seconds of the thing blaring, I started to just pound at it as if I had a hammer in my hands. After about 30 seconds I finally hit the alarm in the right place and it went off, but it was too late, both Renee and Maddie were awoken by 30 seconds of the alarm blaring in the room. Oh well, an early morning for us all.

Apparently, I'm the government

I still have my office telephone number for my phone in the US, thus if anyone calls, they are greeted with my message telling them that I am overseas and if they need anything that they should contact the receptionist. I have yet to get any voice messages through my first year and half here in China, until this past week. I guess even having an away message will not keep the idiots away.

Last week I checked my US email (which, if you are not up to speed with technology, our voice messages in the US get sent to right to our email inbox, if you didn't know that and you live in China, I understand, this is the same place where I don't even have voicemail at my place of work) and found the following message waiting for me.

"Hello….is this the government? I want to thank you for the good work you did in the community and this is Dennis Prince and I want to compliment you. Thank you very much, goodbye."

Not sure who this Dennis Prince guy is, but I guess he thinks there is some general number out there that you can call and give compliments to the government for all that they do. Either somehow my number was confused with that fantastic sounding phone number or my number is actually that number people should call. While I want to believe that it is not the latter, I can believe that in my 5 years of working at my Company that there would only be 1 phone call complimenting the government for their work in the community, so my search for an answer goes on.

The Business???

If you haven't already seen this video from the Maryland v NC State football game this past Saturday, the referee makes an interesting personal foul call, see the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TTGZJlZpyc

Just in case you were wondering, the business is when one man hits another man in the private area.

Get Some Sleep Already

Last night we were trying to get Maddie to sleep. At the time she was playing doctor with her fake stethascope and ear examiner. We asked her if she wanted to go to sleep and her reply was, "Doctors don't sleep." Very true, very true.

Memorization Maddie

We meet with our small group from church on Friday evenings. Two Fridays ago, Renee led the children's portion of the small group and we did motions to learn the memory Bible verse. The kids not only loved the motions, but it really did help them learn the verse.

So I was in charge of the children's portion of small group this past Friday and was trying to figure out what motions to do for this week's verse. Renee and I were reviewing the prior week's verse and forgot the end. So we said the beginning and Maddie looked at us and finished the verse for us. This is pretty cool considering that she is not even 3 ½ and it also confirms to us that the method in teaching the memory verse actually worked or that our daughter is already smarter then her parents.

Not so Black Friday

In a new tradition that we started last year, Renee and I did all of our Christmas shopping for the kids the day after Thanksgiving. Now in the States, this day is known for the hordes of people getting up early to find all the deals for their Christmas shopping. Over here, neither Thanksgiving nor Christmas are huge holidays so the Friday after Thanksgiving means absolutely nothing, thus we were able to go to the Toys R Us in the mall, without having to worry about crowds, take our time picking out the toys and still be the first and only people in line when we were checking out.

It's fun that we were able to say that we finished our Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving, but it’s a tradition that we will definitely not continue when we go back to the States.

Thanksgiving Celebration

While we are on the other side of the world, we decided that we would host a Thanksgiving Dinner for some friends. What was going to be a very small get together of some close friends ended up being a pretty big party of a mish mash of 25 people (most we knew, some we didn't). It was a fun time getting to know the new people and talking with our friends and I know that everyone left very full.

Turkey runs around $6USD a pound here, so we decided against getting a turkey and decided on having some chicken and beef, which is significantly cheaper then turkey. I made homemade stuffing (note that it is actually dressing since it was not stuffed into anything, there are just a lot of people that associate dressing with salad), and for my first time making it, it was very good.

Besides the turkey, we missed out on spending time with family and of course watching football, but even though those things were missed, we still had a good time.

Renee vs The Motorbike

Can you guess who won???? The other day, Renee and I were riding our bikes (with the kids connected to my bike via our trailer). There was a guy on a motorbike who was clearly not paying attention to his driving coming towards us and when we alerted him of us approaching it was too late. Renee came to a stop and the guy just panicked and rammed right into her, now who do you think won???? Turns out that the guys pregnant wife was also on the motorbike with her and she came tumbling off along with him.

So to tell you who won the battle, Renee had an alignment issue that we took to the bike shop and was fixed for 5RMB or about .75 US cents. The guy who ran into her, well his front wheel came completely off and his whole front end was mashed up. If you told me that a guy on a motorbike ran into someone with a regular bike, I would ask you how beat up was the regular bike, in this case I am not sure how it happened, but Renee's bike was fine and that guys motorbike took the beating.

The guy told us to just go after the accident (knowing that it was his fault) and Renee was able to ride off before getting her bike fixed, the pregnant lady was fine I think, I think she was faking some of her pain, but we didn't stick around to see. Oh well, Renee 1, Motorbike 0.

Happy B-Lated

All, Happy Thanksgiving, even though this is a couple of days late. We didn't end up having turkey over here in China (try it is a minimum of $6USD a pound, a little pricey), but we had fun getting together with friends.

Enjoy the next couple of weeks leading up to Christmas and the end of 2007!!!

Linkin Park Concert

Many of you know that I really enjoyed going to see concerts when I was back Stateside, but I have been going through serious withdraw ever since being here in Shanghai, which is pretty deficient in the rock scene. So when I saw that a band that I somewhat enjoyed their music was coming to Shanghai, I jumped all over the chance of going to see them. Yes, last night Linkin Park made there debut in mainland China here in Shanghai at an outside stadium venue, Hongkou Stadium. There were probably about 18,000 fans who braved the cold weather to watch LP, and in my humble opinion, the fans were not disappointed.

LP put on a really good show, as I said above, I am not their biggest fan, but whether you like them or hate them, all they do is produce hits. I know that if you're not a big fan of screamer type bands they might not be your choice, but screaming is not their whole bit. I mean they only have 3 albums out and they played for over 1 ½ hours and basically 80% were singles that have been heavily played on US radio. There are not many bands that can play for that long with that many hits after only 3 albums, so, again, like them or not, all they do is make hits.

Again, this was my first concert here in China, and the fans were great. Actually they started to chant the equivalent of get off the stage to the opening band Thin Man, a Chinese Band (I actually kind of liked Thin Man's music, but the fans were clearly there for one thing). But they went wild when Linkin Park came on, they really had some good energy and they seemed to really like the more screamy parts of the songs.

All in all, LP definitely hit #2 on my scale of huge scale rock band concerts that I have been to (no one has yet to come close to U2 during their Vertigo tour), but they were definitely leaps and bounds above one of my favorite big scale rock bands, Coldplay, who formerly held the #2 position. That and the fact that there are not that many people that can say that they saw LP in their debut concert in China (okay so about 18,000 other people in the world).

He's got a whole lotta AIR

I am not sure why weird things happen when I am around, but yet another story can be slated for the "book of weirdness" otherwise known as "the story of my life." I was riding the subway home from work and noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that there was a man moving in a very unusual manner not too far away from me. The train stopped and so did he, so I didn't think much of it, but then once the train began to move again, he would begin to move in this unusual manner all over again, and this occurred between all the stops while the train was moving.

I am usually not phased by the unusualness that goes on on the subway here, but this literally made me laugh out loud to myself. You see, his unusual moves would involve him closing his eyes as if he was trying to sleep or dream something, and then he would just start thrusting his hips back and forth in the air, as if he was "having relations" with the air (or some imaginary friend of his). It was completely awkward and I did notice some others on the train giving him weird looks.

At first I thought maybe this was some kind of Tai Chi move, but after he continued to thrust for periods of time that are unspeakable, I had a inkling that this was not a Tai Chi move. Oh well, I guess he enjoyed his subway ride much more then I did.

The Kids

I just wanted to post some recent pictures of the kids, maybe I am a little biased, but they are the best ever.

Narwhals and Xolos

No, I am not speaking gibberish, my title includes two animals from the alphabetical animal flashcards that we just bought my daughter. Okay, so I understand that finding an animal starting with the letter X is very tough, so I will give them a pass (although choosing the Xolo, a hairless dog is a little scary), but the Narwhal for N????? I mean the obvious N go to is NEWT, this is the classic N animal, I mean you could have even said nurse shark, but narwhal??

Note to the makers of these children flashcards, the parents are supposed to know what the animal is. It doesn't work when you have a kid ask you, "What is that animal" and the parent replies, "I have no idea…I think they just made it up." The parents are supposed to be these great all knowing, all powerful, awesome people that the kids look up to (until 6 years old when they begin to watch re-runs of Alf and see that we are, in fact, not any of those things). Come on animal flashcard people, throw us parents a bone hear (no pun intended).

That's Not So Raven

As I sit here I just checked the final score of the Monday Night Football Game between the Ravens and the Steelers and it was a 38-7 debacle. For all of you Ravens fans (that includes me), I officially announce the season over. We are at best going to be an 8-8 team and right now that looks a little dicey (you can already predict the losses to New England, Indy, and San Diego, just select one more team and there are the 8 losses). Last year it sucked being over here while the Ravens were so good, this year, I'm okay with being over here, cause if I had to watch the Monday Night game, I would not be a happy camper.

Actually speaking of not watching NFL, I have not seen 1 regular season game this season. They used to show replays of the games on ESPN and Star Sports, but now they don't (that in addition to the fact that our satellite has been out). This might be the first time that I can remember where a whole NFL season went by and I did not watch one game. I know there is still a lot of football left in the season, but it may not be easy to watch it, if it's not on television.

Still Thawing Out

Last week I was out of town in a small town known as Kaiping in the Guangdong province of China (southern China). It typically stays in the upper 50's and 60's during the winter time here, but it got a little chilly last week, chilly enough that I regretted not bringing my jacket. So on Friday I hopped into my ride back to the airport from the client, the ride takes about 2 ½ hours. When I hopped in I was a little chilly and I saw the guy adjust the air conditioner/heater and started to feel the air blowing on me. The only problem was that the air was COLD!!! The guy had the air conditioning blasting in the car the whole ride to the airport, and by the end I thought I had frost bite on my ears and fingers. Oh and on top of that, I missed my flight, so I got to thaw out in the airport waiting for the next flight…fun times.

Microwave Matt

Back when we just moved into our apartment we figured out quickly that we needed a microwave, something that wasn't provided when we first moved in. So we went on a walk to the closest department store to find the microwave. The closest department store was about 25 minutes from our apartment (probably about 3km's away). So we went for the walk and found the microwave. Now you may or may not know that I am a cheap, but I am very cheap. So we leave the department store and we realize that neither of us has a business card to hand the taxi driver for him to take us home. Note that we knew nothing about the language and we really could only point our way home, which would be a project in itself. So we were forced to walk home with microwave in hand. Now for those of you who have not carried a microwave a long way (which is probably most of you), a microwave is not that heavy initially, but after you walk about ten minutes with one on your shoulder it starts to get heavy. Just picture the scene, a white guy with his wife and a young kid, walking down a street in the middle of Shanghai China, with a microwave box on his shoulder. Needless to say we were getting a bunch of stares (much more then normal at least) and my shoulder was getting sore, but it was by far one of the weirdest walks that I have ever done.

That's just not right

For those people who are squeamish and can't take stories about gross things, then please do not read on, while this posting is safe for work, it may not be safe for your health.

A couple of months into us being here in China we were driving home in a taxi and I just like to people watch while we are driving in a taxi, so on this particular day we were driving back to our apartment when we came to a stop. While we were stop I noticed that there was a lady holding a little baby. The baby let out a cough and was clearly feeling a little sickly. Well what happened next was something that I will never forget for the rest of my life. The lady proceeded to put her mouth up to the baby's nose and sucked the snot out of the baby's nose and then spit it out on the ground. It was by far one of the grossest things I have ever seen. Now this is China, but that is not something that commonly happens here, and I just can't imagine what was going through that ladies mind when she did that.

Yuck, it still gives me the chills thinking about it (can't say I didn't warn you reader).

Stomachs, Lungs and Brains...Oh My!!!

I am at my favorite client right now (not really), and as a part of all the fun, we get to eat all of our lunches at the Company's cafeteria (here they call them Canteens). Today for lunch we were served pig's lung soup (I had a nice big chunk of lung in mine) and spicy chicken stomach...uhhhh...at least its spicy. In talking with my staff of course they gave me what I have heard out of all my staff when I am offered something "interesting," they say, "here in China we believe that the parts you eat help the same part in the human body be healthy."

Okay, Okay, so the lungs will help me breathe better and the stomach will help with my digestion, I get that, but there are some parts that I just can't put my hands around. What good does a ducks chin do for me if I eat it? What about bird's spit? What about the meat from a camel's hump? And finally, what the heck does eating any kind of anus do for me? Can you help me solve the mystery????

E-motion-less

Another fun Halloween Story takes me back about 6 years to when I was in college (uh oh, it was 6 years ago, man oh man I am old). I was up in Pittsburgh visiting my beautiful fiancee, now wife, Renee, and I was staying with a buddy of mine, let's call him Hamon Dall. Now Renee was actually working and I was up there on fall break, so I had absolutely nothing to do, so one day Hamon and I went to Target. As it was close to Halloween, the store had all its fine decorations out for all to see and buy, so we went looking through all the various pieces of junk that people could buy to make their house look "creepy." With Hamon's parents out of town we figured that we should buy some junk to make his house look scary, so we went down the aisle that had the lights and stumbled upon the "motion lights," such characters as a motion pumpkin and motion bat. These lights would show a pumpkin becoming scary or a bat flying, but what really caught our eye was the tag for a motion ghost, just think of the possibilities a ghost flying through the air, how much creepier can you get (note that in our minds the motion ghost looks nothing like the picture above, just thought I tried to scare anyone who is reading this with the not so common blow up ghost decoration).

Noticing that they were out of the motion ghosts (noting that they had a plentiful supply of the other motion lights) we asked if they had any more motion ghosts in the back, the worker went back and could not find any. Knowing that it was our destiny to find one of these things, we went to the next store only to find the same thing, plenty of motion bats, but no motion ghosts. We started to suspect that either they had to pull all motion ghosts or that they were actually trying to have motion goats, and made ghosts by mistake (why the whole motion goat thing would work for Halloween is, in itself, a spooky mystery). So we decided to spend the rest of our free time during my week up there looking for motion ghosts, we probably visited about 4 or 5 Targets and even called a couple, of which, they all mysteriously were out of theses ever elusive motion ghosts. We finally came to the conclusion that the motion ghosts probably too closely resembled a KKK member and Target decided that having a "motion racist" would not fly during Halloween.

What are you roasting?

I listen to the Relevant Magazine Podcast each week and it is by far one of the best podcasts out there. As Halloween approaches, it is only appropriate for me to give the relevant podcast people some credit for one of the best "alternatives to Halloween" ideas. One of the hosts of the podcast lived near a church that would put on the Holy Ghost Wiener Roast as an alternative to Halloween. The name is pure awesomeness, I really think that all churches should host a Holy Ghost Wiener Roast, I think it could be used a great evangelizing tool. So really, if you want to take the idea (as I did to write this post) go ahead.

Late Night Queen

During our honeymoon I was awoken one night at around midnight by the sound of crowd laughter coming from the television. Even though I had already been asleep for about 2 hours, my wife was still up watching something on the good ole television. It was at that time that I decided to request that we not have a television in our bedroom for the rest of our marriage (what can I say, I like my beauty sleep). This has played a huge part in me getting to bed and not being awoken by my wife giggling at the TV or having some loud advertisement scare me out of my sleep.

As you may or may not know, Sunday morning at 3am (China time) was the finals for the Rugby World Cup, I got up with my UK friend and we watched England lose 15-9, needless to say, I was quite tired on Sunday, but I didn't a nap, so I headed to bed a little bit before 8pm. My wife decided to watch some episodes of Grey's Anatomy (as we got the first 3 seasons on DVD from a friend that is moving back to the US). When I woke up at around 11pm, I noticed that Renee was not in bed yet, so I walked to the office to find her watching Grey's Anatomy, I warned her to come to bed cause she will be tired the next day, but my warning fell on deaf ears. I then awoke at 3am to find that the place next to me in bed was still empty. I fell right back to sleep and have no idea when she came to bed, but I do know that she had to get up around 7:15 this morning, so I can say with certainty that there was not much sleeping going on for my wife last night.

Oh what the kids'll say...

Maddie is at an age where she really is learning a lot and she is able to express in words some of the things that she learned. This morning while my wife was getting dressed, Maddie looked up at her and causally said, "Babies suck on boobs." While definitely true, my wife immediately looked at me and said, "why would you teach her that." In regards to any statements that are a little off color or that relate to random things (like nursing a baby), my wife immediately thinks that I taught our daughter the statement. Well, I didn't teach her this tidbit (not sure why it would even come up in a conversation between a dad and a 3 year old) and to prove it to my wife, I asked Maddie how she found out about this.

Turns out that in the nursery on this past Sunday there was a girl who is about 1 1/2 years old that started to cry and the mom took her and started to breast feed her. Regardless of the fact that the child being breast fed is a little old, (although I have heard of kids up until first grade getting breast fed, can you imagine this, the kids is playing soccer in the park and they just run up to their mom for a fill up, kind of creepy) I guess Maddie watched how the mom was able to sooth this child by having them suck on the breast and was able to decipher that women's breasts can be used, as she put it, "like a bottle." So a perfectly good explanation for how my daughter learned this act and she definitely got me off the hook.

Updates

We are now back down to a family of 4 as Renee's parents left the other day. This would mark the first time since the end of July that it was just the 4 of us in the house. We had a great time with all the guests, but it was good to have some silence last night as we ate dinner as a family of 4.

I feel bad because I never owned up to 2 things I mentioned regarding baseball way back at the beginning of the season:

1. I won the bet with my friend back in the States because the Orioles ended with an overall record that is 1 better then Pittsburgh Pirates, it was actually pretty cool because it came down to the last game of the season and the O's were able to pull it out for me.

2. On the same light of the Orioles, remember I made the whole prediction for how the Orioles were going to do. Just as a refresher I said they would finish 4th in the AL East (plus for me), with a record below .500 (another plus for me), but I did say they would have a record of 80-82, so a huge minus for me since they ended the season with only 69 wins, so yet another season down the toilet bowl.

Stick with baseball, I saw the Rockies play the Giants back in May and had no idea I was watching a team that would eventually make it into the World Series, I actually hope they win cause then I can say that the one game I made it to this season involved the new home run champ and the World Series Champions, although I do think the AL is much stronger then the NL so that may not happen (but take a note from above, my predicting skills are not that great.

World Cup

I got up at 2am this morning to go to an Irish Pub and watch the England v France Semi Final World Cup match. If you have been reading, you would know that I have really gotten into Rugby since getting hear, and going to watch an England game with a British friend is always fun, in fact the place was packed with Brits for the 3am start. To cut to the chase, England beat France 14-9, and for those of you not familiar with Rugby scoring, it is similar to American Football in that a try (touchdown in American Football) can result in up to 7 points. As you can see, there was not much scoring, but the game was really intense and a really fun game to watch (England came from down 1 with 6 minutes left to take the lead and win the match). Most of the people there were not expecting England to win (which I am learning appears to be the typical British expectation, that their team will fail, so if they win, they can be all the more excited), so they were very excited to see the result. My friend and I have already booked a table for next weekend's final match that will put England versus either South Africa (note they got beat down by South Africa already in the World Cup) or the surprise of the World Cup Argentina.

On a side note, much of the world thinks that we Americans are pretty simple minded people, although I have observed many things to make me believe that we are actually one of the better countries when it comes to racial tolerance (I know we still have many racial issues, but believe me, it is definitely not as bad as some other countries). I was stunned to hear during the broadcast that one of the black French Rugby players (I only noted 3 black players on France's team) had a nickname of the "Dark Destroyer." Does anyone else out there think there is anything wrong with this nickname???? Again, we have racial problems in the US, but I don't think it would ever fly if a black player of any sport was called the "dark" anything. I guess he is okay with the nickname, or maybe it is just that so many white people refer to him as this that he has just accepted, either way he should probably think about his nickname being shortened to the "destroyer" unless of course there is a "light destroyer" on the team, then I can see the name being justified...oh wait, no, that just makes it worse.

Splish Splash falling out of the bath...

Remember where I was on the parenting scale? Well, I can't remember climbing up on the parenting scale, so I must be around a 4....and continuing to fall. In an attempt to be a good family dad, I got out the video camrea to tape my kids having their nightly bath so we can look back on it and laugh about the "good ole days." Anyway, the kids were having fun and showing off for the camera when all of the suddent Jacob starts to climb out of the bath and then, of course, falls right out of the tub flat onto his face. Being a great dad, I made sure I got it on tape rather then trying to save my son. Jacob is okay and only cried for a minute (more stunned then anything) and it definitely was one of those videos that we will crack up at everytime we watch it, but I definitely fell a couple more spots on the parenting scale (is there anyway to go below 0?).

One more year...one more year...

So after months of discussions between Renee and I and our families, we have made a big decision in our life. Drum roll please…we decided that we would extend my contract here in Shanghai for one more year, so we are now contracted through April of 2009. We are working through the logistics of what apartment we are going to end up in (probably going to stay in our same apartment), but we are happy that the decision process is over and we are very happy with the decision that we made.

Just to note, we are definitely going to go home after the 3 years are up and will definitely be looking forward to home after the 3 years, but we will be enjoying the next year and a half here.

2 Back Teeth, Krosa, and stuck in the rain

I have finally caught up to recent times, sorry if you are confused by the whole delay between when an event happened and when I posted on this blog.

On Monday (of this week), Typhoon Krosa was passing through Shanghai. It actually put Typhoon Wipha to shame, so it was definitely nice and windy and rainy, it was actually pretty neat. Renee was scheduled to have some wisdom teeth removed on Tuesday, so we decided to have a date night the night before. We had some good German food at Paulaner Brauhaus and had some good conversation with Renee's parents watching the kids back at the apartment.

I knew that we would have a hard time getting cab, so we went to the Shangri La close by the restaurant in order to stay under cover away from the rain, but it took about 45 minutes for a cab to come by, so we had some more good conversation, but were definitely happy for a cab to finally come by.

On Tuesday, Renee had her 2 wisdom teeth removed, which I wouldn't know how painful it is, but others have told me more then enough times that it is very painful. Even after a couple of days, she has been a really good sport about the pain thus far, the procedure went well and she is doing good recovering. Maddie was a little upset when Renee couldn't talk for the first couple of hours, I actually didn't mind it too much (sorry for the cliché joke). Anyway, she still has some pain, but is doing well.

Beijing Day #3

It was raining the whole morning, so we decided to head out to this North Korean art studio, this place had a lot of funny things that included a book of Kim Jung Il (telling all his happy go lucky stories) and a book with the title "US Imperialists started the Korean War." Going there was definitely worth it just for the laughter.

We then went to a Sichuan restaurant, which was another great meal, so all in all, the food was great in Beijing, and the sites were also pretty cool.

Beijing Day #2

We started our day with going to Tiannemen Square and walking around there. We then went into a garden that was right next to the Forbidden City (one of my favourite places to visit) before heading into the Forbidden City. Being that this was my second time in the forbidden city, I guided Ray around and we basically spent the morning there.

After the Forbidden City, we went to one of the suggested duck restaurants, which was one of our best meals in Beijing, duck, while very fatty, is soooo soooo good.

We then headed to the Lama Temple, which had this huge Buddha statue that they claim was built from one tree trunk, this thing was huge, so it was almost impossible to think that they used one tree trunk, I mean this thing was huge.

Finally we headed to the Summer Palace, which was an absolutely huge park with pagodas and a lake, it started to rain so our time there was petty limited, but the place was still pretty neat.

We ended the night with a meal at a Tibetan restaurant, Makye Ame. The food was very good, although the homemade Barley Wine was the worst drink I have ever had in my life. The night was made right when a bunch of Tibetan singers and dancers came on stage to perform for about an hour. This was definitely one of the highlights of the whole trip. Some good food and a nice little Tibetan show, made for an all around good meal.

Beijing Day #1

Ray wanted to go up to Beijing during his time in China so we planned a 3 day trip up there. We arrived at the airport and headed right from airport to a portion of the Great Wall named Simatai. It took about 2 hours, but it was totally worth it. The Great Wall is one of the coolest places that I have been to in my life. This is one of those things that no matter how many pictures you have seen, the pictures do not do it justice, it was so great to be able to see it in person. We spent about 3 hours hiking up and down the wall, and were pretty tired when all was said and done, so we hoped back into our cab to head back to Beijing to check in.

All was going well when about 1 hour into the drive we got into a car accident. I saw it happening and new that the driver was not going to be able to stop, luckily neither Ray nor I were hurt in the accident, the only down fall was the fact that we had to wait about 2 ½ hours before we could leave the accident scene. This was a real big downer on how awesome the first part of the day went, so we hoped to redeem the day with a nice dinner. In regards to the food, we were totally dependent on the Lonely Planet guide book for places that we could go to eat, so we decided to try this place Xiao Wang's restaurant. We got there pretty late (thanks to the accident), so we were the only people in the restaurant. They didn't have rice, which was a huge strike, but they did have some good ribs and we got a really good vegetable. Their duck was not good at all, but the ribs made up for it, so the day was somewhat redeemed.

Shanghai Visit

The plans for the week were to spend Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday in Shanghai, with the rest of our time in Beijing. On Sunday morning we went for a bike ride to a little town outside of the city. This small town was a place that Ray could be exposed to China life outside of a big city. We rode through this town and to a small church that was still in use, but was clearly built a long time ago. We were able to convince one of the people watching the church to get inside of it and it was pretty neat to see how one of the small town churches works.

On Monday we did the Pudong Riverwalk, and then went to Yu Garden (typical itinerary for my guests). We then ended the day shopping at the fakes market.

On Tuesday we went to Suzhou to see the sites there. Our driver was not too familiar with the Suzhou so we had to pick up someone on the side of the road. As sketchy as this sounds, there are people that make their living off of standing on the side of the road and helping people navigate a town they are not familiar with. After one trial and error with a person, we then picked up this guy who we decided to call Chester. This guy not only got us into seeing some of the sights for free, he also negotiated for us to get on a boat ride with a tour group. He was an interesting character and it only costed us about 12 bucks for the day. All the sights in Suzhou were just as I remembered them, the boat ride was a nice addition to our last adventure. Thanks Chester for all your help.

The Invasion

So my wife's parents have been in town for about 3 weeks (although based on my blog, you can see that I was away for most of that that time), but the day after I arrived back from Singapore, my friend from the US, Ray, came for a visit. Now the house had my family, my in laws, and Ray, needless to say, our house was pretty full. We set up a nice schedule of touristy stuff to do while he was here in Shanghai, so our first night involved going to the famous pedestrian street, East Nanjing Road. It was a nice introduction to Shanghai in that the street has neon lights all over the place and he got a feel for what the crowds were going to be like during his visit (note that the first week of October is a weeklong holiday here in China).

Gotta love the flavor of breakfast....

Outside of our hotel there was this advertisement for some "Breakfast Flavoured Milk." Now I eat many things for breakfast, oatmeal, yogurt, eggs, cereal, so I am not sure what breakfast flavour tastes like, but this really could not be good. As you can see you have Malt flavored and Walnut Flavored milk, I have never had walnuts for breakfast so that would not be a breakfast flavour that I would be familiar with, but maybe they should next invent Eggs Benedict, Oatmeal or Toast and Jelly…..yummm toast and jelly flavored milk.

Final Thoughts on Singapore

Friends of mine here in Shanghai always says that Singapore was so much better then Shanghai and that everything "just works" there. Not really knowing what that meant before I left, I know now what that means. Singapore is such an easy place for someone who is just visiting to get around, to see things, the people are great, the transportation is great, and everything does just work. We had no issues our whole time while we were there. Singapore is quite an anomaly in all of Asia in that it is a really easy place for a Westerner to go without having to worry about anything, and it is a great tropical island. The one story that I can use to sum up how awesome Singapore was; my colleague lost his camera in a taxi cab, the cab driver not only came back to the hotel to find my colleague, but gave it to the lost and found at the hotel. There is not one other country in all of Asia that I can think that a taxi driver would do this, most other countries, the driver would keep it for themselves or find someway to deny it was there and sell it off. Now this might not have happened with every taxi driver in Singapore, but based on my short time there, it probably would have happened with at least 9 out of 10 of those, and that is how Singapore "just works."

By the way, we stayed at The Regent Hotel and it was the best hotel that I have ever stayed in, so this definitely helped with the experience.

The Final Days of Singapore

We got a lot of what we wanted to accomplish in Singapore over the weekend and with us working during the day, we kind of took it easy for the rest of our time in Singapore.

One of the last things I wanted to do was go to the "Long Bar" in the Raffles Hotel to get a Singapore Sling, supposedly the place where the Singapore Sling was invented. Well we arrived and from the start I was not impressed, the bar wasn't nearly as "neat" as most of the travel books set it out to be, and the Singapore Sling at the Long Bar was not good at all. This was a very disappointing adventure and my advice to anyone heading to Singapore, skip out on this excursion. The Raffles Hotel is a neat place, but the Long Bar is clearly a touristy trap, you can get a better Singapore Sling and be in a better bar in many other places.

We walked around after the Long Bar and the night was redeemed when we passed by the "largest fountain in the world," the Fountain of Wealth. Actually this thing was a pretty neat fountain (or at least neat as fountains can get) and had a show and some dance music playing with it, which made it all the more fun to sit and watch water being sprayed out of a tube.

Singapore Day #4

We started the day with a traditional Singaporean breakfast of Kaya Toast, runny eggs, and coffee with condensed milk. The kaya toast is a type of bread with a coconut jam type of spread on it and runny eggs are what they sound like, eggs that have only been partially cooked (hence the runniness). This was a very very good breakfast, a great way to start the day of touring, although I wouldn't suggest eating this breakfast on a regular basis.

When we left we noticed that it was pouring outside, so we took the subway and rode the bus to our next destination, the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. By the time we got there, the rain had subsided and was mostly a mist or a light rain. Luckily the nature reserve had lots of…well…nature that protected us from the light rain. We hiked up the "mountain" (it is a mountain for Singapore, but it is more like a small hill for the rest of the world) and got some nice pictures of…nature. They had some signs saying that there would be a fine if you fed the monkeys, but my theory is that they just put those signs there to get people excited to see monkeys when in fact, there are no monkeys, just my theory. By the time we were leaving the nature reserve the rain had pretty much subsided, so we decided to continue our adventure and head to Chinatown.

Now I live in Shanghai, so there are not many Chinatown's that impress me, as I live in the biggest Chinatown in the world. Singapore's was okay, not too much going on there, just a bunch of stalls selling junk, the same junk that I can get in Shanghai for much cheaper (actually most of those vendors buy their stuff in China and then bring it back to Singapore to sell to tourists for an ungodly amount.

We moved onto to the other cultural center of Singapore, Little India. Here we walked around a bit and got the notion that gold is a really big thing in India as there were hundreds of stalls and stores selling gold stuff. We eventually made our way to an area that had a bunch of restaurants and found a nice Indian restaurant. The service was great and they had some really good food. The chicken tikka masala (a staple for me) was just okay, but the rest of the food was great, so it kind of balanced itself out into a really good meal.

We took a short break in the afternoon and then headed to the Night Safari. This is basically a safari/zoo that is only open at night. We saw the Creatures of the Night Show and that was pretty neat (nothing too great, but fun), and then we went on the tram ride through the park. There were some parts were the animals roamed free (mostly just small harmless dear), and most of the dangerous animals were in areas that were protected by moats. The best part of the night safari was going into the flying fox cage. When you go in, you go in through a bunch of gates that make it so that the flying fox could not get out and when you enter the flying foxes are jumping all over the place, to the point where they are jumping right over your head and it almost feels like they are about to hit you. Anyway, the Night Safari is definitely worth a visit. After the Night Safari (around 11:30pm), we just went back to the hotel to retire for the night. A long day, but a very good day.

Singapore Day #3

My Saturday morning started with some grocery shopping to pick up some stuff to take back to Shanghai. I started at Fair Price Extra (a hypermarket here in Singapore). I bought some generic Cheerios and some other items to take back for the family. We then went for a walk down the Orchard Road shopping street (right by our hotel).

My colleague and I then headed off to the Riverwalk in downtown Singapore. We walked through Boat Quay and then saw the Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles statue along with the Merlion that spits water all day long. It was a pretty nice walk and a nice area of town.

We then headed East to the East Coast Park. This is a stretch of beach that has restaurants, biking, kayaking, boating, walking paths, and almost anything else you can do around a beach. Before starting any activities, we were pretty hungry, as I mentioned on my last post I love Beef Rendang, and Burger King actually has a Rendang Burger. So we went into BK and tried the Rendang burger, it actually wasn't bad considering it was from BK. We then rented some bikes and rode around for a couple of hours. After biking, we sat at a bar on the beach and enjoyed some drinks to cool down. We then went into 7-11 to get a slurpee, oh man this slurpee was one of the best I have ever had. I enjoyed my slurpee while sitting at the beach and watching the waves hit the shore, all I can say is that Singapore has definitely been hard work so far.

We ended the night with getting together with some of my friends from Shanghai that moved back to Singapore. We went to another local hawker center and had some pork wonton noodles, some satay, some stingray, and the famous Chili Crab. They gave us the claws because we were guests, and there was so much meat in the claws, it was so so good...no check that, it was one of the best meals that I have ever had. The combination of the long day of going around and seeing things and being able to sit outside and enjoy this awesome food, it was almost perfect. After the long day we were beat so we went back to the hotel and fell asleep, but this was definitely the best day so far.

Singapore Day #2

During work on Friday we asked the client where to get good Indian food. Well he told us to go to some shopping center for good Indian food. When we headed over there we found out that there was no Indian food, rather there was some Indonesian food (quite different if you are not familiar). Anyway, we sat down as my colleague had never had Indonesian food, and being that my grandmother is from Indonesia, I consider myself to be a pretty seasoned veteran in the food. We ordered things like Gado Gado, and Beef Rendang (my absolute favorite in the world) along with some other dishes. Again, being well versed in Indonesian food, I was actually quite disappointed, so no more Indonesian while we are in Singapore.

We next headed to an area called Clarke Quay, this is pretty popular place with lots of shops and bars. When we arrived, the place was packed and most of the bars had lines coming out the doors. Anyway, we were finally able to settle in to one of the "wards" at a place called The Clinic. This bar was a pretty cool gimmicky bar, if you wanted to sit at tables with chairs, the chairs were all real wheelchairs. We sat on the typical hospital bed's for our table (as all the wheelchairs were taken). My colleague ordered one of the IV drinks where you are able to drink out of the tube from the IV bag. The place was really expensive, but definitely worth the experience. Night #2, definitely much more successful then night #1.

Singapore Day #1

Of course I am here in Singapore for work, but luckily we have some free time to roam around town in the evening. So for our first evening we stopped in one of the hawker centers in town and got some local grub. I got some chicken hor fun with mushrooms and it wasn't too bad. We then went back to the area around the hotel because one of our taxi drivers told us that the Orchard Towers was a pretty neat place. Well, basically we walked in the place and noticed some very tightly dressed women "working" in the place and we just turned around and left. We then headed to an Irish pub for the evening and enjoyed some nice Singapore Sling's (I know at an Irish Pub, but hey, everyone sells them around town). During our time at the pub, I told my colleague (who is Chinese American) that the "working women" will approach white men more often then the Asians just because there is the perception that not only are the white guys more wealthy, but they are most likely here on business and looking for some "company." He didn't believe me, so on our way from the pub I told him to walk ahead of me. Well on the walk home he was approached by zero women, while I was approached by two women at two separate incidents (both women were rejected by me if you were wondering). So my theory worked and he was all salty, not because he was looking for a "working woman," but just because I was right.

#100, Typhoons, and Slingn' it

Celebrate Good Times!! Yes, I have finally made it to 100 entries, and I know that the 3 readers that have been following this blog are so excited. Anyway, I want to thank my family, my friend Ttam Kergens, and the big man up stairs (no really, we live on the 20th floor apartment and there is like a 400lb guy on the 21st floor, he really inspired me to keep on writing). So yes, hopefully I can make it all the way to entry 101 without getting writers block.

In other Matt news, Tyhpoon Wipha came whipping through Shanghai, actually by the time it got through Shanghai it was only a tropical storm. This would otherwise be just another tropical storm with the exception that I had to fly to Singapore today. Last year I flew into a typhoon, now I am flying out of one. Well I got out of Shanghai without a problem, luckily the typhoon headed farther inland then originally expected and weakened, or else I might have spent a lot of time at the airport. By the way, I flew on Singapore Airlines, which is by far the best airline in the world, their planes, service, food, and entertainment trump any other competitors.

After calling Renee to tell her that I landed safely, I wasn't quite feeling sleepy so I headed down to the bar in the hotel, conveniently named, The Bar, they actually have live jazz music, and it is quite the classy place. Anyway, I went in, listened to some jazz music, and had myself a Singapore Sling (a drink famous here in Singapore, if that wasn't obvious). It was my first sling and it was pretty good (a little girly, but that's what I like).

As a final note, I took the subway from the airport into town and at one of the random stops I was looking out the window and noticed a neon sign that said BJ Massage, I mean can you be anymore obvious as to what goes on at that joint?

Learn to Appreciate Mediocrity

As I have mentioned my wife and I spent some time in Hong Kong last week. On Friday night we went on an adventure to find Ben and Jerry's ice cream (something that is not readily available here in Shanghai). We also went out to see the famed light show in Hong Kong that night. It starts each night at around 8pm and I was looking forward to see how they integrate 18 different buildings and shoot out lights and lasers. Well about 3 minutes into it Renee was not thoroughly impressed by the cool display and so we decided to leave and continue our adventure to find ice cream, yes we wanted to find ice cream over a really popular tourist attraction. My wife and I agreed that the light show did not blow us away, but now that I think about it, we should have stayed and watched the action. So all I have to say that is sometimes we need to sit back and enjoy mediocrity like the Hong Kong light show. I guess my wife and I just need to learn to appreciate mediocre tourist attractions (and probably also learn to not make plans around finding ice cream).

I am not rich

Renee came with me to Hong Kong last week when I was there for business. On the first day she had done some travelling and then came to the office to go out to lunch with me. Unfortunately, myself and a US partner went out for an early lunch so we missed each other. Right before she left she asked the receptionist where would be a good place to go shopping. Now, I must say that it is pretty widely assumed that white skinned westerners have a good deal of money to throw around, so of course, when she asked, they just responded with the fact that there was a lot of great shops in the same building of our office along with surrounding buildings. Just to clarify to you all, the shops that I pass on my way to the office in the Hong Kong building include Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, and Armani Exchange, so the assumption by our receptionist was that my wife would have enough money to throw around in these very high class shops. Now we are very blessed, but we certainly do not have the funds to go shopping at the same shops that millionaires shop at (I don't even think I can afford the cuff links at Louis Vuitton). Anyway, when my wife was asking abut the bargain street market, she got some weird looks, but eventually made it to a place where she spent about 1/1000 of what she would have otherwise spent. I guess that's the tough life of us richie riches.

I have a...I have a...

So the other day I was in my Hong Kong office and I was washing my hands in the really nice bathroom. Actually, it was one of the nicest lit bathrooms that I have been in. As I was washing my hands I looked in the mirror to peruse my face and noticed something that shocked me. You see, I am 26, and while I am not the most fashionable guy, I do pride myself on at least looking like I can put myself together in the morning. To my surprise and dismay, when I was looking in the mirror at myself, I noticed what looked like some hair follicles that connected my left eyebrow to my right eyebrow, this would otherwise be referred to as a UNIBROW. Yes, somehow I have missed the fact that I had developed a unibrow. What comes even more surprising is the fact that my wife has never told me about it or that one of my friends never pulled me over to tell me (or at least use it as a butt of a joke). I just can't believe it, I mean I have kept track of hair growing out of nose, ears and other crevices....as much as I can. When I mentioned it to my wife, all she could do is laugh in my face, which by the way, didn't make me feel any better about the situation. Oh well, get out the wax.

Go ahead, take a nap

As a side note to the previous entry, the game started live here in China at midnight. Now for most people who are my age, 26, they would most likely have been out with some buddies then gone to the bar to watch the game at midnight. Well for me, I went to bed at around 9pm and then woke up at a little after 11 to go to the game. I guess this is yet another sign that I am getting old, when something is one TV past 9pm, I will most likely have to take a nap just to stay up for the game.

Sore Winners???

As I have said in the past, I have gotten into Rugby ever since coming over here to China. This past weekend was the kick off of the Rugby World Cup. The first round is a pool round, similar to that of the Soccer World Cup, and USA played England in the first game of the "pool" round (n0te that the US is in the red in this picture). To give you some background, England won the world cup 4 years ago and is clearly seen as one of the top programs in the world. On the other hand, the US is not even close to a top tier team. Think of the game as being USA basketball (this would be England) playing Venezuela (this would be the US). The two prior games that were being played right before the England vs US game also featured top tier teams against teams that aren't considered to be that good. The first game was between Australia and Japan (Australia being the powerhouse) with the result of this match being 91-3. The second game featured New Zealand (the powerhouse) against Italy with the result being 76-14.

Now I attended the game with my British friend at a place that was full of England supporters. Needless to say they were looking for a result that rivalled that of the previous two games mentioned above. The Americans actually played really good and most of the people left the bar that we were at with some respect for the US, with the final result being 28-10 in favor of England. Now even though they won by 18, most of the people were thinking that they would win by at least 30, so this 18 point differential was, to say the least, a disappointment. The guy I went with was so ashamed of their performance that he bought the drinks for the night, after the game it was a feeling like even though England won, that they lost the match, it was kind of weird. Anyway, all I have to say is that, I actually think the US can make it out of the first round if they play this strong against Samoa and Tonga (note that they will most likely get blown out of the water by South Africa who is another top tier team).

I am unofficially dying

No I am not actually dying, just unofficially as I think my heart was ripped out of my chest when my niece from California sent me the following pictures:

Just for reference, I am born and raised in Baltimore, and while it has been pretty hard to cheer for the O's, I am still a fan (I still think they can go on a run and get close to .500). Anyway, more then anything, my kids can cheer for any other team in baseball other then the Red Sox and of course, the worst of the worst, the Yankees. As long as I live they will not be Yankees fans, I will not have such corruption in my household, but alas, my niece is working towards making them the worst thing that I can imagine....a Yankees fan. I mean I can live with my daughter having a boyfriend at 10, or my son getting a tattoo at 12, or my daughter getting pregnant at 15, but a Yankee's fan...that is hard to swallow (note that my sarcasm might not have come through on this thing, but I am joking about the whole getting pregnant thing). I guess I will have to work to rehab my kids into being real baseball fans and not being a frontrunning fan.

Whole Milk and....

Last night was by far the weirdest grocery shopping I have ever done. I wanted to get a couple of final things before my wife and family arrive today so I went shopping for whole milk and ham. Yes that's right, whole milk and ham, it is the kind of combination that would make nutritionists around the world cringe. Just to justify my purchases, the whole milk is for my two kids and the ham is just in case the family arrives and they are hungry so they can make sandwiches, but let's all face it, if someone was in line in front of you at the grocery store, you might give them some weird looks for their purchase of whole milk and ham (note that if I was getting green eggs in place of the whole milk, all would be right with the world). Anyway, I proudly stood in the checkout line flashing my milk and ham for all to see and even had someone clap for me (or were they just doing Tai Chi?).

Annual dinner and...

I am currently in Hong Kong for my Company's annual dinner that happened on Wednesday night. It was a fun time that included a nice meal at the Hong Kong Convention Center and I spent the night getting to know the US secondees that are located in Hong Kong (all of which I had not yet met during my time here in China). After the annual dinner we all decided to go out, one of the guys knows a DJ that we were going to meet in the Wan Chai district. Now I still don't know much about Hong Kong and it was briefly explained to me that the Wan Chai district is not the most wholesome district in the world, again not totally knowing what that meant I went along with them and quickly found out what that meant. You see the Wan Chai district has a lot of "working" women and "working" is in quotes because I am not referring to college graduate professionals. Just walking down the street should have been enough for me to say, "I see you guys tomorrow." But I was thinking that maybe we would be going to a place that wouldn't be too sketchy. We eventually get to a bar that was full of these women and sketchy men. The DJ friend got us seats, but I really could only sit for a little bit before it was time to go, this scene is definitely not my speed. On my way out my butt was grabbed a couple of times, which just reinforced that it was a good idea to get out of there while the night when I did. Without getting on a soapbox, it is actually really sad to watch the interaction of the people in that place to see just how empty their lives are to be spending their time on a Wednesday night at a place like that. Oh well, I was there with some colleagues who we were able to laugh about some of the things going on at that bar, which at least gave the night some redemptive value.

Knife Picking

Last week on my way home from work I was on my usual walk from the Science and Technology Museum to home and noticed the regular street vendors selling their street foods. For those of you who are not familiar with the street food vendors they sell things like lamb kabobs (at least one hopes the meat is lamb), noodles, fried rice, some kind of sweet cake thing in a large block, vegetables, other small treats, and cut up fruits (just to name a few). I noticed that there was one street vendor sitting behind his cart on a little hill picking his teeth. As I inched closer I noticed that he was picking his teeth with a big knife. Just so happens that this vendor was selling cut cantaloupe (or some fruit that tastes and looks like cantaloupe). Just to clarify, the previous evening I physically saw the same guy cutting up the cantaloupe with the same knife that he was currently picking his teeth with. Yum, can't wait to try that cantaloupe fresh with some tooth plague.

Karting

On Saturday night I was able to go and hang out with a buddy of mine, something I don't get much of a chance to do when the family is in town. We went out for a bite to eat and talked and then at around 8pm headed across town to the go karting track (note I am spelling karting with a k cause that is how they spell it). The really cool thing about the go karting track is something that you would never ever see in the US. You see, the track is inside and the top floor of the facility (2 floor facility) is a bar. So, in fact, this go karting place is encouraging drinking and driving. That notwithstanding, it makes for a really fun time to share a pitcher of Carlsberg (finding out I don't really like this stuff), then heading down to the track for a nice race. It was a great night of talking, racing, and sharing some drinks a nice get away if you are ready for a change of pace here in Shanghai. I was not surprised that most of the patrons were expats (it can be a little pricey for locals), but I was really surprised that most of the expats were American (or at least they were fluent in English with an American accent, so I am making the assumption). Anyway, the thing that go karting does is it brings together the 11 people on the track and for the 8 or so minutes you are racing makes you into a little community where you are congratulating each other at the end or swapping stories of hitting each other and laughing about it, things like that. All in all, we left the place at around 12:30am (it closes at 2) and had a great night.

High School Mattical

I had dinner plans the other evening and was leaving the apartment at around 6pm for a friends house. Upon leaving my apartment building, I saw one of our neighbors coming towards me so I waved and said "Hi." She was taken a little back when she took a double take at me and said, "Oh, Hi Matt." She went on to explain that she thought I was a new teenager in the building and didn't think it was me. Now I know that most adults are trying to keep their youth and look younger, but I don't think I do this (if you disagree tell me). I am not sure if I should take being called a teenager a compliment or should I be offended by it. Clearly it tells me that I still have my boyish good looks (note that these boyish good looks, when I was actually a teenager, landed me one girlfriend, so they were not that great), but it also confirms the fact that as a father of 2 kids at 26, I am a little out of place here in China (most expat dads are in their late 30's or 40's). I look back and am glad that I still appear younger then I am, since most people assume I am in my mid-30's (2 kids and in Shanghai with a Company is how most people come to this conclusion).

FREAKING Awesome

My informants in the US (informants being my wife and my parents) have told me that Maddie is learning all kinds of new words being in the US and hearing all the conversations going on around her. Well, she has also learned some not so good words, specifically related to my wife driving in the US. I am told that the other day she tried to open a door and the door wouldn't open. Upon finding out that she was not able to crack open the door, she kicked the door and yelled "Freaking Door!" Remember the parent scale that I had going, I was around a 4 on the last reading, well this incident brings me down to a 3. While kind of cute that my daughter would say freaking, if she is saying that at 3, I can't imagine what she will be saying at 13. Needless to say, my wife is trying to encourage her to stop saying that.

All the while, every time she says it both my parents turn to Renee to say "I didn't teach her that." You see there is something about grandparents, you see they tend to corrupt your grandkids. In corrupting I mean, they give in whenever the grand kids cries, they buy them candy and give them what they want more then a parent would. Basically the more time you child spends with the grandparents the more spoiled they get. So naturally we have asked our parents to try not to spoil the kids or do things for them that we wouldn't do for them. As a result, anytime Maddie picks up a bad habit my parents either accept blame or immediately turn to us to tell us that "I didn't teach her that."

I didn't expect that

One story that I didn't mention from the trip home happened in the parking lot of Walmart (come on now, get your heads out of the gutter). My wife, a cousin of mine from Curacao, and I were sitting in our car waiting for our other cousins to finish shopping at Walmart. While waiting I was just doing some people watching. I noticed a couple (probably in their mid 30's) walking to their car and the man was wearing jorts (jean shorts for all of you who are not in the know), I noted to myself that jorts have been out of style (sorry to all you jorts readers out there)...well they were never in style and chuckled to myself over this. I looked away and then all of the sudden heard a man say unusually loud, "Oh!" I looked over and noticed that the man's jorts had fallen completely off of him and onto the ground. Now the man had a bag in each hand so he couldn't immediately catch the pants when falling or immediately pull them up. While this was hilarious in itself, it was also funny to watch as his girlfriend started to crack up and laugh at the guy. It was at this moment I told my wife and cousin to look and I couldn't have picked a worse time. The guy puts down his bags, bends over, only to reveal that he was not wearing any undergarments. It was then that my wife let out a scream that resembled something of laughter/terror and I was speechless. Note that this would have been an opportune time to let a "hey good looking" whistle, but I totally missed the chance....oh well I am ready the next time it happens.

I always wondered how gravity always worked in favor of jorts. I mean I have seen so many people that wear baggy pairs of jorts and yet have only seen a falling down incident once in my life. There must be something in the combination of cotton and denim that makes them defy gravity...maybe NASA should look into this for all astronauts, eliminating many of those embarrassing space walk incidents of the past.

All alone.....

So I got back to my apartment after my trip to walk into a completely clean (good), but empty apartment (bad). It was this mix of emotions of feeling good to be home while at the same time having something missing from home (my family).

As much as I thought it would be good to have some time away from my family, not that I was looking forward to it, rather I was thinking it would be some good relaxation time. Turns out it really stinks being away from the family. It is one thing to be on a business trip, which I have done a good amount, it's another thing to have to come home to an empty 20th floor apartment each night with no one around. As much as it is hard sometimes to have 2 kids running all around and sometimes driving you crazy, its another to be away from the family for 3 weeks. Conceptually its good because Renee and the kids get some extra time in the States while I can keep working, it is just not that easy and not that fun. Oh well, I can just continue to count down the days.

My Ride Home

I want to start by saying that at this point my wife and kids were going to be staying in the US for another 3 weeks so I was on my own for the flight home).

I had planned my trips so that I would have 1.5 hours of a layover in Chicago on my way home from Baltimore to Shanghai. Turns out that my flight from Baltimore to Chicago was delayed 1.25 hours and while I didn't think I would make my Shanghai flight, they assured me I would have time. Well we landed at around 10:15 (my Shanghai flight was at 10:36) and they opened the doors to leave the plane at around 10:22, so I had about 14 minutes to get to my flight. I sprinted right out of the gate and ran as fast as I could about 300 yards to my Shanghai flight gate and it turns out that they were waiting for me and another passenger from the Baltimore flight, but they were about to close the gates. I ran onto the plane and was a little out of breath only to find that the plane was less then half full. I took pleasure in knowing that I would not have to sit next to anyone on my flight especially because I was a little sweaty from my run. The flight went okay, it was really long (14 hours) and the fact that I forgot my Ipod along with the audio in my seat not working at all made the flight all the more longer (imagine, no personal music and not even having the chance to catch some of the in flight entertainment). I brought a lot along to read, but I wish I could have had something else to listen to during my time on the flight. The other big thing was that I had a stuffy sinuses during the whole flight and when we were landing my sinuses felt like they were going to explode, I have never had this feeling (and I have had stuffy noses before), but I couldn't believe the feeling, it was pretty bad.