That's Shanghai

It wasn't my first time, but it was Andrea's. Yesterday I decided to venture to a little snack stand near by our apartment. I have often heard Andrea describe the delicious aromatic smells wafting from the stand in romantice languages such as.. "What is that wreteched smell?! Is the sewer overflowing"? Or sometimes, "OMG Adam I think a herd of cats died near our apartment 2 months ago and no one has buried the poor things". Or to the appetizing "It smells like an outhouse on the street." Yep all those smells just makes your stomach growl with hunger. So I had been threatening to buy this tofu for Andrea for almost a year now, now that she knows it actually the tofu stand near our apartment and not some sewage treatement plant next door. I for one kinda like stinky tofu, like smelly cheese, or a fine scotch (taste like bandaides according to Andrea) it takes a little time to aprpeciate the flavors. I ventured over to the stand and order 1 plate. To my surprise I was offered not one but three different sauces to choose from, sweet, mid-spicey, and spicey. I went ahead and sampled all three sauces hoping Andrea would at least like the sweet one. She met me downstairs on our way to the grocery and I pulled out the surprise for her. "Oh.. I think you should get a camera first." Well I didn't (sorry) and she took a bite out of the sweet one. Within an instant (like the time it takes for lightning to strike) Her face contorted and twisted, her mouth ballooned into the "about to vomit" face, her cheeks arched squeezing her eyes shut. She forced down the tiny morsel of tofu she ate, turning and running to the nearest C-store to by a soda. "Oh God, that's even worse than it smells.. it's it's like eating poo out of the toilet." Dear, I hardley think it's that bad as I munch down on the particulary spicey one. "Ugh, how can you eat that, I don't even know you anymore." Well it has a defined taste I respond." Oh, oh I think it's coming back up, dear God don't throw up, don't throw up" she replies swaying towards the side of the road. Well... all in all she was right, I should have had a camera I don't think I've ever seen Andrea make that face before. Still, I give her a silver start for effort, at least she still tries strange food, for now. Also, we had Halloween last week and I'll try to post pictures and some stories as well. Zai Jian.

So I biked out to a trivia night thing last night. I often keep wanting to write about the new bikes Andrea and I received as an early wedding present but I'm not sure how to explain it all. First off, bicycling in China is not nearly as scary as the taxi rides are sometimes. I know what you are thinking, but at some intersections the bikes rule and the cars get stuck. I don't know why, but drivers here are much more cautious around you as a bicyclists (and probably more so because I'm a foreigner) than they are careful of other drivers. I rarely get honked at by a car, they often slow down to make sure they can pass me with plenty of room, and they never try to push you out of the way. It's an entirely different animal when it comes to other bicyclists though. Then it is a competition of the fittest, they will push you out of the way just to get in front of the line. I kid you not, I was literally moved to the left so this guy could get his tire a little in front of mine. Also it's gets competitive with the motorbikes, Andrea and I both noticed this at different times. Whenever we would pedal (we didn't get motorbikes, better excersice!) faster than a motorbike was going, they always, always, sped up to pass us. I wish I had some more interesting stories, or maybe not, but so far the bike has been a huge convenience and has expanded my travel area about 3 times as much as I would normally walk. It also cuts down on timing to almost anywhere withing a few kilometers distant. For example, I went to go play basketball at a friend's apartment. The first time I took my bike and it took maybe 20-25 minutes, the second time I was in a hurry so I figured I would take a taxi. Guess how long that took... yeah probably not close, it took me 50 minutes. So in a lot of ways the biking has saved me money and time! Also, I continue to get great compliments from the Chinese people who stop to ask me how much it costs and how cool it looks. I can't believe it took 2 wise relatives of Andrea to convince us the need/fun of having a bicycle in a country that probably invented the bike (I have no idea actually). So Thanks!

Well Andrea is home in the U.S. working on wedding stuff as I stay in Shanghai just working. There is an important wood show I need to attend in September and business is always better when I am here in person. Anyways, it's definetly a different city when you don't have someone special to share it with. So far I cooked all of once, if you don't count cereal. It's hard to cook for only 1 person and I generally don't eat leftovers so I'm stuck to eating out or eating instant noodles (which are delicious). Since I am still jet-lagged (don't know why after a week) I've been waking up around 7 am everymorning. I wake up see the city looking fresh and about 10 minutes later I get the grinding sound of drills and construction to remind me I'm in Shanghai and soon the day will be filled with dust and smog. I get a few minutes of enjoyment atleast. Then I hit the gym (usually this would be only in my nightmares, but with jetlag what else is there to do in the morning?) I work out for about 1 hour trying to burn off all the U.S. food calories and beer I consumed on my 3 week trip of glutony and sin (I speak of Cookeville and Franklin). Anyways, I have done a lot for the week I've been here. I went to a gun range last Saturday for a shooting compitition with some other expats and met some new friends there. The night before was spent at another friend's apartment as his going away party. Now it's time for round 3 of who wants to be Adam's and Andrea's friend game that we often play here. Tuesday I went to a restaurant where they have scrabble competitions for the customers. There is a big magnetic scrabble board and for every drink you buy you get 5 scrabble pieces. Other than the setup the rules are nothing like scrabble, basically they have to be real words found in the dictionary, and it's kinda a competition to scramble to the board when the best spaces open up (being in china there is of course, no lines). Anyways, I met some cool people that night and walked away in 1st place with a 250RMB gift certificate. Other than that, I've just been reading a lot of books...oh yeah I joined a book club too.. and playing some video games. I'll try to keep up with this blog thing a little better, as I know everyone noticed we both got out of touch with it. I would say expect about 1 month from me now, averaging that is, because who knows I may write another 2 next week than take a 1 month break again. I would love to hear some topics that people want me to blog about and I'll try to put up more pictures. Last time I was home (8 months ago) people mentioned more day to day stuff but if you have anything specific just tell me.
Zai Jian!
Adam

Hello Everyone. I know I haven't written in a while, but well I'm not much of a writer. Anyways, last month Andrea and I took a trip to Hainan Island to a city called Sanya. The island is known as a tropical resort place for Chinese and Russian tourist. It is located on about the same longitude as north Vietnam and has over 100 different variaties of mangos. Andrea and I went with 2 of our American friends for a long weekend trip. We stayed at a hotel called the Aegean Conifer Suites Resort Sanya.
First of all after the long flight down there and about 45 minute taxi ride we finally managed to get to the hotel. Chris had picked it out and decided that we should share a top floor suite. Good Decision! The hotel was very nice with something like 5 different pools, one of Andrea's favorite pool had a swim up bar too! She can mark that off her bucket list now. We got in on Wednesday and we were all very hungry, unfortunately with the perks of being away from any city came the "there are no restaruants" and we had to eat at the hotel. They were having a special all you can eat noodle bar. Now, I don't know how many nooodles you can eat, but I can't eat a lot so I felt a little cheated, oh well. The rest of the day was just lounging around the pool and getting unpacked. We did venture into town to eat at a famous western restaruant called Fat Daddy's.
The restaruants in Hainan are pretty cool, lots of out door seating and several places have outdoor grills where they make your food for you. This place did have delicious grilled food, I particulary like the grilled fish tacos, though Andrea said the hamburgers were good too.
Thursday we ate at the hotel again and stayed away from too much sun, the suntan lotion we all generously applied had expired about 5 years before, and yes suntan lotion does expire, and yes, it doesn't work anymore as our blotchy sunburns reminded us for the rest of the trip. Anyways, so thursday was spent swimming in the ocean or buying coconuts at the pool bar and filling them with rum! (Which started our theme song for the trip, put the rum in the coconut... Andrea changed "lime" to "rum" deaming it to be more appropriate). Also, at the beach we noticed that China has one of their "secret" submarine bases right next to us, so yippy for any sort of experiments they may have done to the water.
Friday- Yay! Chris and I decided we were going to pony up and pay for the scuba diving they offered. Being our first time we opted to do the 15 minute introduction course only available in Chinese.... yeah... well at least afterwards I felt less nervous about the diving, though I'm not sure exactly why. We then put on our wetsuits and waited for the boat to come pick us up at the dock. After a 10 minute boat ride they dropped us off at probably the only coral reef for miles, then 50 tourists wearing the divign suits and masks all jumped in to look at the 20'x20' reef. It was pretty cool actually! So at first my guide just pushed me underwater and told me to go. I didn't realize he was a guide so I took off away from all the crowds. As I was just minding my own business, I felt a hand and he motioned for me to rise to the top. I realized that he was suppose to show me around and I wasn't suppose to just take off. So after about 20 minutes in the water my guide gave me some fish food to attrack the colorful fish and I notice a different guy being pulled along by his guide. "Poor guy can't swim" I thought, and seeing that he was just being pulled around I figured it would be pretty boring. AFter we got back onto the boat I looked to Chris and said"did you see that poor sucker who was being pulled around?" He responded" That poor sucker was me" Oh... heh he said that his guide wouldn't let him swim on his own for some reason. We both kinda laughed and I think Chris still had a pretty good time.
Sat. WE spent more time on the beach and even had a chance to build a couple of sand castles! We had a few Chinese people take pictures but none of them tried to build any. As soon as we left I was taking bets on how long the castles would last and within a minute a chinese boy ran over and stomped our castles into serfdom. That night we headed over to a different hotel to eat their all you can eat meat and seafood buffet. It was great, they had live shrimps, a bunch of fish, oysters, chicken, ect. The food was cooked on this massive grill right in front of us. It was really good, towards the end of dinner and as it was getting late we noticed the bushes next to us were swarming in cockroaches. Chris got attacked two or three times before we could make our escape.
The pools at the hotel were pretty sweet too, on of the pools without the swim up bar had individual seats in the pool with jets shooting water out. The seats were like massage chairs or a personal whirl pool.It never seemed over crowded as we had several pools to choose from, or we could go to the private beach the hotel owned. AT night we even had our own personal hot tub we could lounge in if we didn't want to go to the pool downstairs....yes that's right our suite had it's own hot tub out on the deck. I'll try to put up a few pictures later to make you jealous, or to show you how bad our sunburns were so maybe you'll remember to always check the expiration date!

So Saturday night we decided to go bowling with a German friend of ours and his soon to be wife. Another couple came along as well. There is a tradition developing with Ulf (my German friend) and Josh (an American ) and I regarding the bowling competitions. See, when you buy more than 100RMB worth of games they give you a free stuffed animal or toy. The sizes vary according to how much you spend. Anyways, usually the animal is come very cutesy tiger or panda holding a "I love you" sign or "hugs" or whatever. So Ulf is a pretty competitive person and decided that these would be the "trophies" for whoever had the highest score out of the 3 or 4 games we played. For the first 3 times or so he won every time and made sure to rub it in our face, also he would point out that his soon to be wife always "rewarded" him for winning the trophie with a trophie of her own *wink*. Well I don't have to win all the time but I also don't like losing, so some how I became better at bowling. I won the next 2 times bringing the trophie to Andrea. We met last saturday for one final competition before the New Year as Ulf is heading back to Germany for Christmas. The whole time he talked about how he needed to win so he could get some *special* Christmas presents (See this is what I have to put up with). Well after a rousing 2nd round where I scored possible my highest ever (164) he ended up beating me anyways. Oh well.
The real story is what happens next. Ulf had been talking about a certain Indian Restaurant in Shanghai where the manager performs "miracles". Not magic tricks, but miracles. Yeah right, we tried the restaurant with Ulf about a month ago, but the miracle manager "happened" to not be there that night. Well we decided to try it again even though we felt the food was just ok and the prices were high. So we leave the bowling alley and head in the rain towards the Indian Kitchen.
The Indian Kitchen is located on top of another bar, they are seperately owned and you akwardly have to walk all the way through the one bar, climb some small stairs and you end up at a quaint, nicely decorated restaurant. There are several small tables and it looks like enough to seat maybe 30 people. This time around, the "miracle" manager was actually there! Ulf makes a big commotion on how his friends don't believe he can perform miracles ect. ect. so the manager relents and says he would be happy to prove us wrong.
"Can I see someone's glasses, ah you (pointing to me) would you mind taking your glasses and putting them on the table."
" No problem"
He then holds his hands over my glasses and rubs his fingers quickly together. Within a few seconds the frame of the glasses lifts off the table and he then proceeds to flip my glasses to that they are now facing the opposite direction. I KID YOU NOT, without anything but his "energy force" he lifted my glasses. He can also lift small spoons, and he made the coaster on the table flip up and roll. He can make paper float between his hands and stop wrist watches. I am not kidding. He said he was struck by lighting at age 13 and ever since has been able to control this "energy" He then proceeds to put his hands around my arm without touching my arm, rubs his fingers together, and I can feel pressure on my arms where his hands are. Amazing. Simple amazing. I have read about people who are able to control a certain amount of electrical force simply by concentrating. It's hard to believe until you can see it for your self. Anyways, come to Shanghai and I'll take you to the restaurant. Thanks for reading!

Ok so I haven't been very good at keeping up a blog, but really did anyone think I could do this regularly? Anyways, the last week has been a week full of sniffles, sneezing, coughing, sore throat, and congestion. It all started one day after *ahem* Andrea got sick. I thought it might be from the Friday night before when I attended a Friend's farewell party at a loud and smoke night club. So what is the next best medicine? Going out all night Saturday of course and drinking whiskey with Aki, my friend who just came back after a 2 month stint in India. Although the whiskey turned random dance party back at my apartment (very fun, music and wii included) for some reason I felt worse on Sunday. NO WAY could I be sick. Well I lost my voice almost all of Sunday (I know I know Hallaluja, shut up). And have been fighting a pretty bad cold ever since. Apparently i'm not the only one though, several people in Shanghai are sick with similar symptons (you woulda thought there is only 20 mil. people here) and after talking with my boss last night Apparently even fellow Cookevillians are catching colds now. Anyways, so I was getting pretty bad and the Tylenol we bought wasn't helping. I've been drinking hot water and tea and that didn't work either! So I went back to the Pharm and requested stronger medication. I received a packet of Chinese medicine and a big bottle of cough syrup.
My co-worker took a look at the medicine and promptly said I needed to take western meds, Chinese meds are only good for the Chinese plus they take longer to work. Hmmm... we go back to the Pharm where my co-worker argues with the Pharmasist and evently she relents and I'm with my Chinese medicine. Now here is the thing, we got some regular pills (looks like tylenol) and some cough syrup. The pills worked very well in fact, and I feel better. The cough syrup... well Andrea noticed it had ingredients in English. The first ingredient was...... SNAKE BILE. Yep, snake bile, the bile of a snake's stomach. Then it mentioned some other ingredients. I should mention that when we bought it we received a heavy warning not to drink water when taking the cough syrup. Also accoring to the bottle, do not eat oily food, spicey food, and avoid cold dishes. If the cough syrup doesn't work, than be aware of the wind/fire devil. I kid you not, be aware of the wind/fire devil. No information on how to combat this devil, but myabe I should look into learning some daoist magic or something. Anyways we both gave it a swallow and I'm still alive to write this blog. It tasted like swallowing honey, but without the good flavor.

So some might say I am re-living my college life, but it's not true. Just because last week I went to an Octoberfest party at a local beer brewing bar called Boxingcat Brewery. The food looked good, but I had already eaten. Andrea was off to teach some English and I was meeting one of our German friends. I had planned on just having one or two beers, but than I ran into some more friends. As I was filling up on some beer and over heard this conversation:
" So you guys are having a beer pong tournament today?"
"Yeah it starts now actually, but you need a team of two to compete"
"Oh, I don't really know anyone hear but I could probably..."
"Hey" I shout " I'll join your team"
And so the tournament began a few minutes later. It was me and Christian, the young just out of college frat boy from some state school in PA. Yes, we watch a table play and then our turn comes. I do my usual stretching before the game and we're ready. Christian starts out sinking one in with a nice "above the clouds" shot dropping it in the first cup. I follow up, miss, than the other team goes. WE soundly beat them, only 3 teams left. I call Andrea and tell her to hurry up so she won't miss this. We beat the next 2 teams and made it to the finals. It is just us and a team of 2 girls. The one in the black shirt I am told to watch out for, she is a laser with the ping pong ball. We are down to 1 cup and the girls still have about 4. Time to get serious or we might lose. I roll my shirt sleeves up and do some more stretching. Bam, sunk that one! Soon we are down to 1 cup each, what seams like an hour goes by and bam, I sink it! A little nervous as they get there final shots in which they both miss. Just like that Christian and I won 500RMB voucher for dinner! We celebrated last Sunday with a steak, fried chicken, and some BBQ, the main foods they are known for.
So, that's one story of many I need to post, sorry Andrea and I have been quite busy since we came back. But I'm going to try to write a little more.
Till next time
Adam

So off and on I think of the different food that is offered in China and how much I like to share the um cultural tastes. This is going to be more of a quick blog entry, so don't expect anything exciting other than a little bit of everyday life! In the local convenience stores there is a wide variety of eatery. For starting they have various meats on a stick that soak in boiling water all day long, usually some sort of Asian taste to it. There are also an assortment of Pringles ranging from potato flavor (not potato chip, it actually tastes like a roasted potato), to cucumber, shrimp, spicy bbq, american bbq, cheese, steak, blueberries, and some others I am sure I am missing out on. I am a little jealous at all the different flavors that are offered in China! Oh yeah, staying with the convenience store, they have the best instant noodles ever! The noodles come in a bowl, with 3 different flavor packets. One is the dried vegetable, one is the dry flavor, and then you have a thicker sauce.
At the store:
There is a western store not far from us called "City Shop" They offer most of the western delacies that we might miss if we only relied on the Chinese stores. They have American cereal for like $10 a box, bread, meat, cheese, milk, candy, wine, and western sauces and seasoning. The cheese is a little pricey, but the best thing is that all the cheese is about the same price. So we have the option of buying Kraft sliced American cheese for $7...or imported French Gouda, Irish Dublin cheese, or New Zealand goat cheese all the same price! You can guess what we go for. Same goes for the deli meat, I mean we have a choice of Italian prusciutti, french ham... well you get the point. It is a little better selection than the local Krogers. Butter, another commodity, is available from almost every country in Europe. Oooh Oh and the milk! Yeaaahh, it is not pasteurized so it is like a million times better than organic at home and it lasts forever (well not in our house). Also in most deli's especially the Chinese local ones there is always fresh veggies and "fresh" pork, fish, beef, chicken, ect. Though, to be honest, the fish section always smells bad, and sometime so does the pork section.
Snacks:
I already mentioned the potato chips ect. But a month ago we discovered a place that sells popcorn kernels by the jin (about 1/2 pound). A 1/2 pound of kernels costs maybe $.50, they are easy to pop, with a little oil, on the stove, add some Irish butter and salt and you get some of the cheapest and best popcorn you could eat. A few days ago we also made another spectacular discovery...edamame. We can get a bundle of edamame for around $.18, it is enough to last like 4 snacks, and they are easy to steam in our rice cooker/veggie steamer. The other options for snacks is a little limited to frozen foods such as chicken nuggets and dumplings.
Bad News:
Not really any breakfast food, but fresh fruit markets right down the road. Not much to cook on, we only have 3 stove top burners, a microwave, and a rice cooker. Expensive bread, cheese, steaks, and good meats. NO GRILL. Not much snack food other than the ones I mentioned. NO MEXICAN. Not much in the baked department, as in we don't have an oven. Well anyways you get the point. Can't wait to come home at eat all the carbs I'm not getting here!

So last weekend we fly to the Qingdao International Beer Festival. The theme was "Qingdao Ganbei to the World". For those who are are not verse in Chinese Ganbei is a toast sort of like "Cheers". Actually, it is more than just a toast, it literally translates into "empty glass" and whenever someone Ganbeis you, out of respect you have to finish the glass of whatever you are drinking. Often, when a Chinese offers this toast to you, they will finish their beer and than look to make sure you finished your drink as well. This quickly becomes pretty dangerous.
Andrea and I had a friend in Qingdao so we only had to pay for the plane tickets there! We arrived Friday night and instantly we noticed that our breathing was different. What what is this "fresh" air, and how come we can see the sky without some sort of hazy smog blocking the view? The air was clean and crisp, the temperature was cool, we were both impressed. It was a nice break from the big city life of Shanghai, but first a little background.
The tiny town of Qingdao only has about 2 million people, yes yes I know you are thinking that doesn't sound very small, but coming from a city of 20 million Andrea and I both noticed a big difference. Qingdao was a small fishing village during the Ming Dynasty until the European powers started to reap the spoils of winning the Opium Wars. Germany took Qingdao in 1898(? I think) and developed it into a Germany Colony. This is kinda cool because in the old city there are still 19th c. Germany architecture. So the first thing the Germans did in Qingdao was establish some sort of government/ mayor and construction of roads and housing. The 2nd thing they built was the brewery. Qingdao Beer is one of the most famous Chinese beer brands in the world.
The Beer festival started only a few years ago and it aims to try to copy the experience of Germany's Oktoberfest. The festival itself is like a carnival with rides, plenty of street food, and well beer tents. There are perhaps 20 tents that all have a different brand name attached to them. Each tent is similar other than the types of beer they sell. There is a stage where the Chinese sing Karaoke and dance, or they are auctioning chinese art. The singers at each tent all sing a few songs, and when (as it is guaranteed to happen) one of the drunk Chinese men come up to the stage offering a litre of beer the singer usually takes it. This it great, there was a Chinese woman singing when she was finishing up her set she downed a full litre of beer someone had given her. I mean she couldn't of weighed more than 100 pounds or so, and this was after drinking a full litre earlier in the night!
We started out at the first tent we came to, but eventually mosied on to a much larger and busier tent across the park. This is where it gets a little crazy. The three of us Andrea, Steven and I sat down up near the front (with my insistance). There were no other westerners in the entire tent. We ordered some beers and I looked around to see if I could catch any friendly Chinese attention. The Chinese are known for their friendliness towards foreigners, especially when they are drunk. I had also heard that weiguoren (foreigner) frequently get their beers bought for them at these events. So I say hi to a few people, and withing minutes we are being invitited to a table to do a round of Ganbeing. Once one table was brave enough to ask the weiguoren for a drink, then everyone started to. We were swamped with requests for pictures, drinking, talking, ect. It was like being a celebrity! (Pictures to follow soon!) So after drinking a few beers (alright several) Stephen gets up and says "Get your camera ready." Um ok...a minute later I see him climbing onto the stage with the singer, I have my camera ready. The singer gives him the mic and he ganbeis the entire crowd, which at the same moment starts cheering and the noise level of the tent increases tenfold. It was awesome! We had people coming to us and telling us this was the best festival they had! I had a little Chinese boy come up to be after that with a big glass full of orange juice. He walks up to me, introduces himself in English, clinks my full glass of beer and ganbeis me. I watched in horror as I realize he is chuggin the entire glass and if I wanted to pay him respect, I would have to do the same. We both finished our drinks and he thanks me, calmly turns around and walks to his parents proudly. It was great.
The next day was our last day, not feeling up to doing too much we make the taxi ride to the beach. Qingdao has 3 main beaches which are used for swimming. However, I wouldn't recommend swimming in the water. Even though I reminded Andrea that the ocean is full of pullutants and the sea water would kill the germs, something about the floating tampon and other trash still kept her and I out. So we laid on the beach for an hour or so with our friend Steven, who only had to puke once at the beach due to his hangover. (He already puked four times that day). All in all a pretty lovely trip but we are both glad to be back in Shanghai. I do have to mention I really enjoyed the scenery of Qingdao and I did get to hike up a mountain. All the trees and the hiking made me miss TN some, but I'm glad we got a chance to enjoy the weather and the parks while we were there. There isn't much of that in Shanghai unfortunately. Anyways we'll see everyone soon!
Zai Jian,
Adam

So I realize I have been writing a lot about my adventures. So I wanted to try something a little different. I tend to just take for granted that everyone know I appreciate a lot more to Shanghai than the night life. Well I don't. No just kidding. I was sitting up by the window of the apartment and watching the rain fall. When it rains we are so high up it feels like the clouds settled in around our 20th floor. The bad thing is, once it stops it feels like the humidity stayed on the 20th floor. Anyways, it is quite a neat experience. Also, at night, We can see almost all of Shanghai (not really but it seems that way). There is a building near by that is constantly being worked on, and every night I look at it from the bed room and watch the 4 workers welding the steel beams together. The red sparks shower like rain down the building and hopefully not setting anyone on fire.
Today I took a little break from work and went to the Salvidor Dali art exhibit in Shanghai. It was worth it! I didn't know a lot of history of Dali, but I knew I liked his stuff. Turns out he was pretty into erotic art actually...very wierd erotic art. He even did some pieces on Chairman Mao (no no not erotic pieces). It was quite nice and I needed the break from work which has been very busy this week.
Well I have to go, I intended on writing more but my social duties call. Next up is the great story of the Solar Eclipse, you know the longest one in Asia where Shanghai was one of the best cities to watch it from. Don't worry I'll even post videos!

July 10th,
A seemingly ordinary night where Andrea and I had no plans, but knew that something was going on. We found a nice little French wine bar that we decided to try out for a romantic date. (called Enoteca). The review in the magazine was good, and frankly it is hard to find good wine in Shanghai without going to a French restaurant. So reminiscing about our days in Cookeville where we invited friends over (or went to their houses) and downed boxes of wine and sangria and ate bread and cheese we ventured off. It was a pleasant cafe, full of French people (I know no surprise there). We ordered the cheese platter which we had read was enough for two, and one bottle of a nice red wine. There were 8 different types of cheese including two different bries. The wine was good, and the food was filling. We finished up the cheese and ordered another bottle of wine, a white wine this time. I called a friend, who said a bar called Anar was the place to be tonight, so I text another friend of mine and we decided to meet up at Anar.
First of all, this was only the second time I had met my friend, named Aki from India (yeah the one I posted on facebook about the fourth of july). I mentioned the name Anar and he responded, "oh must be an Indian bar, hopefuly they won't serve curry shots, cause I am sick of curry man." I find out that Anar is the Indian word for Pomegranate. Andrea and I head on down to Anar, arriving a little early because Aki has to drive with his dad about 30 minutes into town. My other friend cancels at this point, something about a date with a girl.
The bar is a nice, upscale bar/ club with a dark atmosphere and plenty of reds and black colors for decor. They decided to play old Micheal Jackson videos from the 80's, though they were spinning more of a modern rap/jazz infusion. The drinks were a little expensive and we only ordered one each. Aki and his dad show up, order more beer, we chill for a little while but wanting a more exciting atmosphere head over to a club called Logo.
Logo is known for being a hole-in-the-wall atmosphere, cheap drinks, and European music, ranging from rock to dance. All in all a pretty fun place I would add. Usually a person can excite walk right next door to the convenience store and buy a 1 liter beer for something like $0.40 or so, then stand on the side walk and drink right outside of the club's entrance. So it is around 11:00pm or a little later, and the four of us enter. The atmosphere is to be expected, loud, a good number of people, and some dancing. We order drinks. Being that there are now windows in the place, I get a little hot and decide to go outside, where even more people are drinking their 40 cent beers and hanging out.
Standing outside, not doing anything but cooling down and people watching, a taxi pulls up and drops off a pretty Chinese girl. She steps out of the cab, pays, and turns to head towards the entrance. Then, a Nigerian man walks up to her, tells her she is pretty, she says thanks and try to walk around him. He stops her, grabbing her wrists and telling her that he just wants to talk to her because she is pretty. She struggles a little, but he said no no, come here I want to talk to a pretty girl. He motions to two other Nigerians, who then kinda move her to the side of the building in the shadows a little. I notice this, as does I hope everyone else standing there, and I also notice that two men are walking down the sidewalk heading toward where the 3 Nigerians and the girl are. They also probably noticed the 3 men,because they quickly crossed the street and left. The 2 other Nigerians come back to the entrance of the bar to hang out I guess. I...well I just sigh. Then walked around the corner. The Nigerian had the girl pressed against the wall holding her wrists I look emotionless at the two people. I walk over and tap the guy on the shoulder, he responds, yes what do you want. I say, well you are going to let that girl go, then I want to to leave. He let's her go, she runs off ( I think into the bar actually, but i am not sure). Heh, well then he proceeds to ask if that was "my girl". "no.." Well in my country (he says) men only protect their women, and let the others go. Me: "Well in my country we don't force girls to "talk" to us." Him: "You don't know me man, I mean you should be carefull, I may or may not have a gun man, in my country this would be dangerous."
Yeah, well you don't have a gun, and my name is Adam, what is yours and where are you from?
"I am from Nigeria, where are you from?"
"Amurica"
"Oh, do you want to buy some coke or weed?"
Uhh.. no thanks.
At this point Andrea comes out to check on me, I quickly tell her to go back inside, hoping that the Nigerian drug dealer doesn't make any connections here. Now, Andrea is sometimes a little clueless, but God Bless Her, she had an idea of what was going on. She went and got Aki, telling him that I might need him. Reminder that this is like the second time I met Aki, well he comes rushing out expecting to join me in a fight.
We talk everyone down, nothing bad happens and Aki and I go back into the bar. Aki and his dad quickly finish their drinks and we quickly leave, never to return according to Andrea.
Yes, gave a little bit of America to this guy, and I lived to tell about it!

Yea! I finally found an office place and we are moving in! Anyways, once I have an office things will be a little less hectic here. The office is only a five minute walk from my apartment...no no I didn't pick it because it was so close.. and it is also right next to the gym I will join as soon as I have enough money (they require the full year up front in cash only). This week for me as been spent recovering from the weekend and working. Sorry, only one good story so far which is when we went to go register with the police. I should have known it was not going to go smoothly. First off, a foreigner is required to register with the police withing 24 hours of moving into an apartment. However, they require about 5 different forms that your landlord has to provide to you. Of course our landlord took 20 days to get us the right certificates. So we got a stern talking to about not registering within 24 hours and that they didn't care that our landlord didn't get us the certificates in time..oh and of course a $50 US fine each. Then, the policewoman told us she needs 1 copy of our passport, and the certificates that the landlord provided. No problem, we went back made copies and returned...only to find out that she also needs a copy of the receipt from the hotel we stayed at. So we walked back to the apartment, I found the receipt, we walked back to the police station to learn that the receipt wasn't good enough. Actually what we needed was a pink receipt that only comes from the hotel, which they only give to foreigners who are registering with the police. So we walked to the hotel, got the pink receipt, walked back and handed it to them.

Of course by then, the Lady we were working with was on lunch, and the other officer said that she wasn't going to help us, we had to wait 2 hours for the other lady to come back. So my translator got a little annoyed, and went and found the other officer who then said...we needed 2 copies of the documents, not one like they told us before and we would have to come back. At this point, my translator and the police officer were kinda arguing back and forth. The officer obviously giving us several tasks to perform each one being the "last one" and my translator was getting annoyed. We went bakc made 2 copies, walked back to the station, gave her everything, and I started to sign the contract stating why I had to pay the fine, and that I acknowledge it was my fault for registering late. Then, as proof that the contract was translated, my translator had to sign it as well. Yeah! WE were finally on our way to being legally here! So Lily (my translator/co-worker) gives the contract over to the police, and proceeds to tell them that the whole thing is stupid. Damnit Lily, the police officer who understood english, then yells and Lily, who yells back, the contract that we spent all day on was torn up in front of us, and the police officer in English told us to find someone who doesn't have a "bad mouth" otherwise she won't register us. *sigh*

Lily tells us to leave, and we gladly do not wanting to be arrested. Later, Lily calls us and tells us it is ok and we walk back to the police station. We find her talking to the Chief of Police in tears, the Chief tells us it is ok and to go in and register. Of course we go in, are told that we have to pay the fine at the bank down the road first, then come back and register. We walk down the road to the bank, fine in hand, to have the bank tell us that the police didn't put a fine number, and thus we couldn't pay the fine. We walked back to the police station (sound familiar), had them put the number on the ticket, walked back to the bank and paid the fine, walked back to the police station and Yea! Finally, 6 1/2 hours later, we registered our residency. Yeah for china.

Well I have to say the best thing about today is the second Tsingdao beer I have had afterwork. Really, the best part is that 1 liter of tsingdao costs about 35 cents... yes that's rght 35 cents. This day had been non stop since I woke up this morning. Anyways, it is jus the usually work stuff, though I feel like I am babysitting my employee, but she will eventually get to be where she is a little more independent. Also, Andrea went to Ningbo with her school, and will be gone until weds. the thing that sucks is she doesn't have a fun or a computer for internet access. Fortunately she is making friends, who let her use their phones so at least I get to talk to her. I'll work backwards on my weekend adventures, seeing how that is the best way I'll remember what we all did. Yesterday, Andrea left for her school trip around 6:45 am or so ugh, I slept til 11. Then I got up and puttered around until the time for an American BBQ that I was invited to. You know, from the guy I met last Monday?? Yeah, like I mentioned I didn't remember him either (just kidding I did actually). So the time comes for me to leave and I go to check my work email and ...pause for dramatic effect... of course the server had crashed. No directions, no phone number, no way to contact Josh. Great, just great I had been looking forward to a little grill out but now instead I'm going to look like a jackass for not calling and not showing up. So I took a nap. My phone rang around 2:30pm (the time of the cookout) and it was Josh! Yay! Apparently no one else showed up either and he asked if I was stil coming. I explained the situation, got directions and off I went. ONE HOUR LATER, after battling the Shanghai traffic I arrived at Josh's apartment, sweaty and thirsty. Well it all went pretty good, free food (hamburgers, hotdogs, chicken wings, and side dishes) and free beer. I brought fruit. It was fun and I ended up coming home farely early, before 9pm (unlike the cookouts in Cookeville, though similar in the fact that we drank all the beer and had to buy more).
Saturday
Slept until noon. Andrea had to go to a training class for the trip to Ningbo, I'll let her tell you about that. I lounged around the apartment (pictures on facebook) until she got back. Then we met up with Sabine and watched Slumdog Millionaire, which yes was good, and yes everyone was right we should have watched it a long time ago. So the whole night, I had a "friend" from Memphis who kept calling me to hang out with him. He was in Shanghai. By "friend" I mean someone in the wood business that is similar to age with me an doesn't know anyone in Shanghai. Anyways Sat. was his last night here and he wanted someone to go out with him. I wasn't in the mood (see Friday night) but managed to crawl to the bar he chose after the movie (which was around 12:30 am). Man did it suck! The bar wascalled Malon's and it is supposively famous for being a good American bar. Ha! I now know why it's famous. Basically it was a bunch of middle age white guys and Asian prostitutes. The live band was pretty good though. Anyways, I got to play a little pool, drank like 2 drinks, then tried to escape back home.
Friday,
Wow, just wow, Jack from the lumber industry,just got into Shanghai and wanted to go out (de ja vu...well not yet, Sat.) So Andrea and I went to a swanky place called XinTianDi...this is a square in Shanghai that has lots of expensive bars and restaurants that cater to foreigners and the wealthy Chinese. Now by expensive, I mean an average meal will be something like $20-$30 per person with a beer or two. We decided to go here because Andrea and I had managed to get 6 free drinks at a club near by..don't ask how we managed it neither of us remember either. Ate dinner. Now it is around 9 pm or so and we were waiting for our European friends to get ready so we could meet them at this other club called De La Coast. Let me tell you something about Europeans, they are in no rush for anything, and I swear the guys take longer to get ready than the girls do. So we went to the club that we had free drinks at and this is where is gets kind a cool
Club Luxe
New club in town, we walk in to a half-way filled room (good for only being 9pm) almost all Chinese. We present our free drink vouchers (good for any of the drinks) and I of course order a whiskey on the rocks, and so does Jack. Andrea orders some girly drink involving champagne or something. There isn't much to do there so instead of talking (you guys don't know Jack...not much of a talker) we play a chinese dice drinking game. We quickly finish our drinks, and then to our suprise... we are given a pitcher of scotch and green tea (try it it is good) for FREE. Finish that, magically another pitcher is filled. Drink that. more free drinks man I love China sometimes. Then we got a little dance show (no no there is not stripping in China) There were to ballerina type Chinese, one female, one male, who danced to this Techno music witha screen of bubble in the background. The cool part was that the bubble reacted to their movement. So imagine if you held your arms in a straight line, the bubbles would pile on top of each other, then when they dropped their arms the bubbles on the screen fell. Then the club started getting really packed. But we figured we need to go head to De Le Coast (the lack of free drinks had nothing to do with our decision).
De Le Coast,
Great Bar on the Bund River. Of course when we first arrived the bar had a small entrance with only an elevator and two bodyguards, in a very sketchy part of town. What the HELL? Where are our European friends sending us? The entrance was 100RM (like $14) but it was an open bar for everyone who paid! (yes yes that is why we wanted to get there so early). Turns out, the bar is quit nice, with an outside patio overlooking the river, of course if you wanted to sit down or get a table. bam, another 100 rmb. What?! so we stood the whole time. The Europeans finally showed up, and I understood why they waited until almost mid-night to go out. Damn, they started taking like 3 shots at a time. Anyways, we had a great time, stayed out waaaaay too late, (4am), and met some new friends, so all in all a successfull night, but a painful morning the next day.
Tonight
Going back to a bar called Zapatas which is a spanish restaurant and bar. They offer free margaritas for ladies all night long, and from 10-11 pm free beer for guys. I already met some new friends there so hopefully I'll make more. If there are any intersting stories I'll keep you guys informed.
Thanks!
Adam

So if you noticed my blog name is Yadan Morenda...which is sort of my Chinese name actually. My original name given to me by one of my teachers is Mo Ren Da, however, in China, Adam is pronounced "Yadan". Anyways, I am writing this right after a small rain shower which can be somewhat common in the evenings in Shanghai. The Sun is right in my eyes, but beautiful as it begins to set with the city buildings. (see attached photo). It is finally Friday, and yes I am ready. We are planning on going out with our friend, Sabine, from Germany. Hopefully we will soon be saying " we are going out with our Friends!" Sabine is very nice though, and I'm glad we found each other. (And no, James, not all Germans look like Heidi Klum... don't tell Andrea, but I was a little disappointed as well..and yes I know Andrea reads this blog.) The bad news is that I had to cancel on the Ninbo trip with Andrea. I hope I didn't make her boss too mad, but I have some important customers coming at the beginning of next week instead of the end . Hmm.. ok other interesting news, Oh yeah! Last night we went to Jin Mao Tower, which is one of the tallest buildings in Shanghai and one of the swankiest bars with drinks running around $13-$15 or so. However the view is amazing, it sits right on the Bund river, and overlooks most of Shanghai. At night all you can see is the city lights for miles around. Also I received an email today from a Josh Johnston, inviting me to a BBQ. I was like, who the Hell is this? I proceed to open the emailing, waiting it to be spam, and read the letter inviting "Dear All" to a BBQ at his apartment this Sunday afternoon. Down towards the bottom of the letter it was specifically addressed to me, saying he knew I was leaving for Ninbo, but hopefully I can attend the next one...then it hit me, I met him at Club Zapatas last monday! Shit..what in the hell did we talk about.. oh well it couldn't of been that bad after all I was still invited to the cookout. I'm sure it won't be as much fun as the ones at home (shout out to everyone..aww.. sorry Brian there is no Yuengling here) but We'll hopefully make some new friends. And by we I mean me since Andrea has to go on a field trip with her school.
This week has been mainly spent running errands, and while I try to train my co-worker, which takes the better half of the day, I get to finish off the night catching up on all of my personal work. Sorry I haven't had much of a chance to call and talk to everyone that I have wanted to. Of course I really enjoy all of the emails I've received and please keep trying to call if you don't get a hold of us, we will try to call ya'll back I promise! Now I'm going to try and put up a bunch of pictures, so let me know if you have any questions!

Hi Everybody! I got jealous reading all of the comments on Andrea's blog and decided to start my own. Life the past two weeks here has flown by almost faster than riding in the front seat of a Chinese taxi. Between work, settling down, and trying to find friends I don't have much time for myself it seams. Overall I'm still pretty in awe of being here. Most of my day is spent frustratingly trying to get things done. I mean a quick trip to the store to pick up some office supplies turns into a 4 hour journey. Usually, I wouldn't mind, but when I have a million and a half things to get ready it can be pretty stressful. On the other hand, the lunches here are usually about 1 hour-2 hours long, which gives me a break in the middle of the day. Oh the food, it is really good here, which can be troublesome for any dieters out there. We have been eating a lot of Chinese food, and I love making Andrea try different weird but good dishes. I still haven't completely set up a good working office yet, but hopefully this will be done by next week so I don't have to keep worrying about the little things. I have to remind myself I'm here to work and not play. Off and on I see things that makes me miss everyone, ranging from weird movies for $1 to a Board Game store with a bunch of cool board games I want to try. Also, there aren't very many people to go out to the bars with yet, and I keep thinking about how much fun everyone at home would have here... and how much more fun I would have here with people at home.
Anyways, I'll try to keep people updated and put up pictures ect. and don't feel like you have to read both Andrea's and my blog, we'll try not to repeat too much information, but I know you all know my blog will be better anyways. Keep in touch and I'll try my best to keep everyone updated. I already have a list of Crazy Andrea stories from china...you know like she was using her chopsticks backwards ect. the stuff she won't write about.