Random thoughts

Want to know what i miss the most? COLD DRINKS! I've had more warm beer here than ever in my life. water too! Amanda knows I love my ice water, but here it's generally room temperature!

The pollution in Shanghai is nothing compared to Beijing - you can probably see that in my pictures. Good luck to all those Olympic athletes -- I nearly died going up some stairs let alone actually working out. I've used that as my excuse for not working out at all.

The food has been amazing. There are days we all crave cheese burgers and fries, but generally we have great Chinese meals every day... and cheap!! I'm pretty good with chopsticks now. I think I've eaten every meal with them -- practice makes perfect I guess.

I generally feel very safe here. Walking around in the city back home at night can sometime be nerve racking, but here I am almost always at ease. Everyone is so friendly.

The language barrier hasn't been too much of a problem. The school gave us some sheets with local restaurants written in English and Chinese. We get into the cab, point at the one we want to go to and we're off. Restaurants generally have an English version of the menu so we point at what we want. Works well usually!