Who's ever ready to be back from holiday?

Surprisingly, I was ready. I see it as moving forward with my time here in Shanghai. I really enjoyed  the time off to spend with Donald, travel and finish the holiday exploring more of Shanghai on my own. But even though i have to work again I'm still in that honeymoon state where I'm learning so much each day that it's interesting and fun. My days are also not crammed with meetings which I'm sure helps, I can sit down and dig in on my work and leave each day feeling like I got something done.

That being said I've had a great 2 day already this week. Both work days extremely busy as I'm catching up from being away for a week while the Portland office continued to work. I went out to lunch with Michael and Oliver yesterday that serves traditional food from the Guangdong Province. Here's a map of the People's Republic of China provinces...I had to look myself to see what area this was.

See bottom right corner near Hong Kong.

It was explained to me that they eat lots of little cakes. When we think cakes we think sweet, baked flour-base treat. When Chinese speak of little cakes, it's totally different. They can be sweet or savory, not even our cake consistency. I think it's a way for them to refer to little morsels of food. We had one that was a stiff jelly with red bean suspended inside and another that was a flaky crust on the outside and a bitter creamy onion sauce on the inside (sorry, no pics!). Here are some pics of the rest of the meal though...

Left to right, meat platter as seen in below picture, fried beef with, yes,
sweet glaze sauce and sprinkles (i kinda don't think that's traditional, odd but good),
 a veggie dish with those really long 20" green bean, eggplant and bitter melon
and spring rolls.

Maybe it's hard to see but there are several things on this plate.
Pig ears, Pig tongue, duck wings and feet and some other Pig part.
I tried it all, the tongue and ears where the best, i'd eat it again (i think)

   After work I went on a hunt for the Giant Brand bike shop by my work and found that their bikes are much more affordable then the Specialized brand bike shop by my apartment. My plan was to go back and make a purchase tonight but I left work late and had a dinner date to get to. So maybe tomorrow I'll get a bike. Hopefully I can find my way home ok!!

   Today was another good day at work. I even surprised my co-workers by bringing in my own lunch. I sorta had to b/c I was going to head out for dinner tonight and I'm not a fan of eating out twice in one day if I can help it...I always seem to miss out on veggies when it does happen. My friend and former co-worker, Theola, is in town for work and we were able to meet up for dinner this evening. I met her at the hotel she is staying at, in a very popular area and went to an amazing dumpling house for dinner which just happened to be located below her hotel. Theola, for those that don't know, lives in Portland also but somehow we never manage to meet up there so, of course, why not do it in Shanghai instead. I had a great time, we are both in roughly the same points in life so it was great just to take time to catch up. I also snagged an address for a fabric district with cheap custom clothes shops...and don't think she made off all that bad either as i shared the location of the custom shoe shop. I think we're both going to be quite styling in the near future :) Here are some pics from dinner, the food at this restaurant was more fresh then a lot of the other places that I have been. Really, i mean that the food was not overcooked and the noodle were house-made and good quality. I'll totally be going back.

funny shaped shrimp and pork dumpling with soup inside

My friend Theola.
I'm so good a catching to most flattering moments, sorry!

I finally got all my official government documents back today. Including my passport, a passport sized employment permit, a residence visa and my health report from that awful heath inspection that I had to do on day 3 of getting to China.

Why is this picture upside-down?! I can't get it turned the right way!

Best surprise of all, I got more snail mail today! Thank you Heather and Cameron, I will definitely enjoy the tea :) I think this officially means that Andy-Pants Cline's postcard may be lost...was sent the same time as Donald's second postcard which arrived over a week ago and now that Heather's card showed up I think there is no hope for you, Andy.