Day 1 & 2 of Trisha and Shawn's visit

   The first out started out great when Trisha met the China Post worker that was delivering mail to my apartment complex. For those that don't know, Trisha manages a Postal Annex and has an awesome love for all things mail related!

China Post worker on a China Post scooter

   Then it was off to Jiashan market where I was hoping to find all sorts of goodies. The market did not disappoint. We ate homemade sausage with homemade chutneys, Shanghai cheese, fresh quiche and sustainable rice...

   The next part is a picture show of the Chinese market and all the things that Shawn was amazed by. All pictures courtesy of Shawn. Enjoy...

   Right, does anyone know what this is just by looking at it? We didn't so we bought one hoping we could figure it out. Left, the women that sold us the "thing". She got a good laugh at us since it was obvious that we didn't know what we were buying, she also wanted to know if we wanted it pealed. ok, found out later via text to co-workers that it is bamboo shoot. I cooked it with butter, ginger, salt and cilantro (YUM!).

Noodle making at the market.

Left, pickled stuff. Right, Happy New Year Sticky Rice(?). It was fancie

 then normal so I assume it's for the upcoming Spring festival

Yes, these are pig ears

On the way home we tried to figure out how to rent these bikes w/o any luck. We made note
 of the rental website and I have aco-working helping me figure it on online. Hope to get Shawn and Trisha out for a bike ride.

We walked around the French Concession and found baked goods to snack on.

Check out this beautiful building. Built in 1937 and is part of a performing arts school now.

Me, stopping in to buy stuff from the Avocado Lady.

Baked goods next door to the Avocado lady. Right, Shawn dubbed this a Chinese Oreo.

   From here we hopped back on the Metro and went into Pudong. Trisha had mentioned something about wanting to go to the Fake Market to buy some gifts but I didn't know where the heck the market was since I hadn't been and really didn't have plans to go. But I asked Tina from work if she knew where it was and she did so we made this a destination on Saturday. Wow, it was quite the market. Every fake good you could possibly want, lots of fake designer handbags, shoes, watches, clothing, sunglasses, etc. Sadly, we were too revved up walking the place that we forgot to snap photos :(  We did, however, do lots of bargaining. Luckily, since i'm in the manufacturing business I have an idea of what to pay for things b/c as a Westerner they try to sell you items for ridiculous amounts of money. For instance, we were looking at a Louis Vuitton bag and they said "original price is 2200rmb ($348) but for you I give you big discount, 1600rmb ($253)" so I chime in that I know that is an unreal amount so they pass me the calculator for me to show them what I am willing to pay so I plug in 250rmb ($39). Then they go into a speech about how that is an unfair price and they loose lots of money if they sell it to us for that price. The Louis Vuitton lady started yelling at me (I really thought that she was going to throw her calculator at me!) but I didn't budge. Then walked away saying that I din't want the bag anymore b/c I knew that she would eventually sell it to me. Even at 250rmb I was way overpaying but this was my first go at it so I had to warm up. Sure enough as I am down the hall she is yelling at me to come back and she will give me a better price. So in the end we overpaid for the LV bag (250rmb) and got better with bag 2 and 3 (gifts and a man-purse for Shawn, these we paid 150rmb ($22))...still overpaying but much more reasonable at least. Co-workers say that I could get them down to 50rmb. Bargaining is a fun game but gets your blood pressure rolling!

We had to go celebrate all our bargaining with a little beer...

...well, cider for me.

   Cold, wet and tired after a long day of walking around led us home for dinner. We ate the fresh bread and cheese that we had purchased earlier. Then T&S were in bed by 9pm...got to love jet-lag!

We started out Sunday by heading into Old Town,
one of the oldest parts of Shanghai.

Left, this coming year is a very lucky one. Year of the Water Dragon. 

Right, there were so many decorations for the new year as we headed

into the YuYuan Bazaar.

As seen on TV:

   Thank you, Anthony Bourdain. We stopped in at Nan Xiang Steamed Buns for lunch and got to drink the famous crab and roe soup in a dumpling. Yes, that is totally a straw hanging out of the dumpling. If you like Anthony Bourdain's show "No Reservations" then you should check out the Shanghai episode on Netflix instant watch. We also got mushroom/pork, pork and spicy pork steamed pork dumplings (smaller ones that you eat whole). All the food was delicious.

The dumplings!

More decorations

   The it was off to get some custom clothes for Trisha and Shawn. We walked around in the fabric market for awhile before Shawn found fabric that he liked for dress shirts. Trisha wanted to get one of her favorite dressed knocked off but we had a hard time finding pretty prints. We were about to give up when we looked in one last booth and sure enough...from teh heaven's above was a light shining on an amazing print. The women that was going to make her dress told Trisha that she would have it done the very next day b/c she wanted to finish it before leaving for the new year. Poor Shawn has to wait until Feb.11th before he gets his shirts (well, I go pick them up and bring them to Portland with me).

We ate dinner at Yang's Fried dumplings. Another place seen
on the No Reservations and a semi-regular lunch spot for me.

We are so good at wearing ourselves out! What a day! And what a great weekend!