Our New Apartment

We got all of their old kitchen stuff, from chopsticks to dried mushrooms



Trying out the sweet new 21" ChangHong TV


My room


Erik's room

We live on the third floor with a balcony on either side. Erik and I both have large rooms. He chose the room with the window seat, I got the one with the balcony. We also have fake hard wood floors. Its really pretty nice. Our rent is about $140/month for both of us. 

The LQ

This is where we live, its called the LQ (living Quarters)




 

Moving In

We were totally blessed to get furniture and just about everything we needed from some girls we met who were leaving. One of the bummers about the living situation here is that you have to furnish everything, so finding everything used saved a lot of time and money.





This is our apartment before we started to organize. 

Rock Climbing!

On Saturday a big group of us went to the Shanghai Stadium where they have indoor rock climbing. I definitely prefer outdoor climbing, but it was a lot of fun. In door rock tends to get slippery with wet hands, so climbing in near 100% humidity was not easy. We were all dripping, if not pouring sweat, it made for a great workout. After climbing we had a great spaghetti dinner prepared by Tarah and Amber, two returning teachers. Then we hung out and watched some amazing lightning from their balcony.




Brett showing us how its done



Suzanne and Tarah bring new meaning to the term ripped



I'm way out of my league



Janai stopping for a little chalk



Erik hangin' in the bouldering area

Paulaner

On Friday night we went to Paulaner, a brew house from Germany. They had a live Philipino band that played every type of music there is. It was a ton of fun, we had quite a dance party. I think the Chinese people got a kick out of seeing us dance.

Downtown Shanghai

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Downtown

We spent Saturday exploring downtown Shanghai. We had a few hang ups with the language barrier, but all in all I think we did pretty good getting around. We bought some public transportation cards that can be used with local buses, taxis and the Metro.

In order to get to down town we have to ride a bus or taxi a few miles to the nearest Metro station, then its another 15-20 mins on the subway. Its really quite simple. The Shanghai metro is quite nice. The cars are modern, but there are loads of people.

I'm still pretty clueless about where and what things are, this trip was more of an exploritory/introductory trip. I'm sure later I will know street, district and building names, but as for now it suffices to say we went to one of the main downtown type areas.



I think something was lost in translation here...



A Thai restaurant we went to for lunch



I have no idea what this advertisement is trying to sell.



Janai with her Shanghai Architecture book, trying to spot buildings.

Downtown

 

Downtown

This is the classic older Chinese tourist pose. Younger Chinese throw a peace sign.



The girls having fun on the Bund



I'm not sure whats going on here, but its a toy.


Left to right: Suzanne, Laura, Jackie, Erik, Dan, Sarah, Janai, Trey

Downtown

Just getting used to things

Eating dinner at Carrefour the first night. Tara and Amber helped us get used to things.


At the company signing our lives over to China. We got to wear blue slippers.


Nothing like a hotdag at Ikea