Some observations: It’s damn cold here. Central heat is a rarity. I’ve been wearing thermals everyday (John’s even wearing longjohns) and I recently resorted to carrying a hot water bottle. I’m a total wimp when it comes to dipping temperatures. Also, there’s no ice for beverages, but I’ve been told ice cubes are a US thing. And you’d better boil the tap water before you drink it. Hmm, the standard paper size here is not letter size. It’s A4 (which seems to be roughly 8.25″ x 11.5″). Units are all metric here. My brain is getting a good bit of exercise doing all the conversions… Other notes: Kellogg’s Special K with freeze-dried strawberries costs about $8/box. We don’t have an oven or a clothes dryer. I did three loads of laundry today–we’re gonna have to get used to crunchy clothes from now on. Those are the bad things so far. Plus the fact that I am missing Chipotle like crazy.

Beyond those minor gripes, John and I are enjoying SH very much. We make a great team– John has a very good sense of direction and I have no qualms asking questions and making deals with my mediocre Mandarin. We went to Carrafour again today. Hopefully this won’t become a frequent habit, because everytime we get out of that place, we are completely exhausted. John’s taking a nap now. There are just so many people in there and so many items and so many floors. It’s overwhelming.

Big news though: Today, I found chow mei fun (rice noodles) at the Carrefour food court (which they call Megabite). We entered it, thinking there’d be computer stuff. Anyway, I’d been searching for those noodles since we got here and we finally found them. Very tasty and only 15 kuai.

Also, today I started my daily schedule of learning (upon John’s suggestion)… to supplement my job hunt. I did some Adobe Photoshop tutorials in the morning (I’m all hooked up with the latest software, including Office 2003 and Photoshop 8.0) and then practiced some Chinese writing. My handwriting is so ugly though. I must have copied my name and address fifty times. In the end, it was still un-postable. Here’s our address in Chinese (written by my grandmother). Her characters are much nicer and proportionate. So if you want to send us mail, I believe that’s all the info you need. Though, you may wish to include to the right our name/address in English:

Lane 591 Hongqiao Rd.
Block No. 5 Unit 1401
Shanghai, China 200030

I’ve also signed on to volunteer remotely for Heifer International in China. I’ve been following this organization for about a year now… their work is just so amazing. Unfortunately, their China office is very far from here in Chengdu. But I’ll be helping them with writing/editing newsletters and annual reports. Should be a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to getting started soon.

Meanwhile, John has returned to work in full force. He’s been printing out pages of code using our new printer. Thankfully, he is satisfied with the inkjet printing quality. Otherwise, I’d be getting an earful. In his free time, John has returned to his old hobby of conducting taste/drink tests. Currently, he is evaluating various brands of grapefruit-flavored beverages. We’ll keep you posted on the details of his research.