Friday

Wow, sorry for the delay; it ended up being a very busy work week. Last week was 100% devoted to work. I had my morning commute, the day of work, and then the evening commute. Then I would often have meetings in the evening to overlap with my cohorts in the US morning. Lots of activity at work right now.

So as a consequence I worked a lot, took a few photos, and absorbed a lot. But I didn't write much because at the end of the "day" I would crash into bed like an avalanche.

On the weekend I wandered a bit and rested. On Sunday I took the bus from the airport center terminal near Jing'an Temple to Pudong airport and waited for Dawn's plane to arrive. She got here ok, if tired and lagged. We rode the bus back to the hotel area. Sadly, because the bus was full we had to stand for 45 minutes. Dawn was ok with it (having just sat for 14+ hours). We got her settled, went down to the lounge for some Tsing Dao beer and fried spring rolls (which are little flat rectangles rather than round rolls), and then she was down for the count.

On Monday, I worked again because Dawn was going to be resting. At lunch, we went to a traditional Chinese restaurant and I had something that was really good. Jingjun was worried I wouldn't like it because it was a very localized food to a different part of China, that most westerners didn't enjoy. It was hand made noodles in a spicy sauce. Damn it was so good I ate the whole bowl. We also had a Chinese Hamburger (a doughy flatish bread with "hamburger" in it (spiced shredded pork). And we had a Coke. lol.

In the afternoon, when she should have been napping I had Dawn take a taxi ride out to the office in the afternoon. She was still tired and woozy, but came out. We then had a huge office dinner at this cool restaurant. We had a big room reserved, with a round table. The 10 of us sat around, drank tea, beer, and had a lot of really good food. We had:
- Very spicy fish dish, fish head intact. It was actually very good
- Tofu in a nice brown sauce
- A thinly sliced sausage that is reminscent of Spanish-style meats
- Pumpkin
- Pork that Chairman Mao liked (it was really good!) - he ate it every day
- Mushrooms in a garlicy sauce
- Chicken with nuts and a creamy sauce
- numerous vegetables
- Lotus root with rice stuffed in the holes
- Green beans and asparagus
- a flat banana-like bread cake

...and numerous other things. We ate very well. Toasted a lot. Afterward, we walked a long way to the subway down a packed street. Dawn had the 1000 yard stare going - that's a lot to do in one day. We got to the subway, took it back to the Jing'an area. Dawn was barely standing up. Fortunately the walk home was short and she conked out. I wrapped up work and signed off for the rest of the week. Official vacation!! My new boss was like "You.... SHALL NOT... Work!!!" and then he slew a Balrog of the ancient world.

So, yesterday, Tuesday, we ate a huge breakfast and took a nap. I was tired, possibly from toasting so much the night before, partly from too much breakfast. We had a great lunch with Jingjun and his wife. Jingjun is heading to Canada for work. After that, we took one more short rest and then took the subway to the Bund. I'll write more in my next post.