And we're back!

After a truly whirlwind trip -- San Francisco for a few hours, then to Los Angeles, back to SF, Shanghai for 24 hours, and finally to Ubud and Jimbaran in Bali -- we returned "home" late last week. Shanghai welcomed us back with lovely fall weather (the stifling heat is gone!) and fewer crowds due to the national holiday week. It was Mid-Autumn Festival, another holiday whose significance isn't terribly clear, but involves a specific food item (remember Dragon Boat Festival and zongzi?). This time, it was mooncakes, which sound delicious in theory (who doesn't want a cake made from the moon?), but aren't. You'll have to take my word for it.    

While on the Shanghai leg of our honeymoon, we enjoyed all of our favorites we had temporarily left behind: a crepurrito breakfast and a visit to the Avocado Lady. Somehow, we also became professional tennis fans. The 2012 Shanghai Rolex Masters is in full swing (pun intended), so we attended yesterday's matches and bought tickets to the finals next Sunday. With Federer, Murray and Djokovic set to play, we'll likely see two of these stars battle it out.  

Food in the foreground, 
a happy man in the background

Although the honeymoon will never be over ;) -- we decided to end our two-week extravaganza on a high note with dinner at Mr. & Mrs. Bund, one of Shanghai's best restaurants and certainly comparable to top offerings in San Francisco, LA, New York and Paris. We started with two Kumamoto oysters (small, plump and delicious, and hard to find in China) and seared foie gras served with pomelo -- in an ode to the appetizers served at our wedding. The third starter was a tuna tartare served with a mini scoop of mustard sorbet. For dinner, we shared (although it's technically for two people) a wagyu beef ribeye, grilled veggies, and the best mashed potatoes I've ever had (and I don't particularly like mashed potatoes). They're called Aero Mashed Potatoes and the dish tasted like a cloud -- a light, fluffy, savory cloud of goodness. Room for dessert? Of course! A tarte tatin that Mike called a game-changer and a profiterole with Nutella ice cream. You read right. Nutella ice cream. Before you judge us, you should know that we were given a very generous gift certificate to the restaurant as a wedding present, and we didn't have lunch that day. 

And now with Mike back at work, reality sets in for me as I figure out how to spend my days. Do I continue Mandarin classes? Do I find myself a job? Or do I look for other classes of interest (cooking, web development, graphic design, photo editing)? I've given myself this month to figure it out, and I'm starting by looking for work. We'll see if I can find something that makes sense for my career, for me, personally, and for us, financially.  

P.S. Stay tuned this week for more on the wedding and the 'moon.  

Going to the Chapel

The time has come; I fly tomorrow! I'm very excited, and if I think about it long enough, I'll probably start crying happy tears. It's a lot of emotion, this whole wedding thing -- and now, it's coupled with a homecoming. 

Wanting to be fully present and live in the moment (a wise friend's wonderful piece of wedding advice), I'll be putting the blog on pause until my return to Shanghai. In the meantime, I'd love to hear what you think about this little project that has happily kept me distracted these last few months. What do you want to see more of, or less of? What do you want to know about? What questions do you have for me about life in Shanghai? I really do want to know. More comments, please!    

Before signing off... Thank you for reading (I don't think my mom's my only reader anymore!), and thanks for the compliments -- you've encouraged me to keep at this thing. Last but not least (it had to be done): I love you, Mike. I can't wait to continue our adventures together as husband+wife. I'm so excited to marry you! 

Source: snippetandink.com via Alexis on Pinterest

Want to be our friend?

I have a sad confession to make -- we barely have any friends in China. It’s been harder than we both had anticipated to meet people with whom we click. Now before you call us losers, let me to chalk it up to a few potential reasons. 

One 

I think at our age (early 30s), it’s harder to make friends. At this point, you’re more or less stuck in your ways. Free time is precious and you want to spend it wisely, with people whose company you actually enjoy. There aren’t as many “have tos” or “shoulds”. Some of this NYT article rang true for me. Does it for you? 

Two 

We don’t really fit in with other expats. We find ourselves in this strange milieu. Other foreigners here are either young students looking to party until the wee hours of the morning, or they’re families, living in the ‘burbs with their community rooted in their children’s schools. Fitting neither of these categories, Mike and I have spent a good amount of time with one another. Good thing we really, really like each other. 

Three 

This one may be a bit more controversial, but I’m going to go ahead and say it. Some expats, not all of course, seem to be escaping something. We’ve theorized that a move to China gives some the opportunity to reinvent themselves, to become someone new, and to search out what was missing back home (love? status? popularity?). 

The truth is, Mike and I weren’t running away from anything. We had a wonderful life back home -- the perfect apartment (small in comparison to what we have now, but certainly more charming) in a city we loved, with a wonderful community of friends and family close by. 

Don't get me wrong; it’s not all rain clouds in Shanghai. It has only been three months, and we’ve actually found good friends in a classmate of mine and her husband. But we hope to expand our community here, knowing that the friends we make are likely to be friends for life. I’m not sure you can go through an experience like this one and not form a strong bond.

Xiuxi Time

Only a few more days of Mandarin classes; my last one's on Friday. Twelve weeks later and I feel pretty confident in my survival skills. Am I ready to discuss the state of the global economy in Chinese? Probably not. But I can ask a waitress where the bathroom is and find it on my own (which is probably more useful in the long run). 

I had originally signed up for four weeks, but because my fellow classmates were so lovely, I went on for eight more. From left to right: Ye Laoshi (laoshi means teacher), Ayla (German with Turkish origins), Robin (American by way of Ireland), me (American with Egyptian and Armenian origins), Anna (Russian, now also German by marriage), Nannapat (Thai by way of the UK), and Florian (Indonesian by way of Hong Kong; a college student here for the summer; I hope we didn't scare him). We span the globe -- pretty cool, huh? 

P.S. #1 I'm wearing a shirtdress I had made at the fabric market. Cute, no? 

P.S. #2 "Xiuxi," pronounced "shee-oo-shii," means rest or break.  

Happy Labor Day!

We haven't had a public holiday since New Year's Day so we almost forgot that today was Labor Day back home. (I suppose there was Dragon Boat Festival, but I still had class and Mike was on business travel the day after.) What end-of-summer activities are you partaking in? We'll celebrate with those of you having BBQ by going to Bubba's. Yes, there's (decent) BBQ in Shanghai, Texas-style.  

Saturday, we went for a long bike ride to Pudong, using the ferry to get across the river. Although routes are flat and bike lanes do exist, maneuvering around the city isn't terribly easy when sharing the road with cars and buses, pedestrians and motorcyclists. But, thanks to Mike's navigation, we reached areas with wide open streets, in a part of town that had seemingly been deserted, with one abandoned building after another (Shanghai post-World Expo 2010). And with the weather finally cooling down, the ride was a ton of fun. We topped off the day with dinner (for less than $35 total) and bowling (yes, there's bowling!) with friends.     

Having reached Pudong