Emily's Escapades

Having a Bloody Mary at the Old Taipa Tavern. It was warm in the sun… perfect for a Saturday afternoon.

A shrine by Adam’s apartment.

A cute little cupcake shop – with yummy cupcakes. We’re wondering how such a specialty shop can stay in business.

Jon doing fancy fingerwork playing Liar’s Dice.

Adam & Angela at the Irish Bar

The View is the VIP lounge at the Sands Casino. Adam got a VIP card from a client, so we went there to hang out one night.

I had a strawberry margarita with chocolate. Yum.

We played Liar’s Dice most of the night.

Adam’s girlfriend and our friend Angela is in Macau for a few weeks. We all decided to spend NYE and the weekend together.

I’d been helping the Grand Lisboa get the content ready for their big countdown party. I actually came down a day earlier than Jon to help Anthony program everything. Luckily, everything worked out great.

Fireworks over the harbor.

On Christmas Day, we took the day off work and went to a Christmas party held by a couple of friends I know through book club. A couple husbands are professional chefs at major hotels here, and they cooked for us!

There were actually 2 huge turkeys! Plus lamb and pork.

Rito and Rolf.

Stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy….

Alicia, Jo and Suzy making a special Australian (New Zealand, really) dessert. The crust was baked meringue!
We did a Secret Santa gift exchange and also donated money to an organization that provides disabled people with wheelchairs who can’t afford to buy one. We were able to purchase 10 wheelchairs.

It was a great time. The holidays have been hard for all of my family members; it just reminds you of what is missing.

Jon and Megan invited us to Bridgewater to sit by the fire and drink beer.

I definitely was missing America….

And what will they think of next? Budweiser came out with lime-flavored beer. Maybe they are trying to compete with Corona (which is the beer that should always have a lime in it.)

This is Blaze – she’s a really sweet Rottweiler.

Jon got a new camera, the SD1100IS. It has a pretty good macro mode and also takes time lapse videos. (I will post some eventually.)

John and Megs

Emma. When we were back in September, Kendra had an emergency C-section. (Luckily, mom and baby were fine and I got to see her when she was a few days old.) In January, Emma was a big baby. Now she is practically a little girl!

Gavin.

Dave used to live on this island so showed us around it. The island was created for an exhibition and then used as a naval base. Now everything is basically falling apart, but the views are really great!

The 3rd Thursday of the month I usually go to book club. This month we read “One More Day” by Mitch Albom, who is also the author of “Tuesdays with Morrie.” It’s a easy read (I actually just read it in one evening) and very good.

We meet at an interesting cafe somewhere downtown – this time it was Whisk, which I have blogged about before. It is heaven via chocolate, and good food. It turns out Suzy’s husband knows the owner, who came out and had us sample a bottle or two of wine he was thinking of putting on the menu.

Catharina, who is Swedish and works at the consulate; Alicia, who is Australian and is an exporter; Suzy, who has a business taking people shopping; me; and Kerstin, who is German and works for TUV Rheinland.

This was a really fun night – we’re all expat women who work and have no kids (all of us but Catharina has a cat or two though) so it seems we have a lot in common. Catharina was surprised to meet someone who spent time in Sweden; we even showed everyone else how to play Kubb!

I’ve always loved getting mail. Today I got a package with a elephant stamp from Thailand. Something about the writing, elephant and baht made it seem quite exotic to me (hence worthy of a photo). Thanks Esther!

On our farm, the mailbox was located on the gravel road at the end of the driveway, which is typical in the midwest. I heard a story once that my cousin John had a girl from California visiting the farm. Apparently she had never been in such a desolate area (said sarcastically by me) because she said to John “You really get mail out here?”

To which he solemnly replied, “Actually, it’s just for looks. The Pony Express does come by once a week though.”

The Peak is pretty famous in Hong Kong. Click on the photo to view it larger – it looks much better that way! I used PhotoShop’s photomerge feature to create this from 3 photos I took. It about a 180 degree view.

Jon and Adam – what a clear day. (not. as usual.)

We had a day off on the 11th, and Jon and I were in Macau and Hong Kong for business, so we decided to stay down there for the weekend. Adam lives in Macau, which is about an hour ferry ride away from Hong Kong.

Friday night we ate at a Greek restaurant, found a new t-shirt for me (from France, I was told), went to a bar called Carnegie’s, and then finished the evening at the sports bar in our hotel. The restaurant was great. Jon found a little piece of plastic in his food, but told the waiter not to worry about it. Of course the waiter was worried about it, so gave us all free dessert. I was too full for dessert and I think he felt bad because I didn’t get anything, because then he showed up at the table with shots of ouzo. And he ensured we drank them.

Hong Kong has double-decker busses and trams. The streets and sidewalks are very narrow too.

On Saturday, we fit in a trip to the Bund, the grocery store, the Propaganda Poster Museum (which is walking distance from our apartment), a walk through a bit of the French Concession, the Pearl Market, lunch at Bukharra (an Indian restaurant), a Dutch movie our friend Inge brought over, a nap, a quick stroll on Nanjing Lu, a drink at 789 Nanjing Lu, and a couple beers at the Captain’s Bar. It was a busy day. (These are all Esther’s photos.)

I like this photo of us! I feel like we are on a movie set or something.

I’ve wanted to go to the Captain’s Bar for a while now, and it was on Esther’s to-do list because a co-worker had told her about it. It’s on the top of a hostel and the cheapest bar with a Bund view. Granted, the cheapest with a Bund view is still expensive! A draft Chinese beer was 45 RMB. We buy the bottled beer at the convenience store next to our house for about 4 RMB.

Anyway, we had a really good time talking about all of our memories (or lack thereof) from Sweden and discussed who we’d kept in touch with and who was doing what.

We wanted to get up early on Saturday to see Tai Chi being done at the Bund, but we didn’t actually want to get up early. So we left about 9 AM – and that is way too late too see Tai Chi! I think they say sunrise but that is about 5 AM. I like to sleep much more than that.

(Esther’s photos)

One of the things that we still can’t quite get used to is that traditionally the babies don’t wear diapers, even when they are a few months old. They have pants with a split in the crotch, and when they have to go they just go anywhere. Perhaps a curb or drain, or the metal grate around a tree on the sidewalk. (or in Tiananmen Square, see this post.) Now, it is MUCH better for the environment that 1.3 billion people did not or do not wear disposable diapers – that is wonderful. But, having human excrement anywhere is not so wonderful. I also can’t quite get used to private parts not being private. This little guy was just playing around but when he squatted down there was nothing private anymore….

It poured rain most of the day. We went to Tiger Hill, which the guidebook says is usually packed. The great thing about the rain was that there was almost no one there.

On Friday, I was going to work as usual when my boss convinced me I should take the day off and go to Suzhou with Esther. (He was right! Thanks Dan.) We showed her around before going to the train station. She really liked the LED displays as a background – I have to agree, it looks pretty cool.

Jon bought the new Aerosmith game for Guitar Hero in Hong Kong.

It’s fun – Jon even plays our friend Adam online sometimes.

Eating at Element Fresh – it’s pretty close and has great food.

We took Esther to supper at Finestre her first night here. It has great food and a great view – we actually take all of our guests here.

Why Daktronics needs to be in China… check out ALL of the LED lighting! Buildings, boats, etc.

The Bund

Today, Esther flew in! She took a 2 AM flight from Bangkok to Shanghai and I met her at the Maglev station. After relaxing a bit, we met Jon for lunch and then went to Qibao, an area that is like an old water town. It was a little bit touristy, but we only saw 4 other white people in about 3 hours so it was quite local.

One of the thousands of guys who bike around, constantly ringing a bell, to remind you to bring all of your recyclables to him.

Baby birds on a stick… yum.

We’ve been following the situation in Thailand, as Esther should be flying back there Sunday. However, with the state of emergency and such, maybe she’ll be staying a bit longer! Who knows. We certainly wouldn’t mind!

Check out her blog here.

Saturday night was Inge’s 2nd to last night here, so we decided to go out. We went to the “taser”, otherwise known as the Le Meridian hotel. They have an expensive bar that overlooks Nanjing Lu.

Inge got a little burned in Hangzhou yesterday. She is wearing one of the dresses she got made at the fabric market. Jon is in a fabric market shirt too (as usual).

We also went to the Propaganda Poster Museum. It’s a private collection and we met the owner. A lot of the posters were destroyed right after the Cultural Revolution so it was pretty amazing to see so many posters from throughout so many years.

We bought this one – it’s a unique one because it is felt.

Our friend Inge, who we went to school in Sweden with, arrived on the 13th. She’ll be here about two weeks. Inge’s suitcase was loaded with goodies for us! Boots even got a present! We love Stroopwafels so she brought 3 packages of them, some books for me, and a game called Moods that we ordered from the US and played a lot in Sweden.

One of the best part about having visitors is when they cook for us…. :-) Inge made nasi, with her family’s secret peanut sauce. She made it for us several times in Sweden and it is SO good!! She’d also sent us packets to make it in the US, but we couldn’t quite get the secret sauce right. We really enjoyed getting it again.

Hugo, one of the Keyframe animators, got married on Sunday.

Jasmine and Hugo

One of the cool things about a Chinese wedding is that the bride will change dresses at least three times. So she gets to wear a few of her favorite dresses, not just one.

David, Jimmy, Ryan, Sofia and Yvonne taking a shot of baijiu.

The Dak group with the beautiful, happy couple!

Last month, a few of my co-workers from Shanghai and Macao went to South Dakota. Judd took a some people from the A/P region to the lake and Andy Tai (from our Macao office) shared these photos with us. Seeing these actually made me homesick for the first time since moving to China. Thanks for letting me put these photos up, Andy!

Beautiful blue sky, blue water… this is what SD looks like at the lake in summer!

Typical SD farm

Andy (PM in Macao), Fred (head of Shanghai repair center), and Gina (process engineer)

Judd driving his boat

the work never ends…. Jon S.

Fred and Gina taking photos of Judd

Jon trying to do a flip

As we were leaving Era, I noticed that Dan was carrying Wendy’s purse. You’ll notice many guys in Shanghai carrying cute little purses – mostly belonging to their girlfriends. I promptly complained about how Jon never carried my pink purse…. so he very grudgingly obliged and glared at Dan.

The moment was too good to miss. I don’t think Jon will ever volunteer to carry my purse. He thinks pink isn’t his color.

The Jin Mao tower is currently the highest building in Shanghai that you can go in. The World Financial Center has beat it, but it’s not open yet.

The top disappears into the clouds.

The bar at the top is called Cloud Nine.

It’s the rainy season now, so very rainy and foggy all of the time. Most of the time we were in a cloud, but suddenly it blew away for a short time so we could see out below.

(These are all photos Hanna took.)

Our friends Hanna and Henrik are visiting from June 7 to 16th. We are super excited! We all went to school together in Jonkoping, Sweden (they are Swedish). In 2004, we visited them while they were living in Prague. In 2006, they visited us in South Dakota. We were planning to visit them in 2007 bu we moved to China instead. This year, they came to Shanghai, next summer we are going to Sweden to visit them, and in 2010 we’ve discussed driving Route 66 in the US!

You can read about and see photos from their journey in their travel journal.

All of us celebrating in Shanghai again!

A couple weeks ago Jon and I were able to attend Minna’s wedding. Minna works at Daktronics in HR and also tutors me in Chinese occasionally. There didn’t seem to be an actual ceremony like we usually see, but just a large celebration, speeches from the family and the biggest meal I have ever seen! The dishes were piled on top of each other and kept coming long after everyone was stuffed.

Minna and her husband. She started out in a white, Western wedding dress, then changed to a gold dress, then finally changed into a red traditional Chinese dress. (Red is lucky in China, while white is the color for funerals.)

The guests all signed this, which was then cut up and names drawn for prizes.

Shelley and Sue (both work at Dak)

Yolanda, Gina and Chris (all from Dak)

Keyframe with the couple

Cody (Dak salesperson) and his family with the couple

A new dish for me – soft shelled turtle.

Ryan and Jon drinking baijiu (white wine, but really strong alcohol)

Minna toasting at the table. The couple toasts every table.