Swedish Cruise

We took a one-day cruise in Sweden that went from the Stockholm archipelago to an island in the Finland archipelago. Since alcohol is SO expensive in Sweden, a lot of Swedes go to other countries to get it. So, it was basically a beer run!

(photo by Jon)
We had a couple of hours in Stockholm before we left, but it started POURING rain, and we'd left our umbrellas with our luggage. Jon and I sat down at a pub and watched the weather and had a couple beers.



It finally stopped raining as the ship left Stockholm.

Celia, Hanna, Andreas, Henrik and Jon in the dining room. We ate a couple smorgasbords. All very traditional Swedish food like herring and salmon.

Enjoying a last drink.

Celia the movie star... looking fabulous after a nice relaxing massage.

Henrik bought Hanna a Canon DSLR for a wedding present. What a sweet guy! She loved it. We teased them about bringing 4 extra people on their honeymoon, but they claim that the honeymoon isn't until they go to New Zealand in December.

More of the Swedish summer home

Cute little cabins that just sleep two.

Cute little nook - perfect for a cup of tea in the morning!! I want one.

There was dew or rain every day.

Hanging out by the lake, drinking beer around the fire.

The diverse group of people staying a few days after the wedding: Mattias and Anna (they are Finnish, but are part of the 5% of Finns who speak Swedish as their native language); Sven (German); Celia (Kiwi living in England); Andreas (German)

Sweden seemed like the cleanest, most peaceful place on earth compared to China!

Solar Eclipse

Daft Punk came to play Shanghai!

Actually, #14 welding glass is an approved method of looking at the sun. Steve got the whole mask to be extra safe. :-)

Steve, Jon, Dan and Wendy watching as the eclipse starts.

Mid-eclipse

Wedding

We just got back from a week in Sweden. Our best friends, Hanna and Henrik, tied the knot. We had a wonderful time and you'll be seeing photos from it for several days!!


They asked me to do a reading (in English) during the ceremony. It was really an international wedding, so a lot of things were both in Swedish and English.

Decorating with frosting

Bonnie took a professional cake-decorating course in the US, and Claire and I wanted to learn, so she put on a little class for us. I've decorated several things before, but knowing the proper way to do it makes it a lot easier! We only learned a few basic things so I think we'll have more classes later.


My roses look more like cabbage....

We're off to Sweden!

Today we're leaving for Sweden! Our friends Hanna and Henrik are getting married on the 4th of July... at a castle. OK, maybe not a fairytale castle, but the summer home of Swedish Royalty.

We went to Jönköping University in the Spring of 2003. Six full years since we've been there. We're very excited to go back for a visit. We'll be traveling around for few days with Hanna, Henrik and a few other international guests.

Henrik, Hanna, me and Jon at the international students good-bye dinner

We lived a couple blocks away from Lake Vättern.

The view over Jönköping.

I'm having some posts publish while we're gone, so there will be new content while we're gone.

Hotel Equipment Store

I think this is one of Shanghai's best-kept secrets as to where to find Western kitchen things! If only I'd have known to go here when we first moved to Shanghai, instead of buying everything at IKEA. *sigh*

This store has everything, and you don't have to buy 20 of everything. Anything you can imagine needing in a hotel, restaurant, or bar - it's here. Fake fruit, napkins, tablecloths, glasses, silverware, serving utensils, massive refrigerators, sinks, ovens, those big gas outdoor patio heaters, bells to ring for service... it's all here and inexpensive. Three floors of fun! (The 2nd to 4th floor, in case you notice the 4F sign further down.)

Address: 345 Aomen Lu, near Jiangning Lu
澳门路345号近江宁路

Claire and Bonnie have a custom baking business called "Sweet Bon-O-Mine." They are expanding and looking for a small, inexpensive kitchen space - let me know if you have any guanxi to find this!

Bakeware... I'm going to have to come back and get some casserole dishes.

The 4th floor is where to find all of those baking supplies you can't find in Shanghai. Including cookie cutters, icing decorating bags and tips, pans, molds, rolling pins, etc.

I just love Lock'n'Lock containers. I bought this size of container at Tesco and it was about 80 RMB. Here it was 28 RMB!!!

Look, even a wedding gift set. If only I had more cupboard space.

Ever wonder where the bars get hundreds of dice for the dice games? Neither did I. But, apparently they buy them here!

Happy customers!

Bonnie's Birthday

Steve graciously hosted Bonnie's birthday party at his house. She made her own cake since she didn't trust anyone else to do it! It was 3 layers of chocolate cake, with chocolate frosting and covered in chocolate chips. It was the richest cake I've ever had! We played Twister and Wii most of the night, with a couple rounds of Mahjong and Mexican Train Dominoes. That was the latest I've stayed up in a VERY long time.

The Polo

Last Saturday 12 girls went to the Polo matches and celebrated Casey's upcoming wedding. We all dressed up and had a marvelous time in the VIP tent! Jo won the "best hat" contest with her cute little feathery thing. Alicia had some guanxi - a friend with a few bottles of champagne after everything else ran out, and another friend doing a documentary on first time Polo spectators in China (the photos of me being interviewed). And we all had a blast!

Wholesale Food Market

Bonnie has a custom baking business, and has learned where to get the supplies cheaply.  (All of the foreign stores are NOT cheap.)  We went to a market with at least 20 huge halls of vendors.  The vendors live above the stalls.  The stalls are filled with massive sacks of mushrooms, flour, rice, nuts, peppers, dried fish, cinnamon sticks, and all kinds of other things.    We bought cream cheese, butter, almonds, pistachios, cashews, walnuts, canned peaches, flour, corn meal, evaporated milk... and maybe a few other things I'm forgetting about!   The address is 1255 Lianhua Lu.

Saturday night

Last week, Steve and Sylvia, Shane and Bonnie, Amy and Casey, and Jon and I all went to DaMarco for supper.  We had a drink at the little bar close to it, and then went to play some more Guitar Hero.

Couchsurfers

Jon and I are members of www.couchsurfing.com and last week we hosted two Australian girls, Amy and Casey.  They were super nice; both of them (especially Casey) liked to cook.  We were spoiled by them cooking for us several times!  They have a cat (Michael Arthur MacMoussen) back home so really liked Boots too.   Couchsurfing is a site where travelers can offer or request a couch to crash on, or just find someone to meet up with for coffee or a drink.  It's kind of like Facebook for travelers.  It's also similar to eBay, in that you give others feedback so others know how they were as hosts or guests.    We also hosted a Polish couple, Daniel and Martina, before I went to the US.  In the last couple weeks we've gotten requests to host people from Italy, Spain, Germany, Mongolia, and the Netherlands.  We won't say yes to everyone (you can pick and choose as you like, no pressure) since we want to have a little time to ourselves!  We wish we had this when we were traveling through Europe - it's such a great way to meet like-minded travelers if you host; save costs and meet people living locally where you are traveling if you surf.   Here's another article a fellow China blogger just wrote on it.  http://grahamwoodring.com/2009/05/18/couchsurfing-whats-in-it-for-me/

KTV in Nanxiang

Singing, playing Liar's Dice and drinking. Good times.

Nanxiang Dumplings

Yvonne invited us all to her hometown for dumplings, to wander in the park, and dinner with her parents. It was a great day!


I've only seen the dishes piled on top of each other a couple times. Usually there is tons of food, but not piles and piles of it!

Picking Strawberries

Saturday morning, a group of Dakkies with cars went to pick strawberries in Qingpu, which is on the outskirts of Shanghai. There are rows and rows of greenhouses. Cody negotiated the price for the group. They wanted 10 RMB per jin, but Cody negotiated to 9 RMB. He told the lady, "We have foreigners here. You must think about the international relations!"

Roc's daughter Emma. All of us wore plastic bags on our feet because it was really muddy.





Jon and I picked 8 kilos of strawberries, which is almost 18 pounds. It cost 145 RMB ($21).

Rapeseed is planted where ever there is a little extra space.

Local Dive Bar

After the concert, we went to check out a little bar near Da Marco. It's just through an alley from our apartment. It's small, dark, and wasn't busy. Perfect.

twocities

Last Friday, Steve, Jon and I meant to go to a jazz concert at twocities, an art gallery where a few of our friends work. Jon had just gotten back from Guangzhou, and when we arrived our friends Eva and Chelsea were just finishing cleaning up. This week we decided to be less fashionably late, though we were still quite late after waiting 40 minutes in the rain for a taxi.

The concert featured American fiddler Hanneke Cassel, who played with two Chinese men named Tom and Jerry. They played a blend of bluegrass/Americana and Scottish music stylings. (from the twocities website.)

Chelsea and I at the gallery. They showcase mostly glass work, which is a fairly new medium in China. They have some very beautiful pieces.

Sketch

Recently when Jon was in Guangzhou, along with Aileen, Dan, Geoffrey, and Larry, a guy selling sketches approached them. They decided to see just what it would turn out like, fulling knowing this guy probably couldn't really draw. (He also couldn't spell the name of the restaurant they were at, even though it was right in front of him.)

Any guesses as to who is who? Put your answer in the comments below! (Hint: See the "women" on the far right? That's actually a man.)

Dan's birthday

Dan turned a year older on the 21st, so a group of friends went to dinner at DeMarco and then to People 6 to celebrate.

Probably the scariest photo of Dan ever.... BTW, he's not 18. But perhaps he wishes he were.


What is a birthday without shots? The bar had a huge selection of bottles... unfortunately, they were all empty bottles for show! It took Mark over 30 minutes to come back with a shot of something, which turned out to be tequila. Someone decided Wendy needed to learn the American college party way of shooting tequila.

It started pouring rain. Steam was rising from the lights in the bamboo. Try clicking on the photo to see a little detail. It looked cool.

Las Vegas night - Feb 21st

My friend Bonnie hangs out with some of other American expat women and was given tickets to one of their events. It was a Las Vegas-style poker night, complete with costume contest, black jack and unlimited wine and beer. Her husband wasn't too kneen on going, so we made it a girls night out.

We spent most of the night playing Black Jack. It was amazing... everyone kept winning! (Apparently the dealers weren't so skilled.) We got free chips as part of the entrance and just expected to lose those quickly. Bonnie won a few bottles of wine after cashing in her big pile of chips.

After it was over, we followed a small group of new friends to Lane 274, a bar which one of them owned. The husbands and Steve (who'd been playing pool) met us there. We stayed out entirely too late, but had a great time.

Wine Tasting

At the grocery store today, Steve wanted to get a bottle of wine just because it had a cool bag covering it. Jon commented that he wanted to try a bunch of wines, but he was afraid he had too much against some of the Chinese wines. We noted the huge price difference in foreign wines, local wines, and the high end Chinese wines.

We decided to do a taste test.

We bought four bottles of wine, as pictured below.

We bought the lowest cost wine we could find - a bottle of Tesco "dry red wine." It says "Imported From Spain." Dragon Seal and Great Wall are Chinese wines - not known to be that great, but we wanted to give it a chance. Also, the Great Wall was expensive and a 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon. Lindemans is an Australian wine, a 2007 Shiraz Cabernet.

I printed out a wine tasting scoring sheet, and served, in random order, the wine to Jon and Steve for a blind taste test.


They both wanted to pour out the Dragon Seal wine with the bag Steve had liked.

Jon thought the Tesco tasted best, while Steve liked the most expensive one best (which Jon placed 3rd). Steve had placed the Tesco brand second. We agreed that for 15.5 RMB, the Tecso one was the best value and very drinkable. We were a bit surprised at that.

Final Placing - Jon
#1 Tesco
#2 Lindemans
#3 Great Wall
#4 Dragon Seal

Final Placing - Steve
#1 Great Wall
#2 Tesco
#3 Lindemans
#4 Dragon Seal

New host

My friend Dan rocks! He let me use his server space so I should be up and running in China again. If you do happen to get a strange error, or you can't see the photos, or something, please let me know!!!

Update: Yes, I know you can't see the photos. I don't know what's going on with that. I'm working on it. Please stand by.

From Speaker to Trainer

Dan, Wendy and I put on a "From Speaker to Trainer" seminar, which is a Toastmasters International program. We had a great response - all of the seats sold almost right away.


After the training was Sam's going away party. We'll miss him a lot.

Shopping bag

Our friend Inge sent us a couple home-made, reusable shopping bags, some chocolate and Christmas ornaments that she made. This year China banned giving out free plastic grocery bags - now you need to pay if you want one. China used 3 billion bags per DAY. We're glad they are able to act so quickly on certain issues!

Saturday in Macau

Praia Avenue, Macau

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

Thursday in Macau

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

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.

New Year's Eve - Macau

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.

The Orphans' Christmas

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.

Flat Stanley in Rotterdam

We sent Flat Stanley to Rotterdam in the Netherlands to visit our friend Inge. The following is her story from his visit.

First off, Stanley made a friend at my house: Knut (maybe you saw him on the pictures on my facebook page) and they've become real good friends.


Stanley was a bit scarcely clad for Holland in winter, so I made him a scarf and a coat. Real simple of course, but I think they look fabulous on him. It took some time, so when we went to see the street sign with the really long street on it, he borrowed my scarf :) Then we went into town:

to see the Erasmusbridge,

to see the cube houses,


and of course the Euromast!


Knut was pretty full of himself when he was down below, but when we got up on the first level he was so scared of heights! He stayed out for 2 minutes, but then he wanted to stay inside while we were looking around.

Stanley and I took some pictures of the harbour, the Erasmusbridge, pretty exciting stairs at such heights and a picture with Hotel New York in the background. Remember that we went to drink some coffee there? It's now a hotel, but it used to be the head office of the Holland-America Line! So people took off here to go to America. Pretty nice huh?


After we had enough, we went to get some salty black liquorice and Stanley is just a sissy like Jon: doesn't like it at all!! We will go on a train ride tonight to my parents and I hope to take some pictures with him there too. We will see. On monday or tuesday, I will send Stanley to Stefanie, who is in Germany then. She'll probably have some nice friends to send him to after his visit to her :D

I'm having the time of my life!

Big hugs and an virtual stroopwafel for both of you!
Inge

October 12 - Bridgewater

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

October 4th - The Spears

Chad and Kendra are two of my best friends. It's kinda hard to go back every 6 months and see how much we've missed - with little kids it is easy to see how much has changed since you've been gone.

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.

Treasure Island

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!

Book Club

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!

Mail

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

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.)

Weekend in Hong Kong

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.

Saturday Night

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.

no tai chi

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)

Suzhou

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.

Dak Shanghai

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.

Guitar Hero

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.

Finestre

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

Qibao

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.

789 Nanjing Lu

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).

Propaganda Poster Museum

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.

Inge

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's wedding

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!

Summer in South Dakota

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

Shanghai guys

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

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.)

Hanna & Henrik visiting

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!

Minna's Wedding

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.

Abram's motorcycle

My co-worker Abram just bought a motorcycle with a sidecar. It's a replica of one used by the military in Mao's day. It's pretty popular with foreigners - both Dan and Jon really want one! Yesterday we saw a whole family of foreigners on one. The dad was driving with one kid on the seat behind him, and the mom and baby were riding in the sidecar.

Jon S. and Abram.

Ning and Abram.

Mahjong

Wendy and Daniel came over on Friday night to have a few drinks and Wendy taught us all to play Mahjong. It was a lot of fun and I think we all managed to win one game so we were getting the hang of it. I'm sure we'll be having a lot more game nights in the future.

Sarah & Micah

One of the best parts about being home is seeing friends we only see a few times a year. Every time we are West River, we make sure to see Sarah and her son Micah. It makes me a little sad to see how much Micah has grown each time we see them. He really loves us though and calls us Uncle Jon and Aunt Emily.

This is Bear Butte. I'd never seen a cloud hang over it like this before!! It was cold and getting ready to snow.

I also love to go shopping in the US!! We bought a travel Scrabble game to bring back with us. I love word games! You can play a mini-game here.

US visitors

A group of six Executive MBA students came to the office today to learn about business in China. Their small group was doing research on keeping mid-level management employees in China. They were part of a larger group of about 80 students, who all were getting their EMBAs at a school in Chicago.

A woman named Samantha is from Sioux Falls, and knows a woman who works in Personnel at the Dak office there, which is how she found out about Dak Shanghai. Another guy in their group, Jeff, had previously lived in Suzhou for two years. It was great talking to them, but we hardly had any time.

Later I met them at their hotel. The whole group had gone to the fabric market and bought many clothes. Unfortunately, about half of them didn't fit at all. The guys who made the clothes still wanted them to pay for everything and take it, but of course they didn't want to. This caused quite the common and they were pretty persistent.

I'd been telling Rob and Chris about all of the places Jon and I have traveled to, and they asked just how old I was. I guess I don't look old enough to have been to 27 different countries. :-) I told them was my birthday and they bought me a glass of champagne to celebrate.

Jon's Girlfriends and Boyfriend

Since Jon is the sales manager for China, he is often on the road with Linlin and on the phone with Judd and Aileen (PMs in the USA). Whenever he gets a phone call after 10 PM, I ask, "Is it your boyfriend or your girlfriend?" If he's traveling, I'll ask him if he's going to have dinner with his girlfriend.

Jon and his girlfriends (Geoffrey wanted a kiss too!)

Jon is always on the phone with Judd - I guess Judd is a good boyfriend. :-) I think Judd's wife feels the same way. Since we are 14 hours ahead, it is usually late at night for one of us when they are talking. Judd definitely is on the phone more with Jon than I am!

Judd and Aileen are both PMs in Brookings.

SDARL

Jon and I, along with Dan, spoke to the SDARL group Wednesday morning. We talked about Daktronics and our move and lives in China. It was really nice to see 37 people from our home state! My dad was part of the class before them, and mom and dad have hosted the whole group before, so everyone knew me as John's daughter. Being South Dakotans, we all had some type of tie to each other. My dad fed cattle for Erik, Anita lived in Belle Fouche and happened to be someone Jon's dad had thought about calling to AI cattle, one man's mom lived a few miles from my house, etc. etc. It's a small world, even from South Dakota to Shanghai.

Rachel and Lura were good friends of ours since high school. We were all in FFA together. It was pretty amazing to see them in Shanghai! Luckily, they had their only free night that night! We took them to supper at Simply Thai and then had a drink at their hotel bar. We also showed them our apartment.

Rachel said she'd wished that she had brought some jeans - they didn't have very many chances to wear them so she didn't bring any. I happened to have a couple pairs that are now too big for me, and they happened to fit her perfectly. She has my favorite pink corduroy pants too - I am so happy they went to a good home! Lura got a few shirts too. We had a good trade though. Earlier we had discussed how I bring back Western "feminine products" from the US since stores only have maxi pads, so they left me some western products. :-)

Rachel, me and Lura on our balcony. They agreed that the view was great!

Lura works for the Tri-State Neighbor and was keeping a blog about the whole trip. Jon and I were mentioned several times and have photos of us (and our kitchen) in it. We really hope they can come back and visit personally!

Thursday, I escorted two of the group members to a clinic here. One of them had been sick for several days, vomiting and with diarrhea. The doctor got her hydrated again with six bags of a saline IV. They were worried about her kidneys and blood pressure but luckily she improved enough to fly to Hong Kong with the rest of the group the next day. She was a trooper - she had me take photos of her with the IV and with her nice nurse Amy!

supper at the Spot

Holly, Ning and I ate at the Spot one night. It was pretty good - nice to get out with some friends! Holly was actually my boss when I worked in the IT department at Daktronics in Brookings. Ning worked at Dak there too and Holly spent a lot of time with him helping to set up the network in the Shanghai office.

It's pretty odd to think that we now all live in China!

At the Portman

Jon, Holly and I went to the Portman one night for "a" drink. Holly and I had a drink but Jon had a few. :-) It has a great atmosphere but is pretty expensive!

One of the interesting things about the Portman is that the rocks glasses are pre-tilted. No drinking required to question your depth perception. :-)

Cloud 9

A few weekends ago, Jon and I went out for sushi with our friend Daniel. Then we all went to see his girlfriend, Wendy, and her dancing class belly dance. After that we went to the Grand Hyatt, which has a bar called Cloud 9 on the 87th floor. This photo was taken on the 85th floor looking down to the 56th floor.

It was a pretty nice place to chill out. We had a good time with Daniel and Wendy!

postal service

Our friend Inge (from Rotterdam, the Netherlands) sent us a nice box with Christmas goodies. It is pretty funny that it was clearly marked FRAGILE everywhere, but arrived smashed. Luckily it was only cookies that were slightly crumbled!

Inge is coming to visit for 2 weeks in July and already has her tickets booked!

Holly visiting

My friend Holly has been visiting us for the last few days. She used to work at Dak (and was my boss in IT.) Now she lives in Beijing and teaches English. She came to visit and we toured the town. Here we are at the Bund.





This is Nanjing Lu - the "Times Square" of Shanghai.

Yee-haw - Shanghai, South Dakota

It's a bit strange to see a stuffed steer here. It's quite realistic. This is outside of a Japanese restaurant near the office. Abram, Sofia, Yvonne and I had sushi there for lunch once.

On the day before October holiday, Sofia wore these cowboy boots to the office. I pictured my dad wearing his cowboy boots with shorts..... first of all, farmers and cowboys never ever wear shorts. And they live in their boots. Of course, like any city, here they are just a fashion statement.

Party photos from Brad and Niki's wedding

Taking a shot at the Saf (Safari Lounge) in Brookings Thursday night. The Saf is an old haunt - most of our friends worker there as bartenders, bouncers, the DJ or waitresses at some point! Alos, Brad and Niki met there. Our group of friends is scattered around now (Colorado, San Francisco, Iowa, Minnesota, New Hamsphire, and a couple still in various corners of South Dakota) so weddings are the only time everyone really can get together. So we pretend we're young again and try to party like we did back in college! :-)


Niki and Brad. Congratulations!!!

A lot of the photos are from John and Megan Sievers - thanks guys! Megan has an iPhone - how cool is that?? Although she is kind of technology-impaired so many she should give it to me... (just kidding Megs!) Although - their camera really made me look like a ghost. I was going to tan before I left, but it costs about $10 a session here! Chinese love white skin (almost all of the face soap, body wash, etc. is labeled as whitening) so at least it is desirable here, even though it is not back in the US.

The red Oldsmobile used to be mine. I started driving it in 8th grade when I was 14 years old. Mom and Dad gave it to me at my high school graduation and I drove it until we moved to China and sold it to our friend Aaron. Someone hit the driver's side mirror a few months ago so Jon (Mr. Fix-it) helped glue it back on.

Back in the USA

Jon and I were back in South Dakota for about a week. We managed to squeeze in a wedding (not ours!) and seeing both of our parents. Dad grilled juicy T-bone steaks for us - yummy!

It is starting to get cold there. What a change from Shanghai! I took quite a few photos of our family and farms specifically for our friends here in China. I made a separate page for them, as it would take a long time to upload here.

We found 13 Geocaches around Nisland and Belle Fourche too. That was really fun! A lot of them were micro caches that were very cleverly disguised. My best friends Chad and Kendra had their 3rd baby, a little girl named Emma Elizabeth, about a week ago. She was born four weeks early due to Kendra's high blood pressure, but both mom and baby are doing great. It was a wonderful surprise for me! Emma has a full head of dark hair, just like her little brother Gavin did.

Enjoy! http://www.emilyminor.com/HomeSept07/index.html

Kelly and Gadling.com

I had written a couple weeks ago about my last failed trip to Australia and meeting a cool fellow blogger named Kelly. Well, she just posted her final story about her travels in China, which just happened to be our crazy airline adventures. Be sure to check out www.gadling.com and her version of the story! Her other 19 posts about China are also very interesting.

Moving domain names

Tonight I finally took the time to figure out how to change my blog from the blogspot.com domain (which is blocked by the government in China) to my own www.emilyminor.com domain. Yay!!

This means that all my friends everywhere can now read my blog! Please let me know if you have any issues with the new domain.

Update your favorites or bookmarks with the new address now. http://blog.emilyminor.com.

Saturday Shopping

Aileen, Maggie, Louise LV and I went shopping. Aileen is looking for a qipao to get married in, someday. She lives in the states now and works at corporate, but is learning project management here for 5 months. I thought these things looked interesting, so Aileen bought some and showed me how to eat them.

The outside has a peel and is a fleshy. When you apply pressure opposite directions, it tears open. The inside is like a white mandarian orange. It is very sweet.

Friends and Farewell Parties

Amanda, Dave, Jon and I ate at Applebees one afternoon. Dave's living in San Francisco now.

We and Brad and Niki went to Cubby's Tuesday for a last beer. Our present to Brad was a very nasty alcohol from the Czech Republic that he loves after a long night of drinking. :-)

Garrett, Elly, Dave, Jeremy (not pictured) and Jon take a shot at John and Megan's wedding.

My family had a going away party for me on Memorial Day.

Seth and Jessie - republished!

Sorry guys, not sure why blogger didn't actually upload my photos. Here they are!

We went to the Butterfly house in SF to take these. It was pretty funny - Jessie had a lot of energy to burn.... The outtakes are pretty good! I wish I was going to be able to come back for their wedding in August, but it's looking pretty doubtful right now. Seth was my intern last year and is a tech in the NOC now. Jessie is an account manager in the NOC.

The Terrells

On Saturday, I watched Noah for Julie and Rob. Rob works at Dak in Tech Services too, and Julie is the director of Junior Achievement - I took photos for their fundraising "Longest Day of Golf" last summer. Rob asked me if I'd keep Noah out of their hair while they packed. I didn't realize that they were really packing - they are moving to Spokane, Washington. Daktronics has an office there. Noah and I played all day while they boxed all of their belongings up. I'm not sure how I feel about doing that soon! I think I will throw a lot more things away than they did. It'll be hard to judge what is worth putting in storage for two to three years.

St Paddy's Day Celebration.....

Jon thought it would be a good idea to begin the evening with shots of Maotai, the traditional liquor in China. He brought some back from Shanghai last week.

Aleisa wanted to throw a party for Jon and I's birthdays and it just happened that St Patrick's Day fell on a Saturday. So she rented a 20-person limo, bought some champange and beer, and we partied like rock stars.

Amanda the giant and I

It was a Newell high school reunion! Randy, Jon, Nathan and Josh (who is Jon's 2nd cousin.)

Emily and Ann

Curns & Bailey are ready for St Patrick's Day!

Curns & Bailey ready to celebrate...

My graphic designer friend...

My friend Crystal is a graphic designer and has a blog too. She has a piece she created in Illustrator that is super-cool -she calls it China Morning. Click here to see it. She let me use it for a wallpaper on my laptop. I have a rule that only photos I've taken can go on my desktop.... but I made an exception cause I really like this. She makes me want to learn Illustrator. So far, I've opened the program and found where their tutorials are. Baby steps, I guess.

New Year's Eve

Me, Megan, Elly and Sara after a rousing game of ping pong in Sara's garage. Lots of our college friends got together to celebrate another year at Pete and Sara's house.

Sunny

On Sunday we visited Sarah and Micah. He is two!! What a cutie. He gave us hugs and chatted away. He also had 2 time-outs while we were there. It was so nice to see them again.

Elfamorphosis

Tonight I helped with English classes for immigrants again. It's fun, I get to teach keyboarding while the "real" teacher does other writen skills.

Jon sent me this. It is really funny. Be sure to have your sound on.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?userid=f34049d1181f12a3307d6d4G06121918

Edit: Oops, had it linked incorrectly previously. Try again if it didn't work.

Daktronics Holiday Party

Me, Crystal and Karen at the Daktronics Holiday Party. The party is the event of the year - 1750 people were there this year. The theme was the Daktronics Jazz Club and tons of people dressed up from the 20s and 30s. One of the few photos of me. :-)

Winners of the Costume contest - 3 way tie.... 

Cowboy Chris 

The Village People 

Amber and Matt - Amber is the Lamar Rocky Mount remote enclosure (NOC joke, problem sign.)  

On Friday the 13th, Sarah held a Halloween Party for everyone working with the Dak NOC (Network Operations Center.) Everyone had a great time and great costumes! Teresa and Rebecca's mullet wigs were a hit - everyone else had to try them on too. 

This poor lady (Todd) lost her little puppy... 

found it. 

Pirate Dave. There was a 3-way tie for the winner of the costume contest. It went to Dave, Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, and Bo Peep and her sheep (Jon and I.) 

Seth used to be our overnight guy - I think the lonely long nights got to him.... 

The Village People made an appearance....  

Katie & Ernie. 

Crystal was probably the most expresive bride I have had the pleasure of photographing... It made for some great shots! 

Yay! I finished Crystal and Karl's wedding photos tonight! They are going to be happy.... 

Memories....

Well, my friend Inge commented that Jon was not on my blog very much. True. So, I decided to post a couple photos from two years ago when we went to visit the Netherlands. Inge lives in Rotterdam and it's famous for it's very modern/different architecture. Everything was blown up in the war so it was all brand-new. These are the Cube Houses.

Inge and Jon in the cube houses... very cool but hard to live in I think. At least by American standards. I couldn't imagine getting a couch up the 3 flights of very narrow stairs.

Inge, I and Jenny geocaching at port Rotterdam.

Teresa, me, and Barrett

Barrett and Teresa went to college (SDSU) with me. They've been living in LA for three years and I haven't seen them since they moved. We had sushi! Barrett and I even tried the urchin for the first time.

It's kinda nice to be in a couple of photos for once....

The Washington Pavillion. My friend Amanda works as an event coordinator here. Love the fisheye. 

Lura's Bachelorette Party

A little present from Annie.