Off to Cambodia!

October 1st is National Day in China (similar to our 4th of July), and fortunately for us, National Day means we have some time off to leave the country and explore a little. So, Zach and I are off to Cambodia for the next week in search of good blog topics. We'll be sure to update you on our adventures when we get back.

Amandrew (or Drewmanda)

You know how the tabloids and gossip rags are always giving couples one name? Like “Bennifer” (Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez) or “Brangelina” (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie)? My good friend and co-worker from Washington D.C., Andrew, and his wife, Amanda, came last week to China to visit Tiffany and me. Rather than referring to them separately throughout this entry, I figured I’d similarly anoint them with a single proper noun. But neither Amandrew nor Drewmanda really strikes that “US Weekly” chord with me.

Drewmanda's trip started as many of our previous Shanghai guests have, with a warm welcome from Francis. Francis is a 'Shanghai Gem', one of the few Shanghai drivers that A. Speaks english B. Understands the meaning of 'quality service'-read provides water for fatigued guests and a calm english music selection (Norah Jones) C. Does not at all stoplights to open the door and spit on the ground. As I said, he's a gem.



Once safely delivered to our house, Tiffany and I had them on a whirlwind tour of Shanghai while they were here. We walked our neighborhood and took them to see 'Fuxing Park', where they were so inspired by the ballroom dancers in the park, they decided to join in!







Next stop, the Fabmo (fabric market), where they picked up let’s see, 3 suits, 9 shirts and a blazer for a little more than $300. We then treated them to a comparison walk through first the old Shanghai neighborhoods, and then the new Xintiandi, a popular restoration of older Shanghai architecture, and then the classic Bund walk along Shanghai’s river.

We took the cheesy tourist underground train to see the Pearl TV Tower, caught the Shanghai acrobats show, ate a ton of good food, and of course, took them for massages after all that!

They were amazed to see all the craziness in first person after faithfully reading our blog entries over the past year. And Tiffany and I were proud to show off Shanghai and all its “unique” features and idiosyncrasies, from the variety of street food vendors throwing together wok-fuls of piping hot noodles and hawkers of fake goods taking us into hidden closets where the “good” fake stuff was, to the frightening web of pedestrian/bike/moped/ car/bus/truck traffic flying criss-cross and every direction and the bright neon lights emblazoning the buildings and highways to illuminate the city as the sun went down.

Random artistic shot of Tiffany at Tomorrow's Square (it's a JW Marriott building, not a Disney World exhibit):

And they were the first to participate in what Tiffany and I hope will be a successful new tradition. I’ve been complaining for months about how bare the walls are in our apartment and trying to figure out a way to spruce them up. We finally figured, why not make our guests work a little while they’re here, and help us decorate a bit. So our guest room will now be an open canvas for all future guests to leave their mark!

Two of These Things Are Not Like the Others

In China, it is very common for companies to take the whole company on a weekend trip. From what I've heard from my co-workers, the main qualifiers of a company trip are: A) It must be a 48 hour trip on the weekend to a location in China. B) The food must be terrible. C) The attendees must spent lots of time on a bus and surrender themselves to a flag-wielding, fast walking, history spouting guide. Fortunately for me (but probably unfortunately for Zach), I got to bring him along to experience my first company outing to Nanjing. With Zach in tow, the two of us represented the only two people of the 200-person group that were not fluent in Chinese, which always makes for an interesting time.

Nanjing, a former capital of China, has a population of 5M people, a mere fraction of Shanghai's. Yet, we were shocked to find the Nanjing train station just as packed as the one we had left. This once again proves that China is no place for the claustrophobic.....

First stop on the itinerary, Sun Yat-Sen's sacred memorial. We climbed exactly 392 steps to get to the purple-roofed building that housed the tomb of the founding father of modern China.

Once inside the purple topped tomb, signs in English were everywhere stating that photos were forbidden. In every relationship, there always has to be a rule-breaker. This photo firmly clarifies that this title does not belong to me......

...fortunately for blog readers, my stealth hand gestures and strong verbal warnings were not strong enough to dissuade my camera aggressive partner.

Since the tours were given in Chinese, 99% of the tour guide's insights were lost on Zach and I, so we took to amusing ourselves by taking entertaining pictures. In this photo, I'm putting bunny ears on my assistant, Elian. Some of you may remember the 'one piece of watermelon' entry from last spring. This is, in fact, the girl that wanted 'one more piece of watermelon' and was 'shamed by the cafeteria worker' who withheld the beloved chinese fruit from her. I couldn't totally understand what she was saying to this guy during the time of the picture, but I do vaguely remember something being said about the lack of cantaloupe at lunch.......

Turtles were popular in Nanjing. I'm sure our guide explained this in detail, but unfortunately, we haven't gotten to the amphibian unit of our Chinese classes yet. So again, reverting to junior high, we go back to entertaining ourselves with the classic 'this turtle's got my head' shot.

Randy the rulebreaker strikes again, as Zach talked me into illegally sitting on what is probably some sacred shrine to the Head Turtle of Nanjing........

Here's a shot of Zach looking stately in front of yet another turtle.

Here is a picture of me and some of my co-workers at the Ming Tombs................

While we neither learned as much detail about Nanjing's history as the rest of the group nor figured out the mystery of the turtles, Zach and I still did have fun hanging out with my co-workers and seeing cool things such as the president's former residence and Ming Tombs. This weekend, we look forward to a visit from our DC friends (and faithful blog readers) Amanda and Andrew.

"Mmmmm... Beer." - Homer Simpson

Qingdao, Land of Beer!
Fresh streams of golden amber,
another round, please.

So we're temporarily unable to post picures along with our blog entries. Until that is remedied we will just have to dazzle you with our descriptive writing skills. In a pinch, I always revert to haiku... Hmm, ok that's not going to work. A better bet would be to check our posted pictures after reading this entry, which you can access by clicking along the right side of our blog page. It's titled something like "tiff and zach's photo stream", and then on the right hand side of that page click "Qingdao". This is also the direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiffandzach/ , after which you also click "Qingdao".


Tiff and I traveled north, to Qingdao two weekends ago, with our friends Marc and Meredith. Marc and Meredith actually went to Penn with me, and then we ran into them here in Shanghai, of all places. Meredith works for the U.S. Consulate which is also at the Shanghai Centre, so she and Tiffany had gotten a chance to know each other going to lunch together. Qingdao is only a little more than an hour flight from Shanghai, and this was the last weekend of their annual three week beer festival.

We knew the trip was going to be a good one when it started with a sign in the airport directing qualified passengers to relax in a special lounge. "Qualified" in this case meant "For the old, weak or pregnant." Chinese are nothing if not direct!

Qingdao is well known as a resort town in China, and we passed bus after bus crammed with Chinese tourists. It has a beautiful beach coastline that actually reminded me a little of Monterey. It's also known for it's hilly, tree-lined streets and European architecture. In China's history, various regions have been "conceded" to invading forces, and Qingdao was, in the early 1900's, a German concession. The ever-industrious Germans, needing a new home to celebrate Oktoberfest, quickly built a brewery in town, which has survived to this day, and now produces the world-renowned Tsingtao beer.

We got a chance to tour the brewery which was pretty interesting, and all weekend local residents and tourists were relaxing and drinking big bottles of Tsingtao along the beach and at outdoor sidewalk cafes and restaurants. We enjoyed our own dinner feast at a great restaurant where we got to pick out our seafood dishes, while they were still swimming around in their tanks! Crab season just starting and we had some great fresh crab. There was a particularly scary jar of snake liquor, I believe, on the bar, with a whole snake coiled up inside! Suffice to say, we stuck with beer.

The Germans also built a beautiful cathedral up in the hills that is visible all over town. The interior, however, was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960’s and rebuilt by the Chinese in the 1970’s. Apparently the bold, slightly outlandish culture of the disco 70’s was not strictly limited to the US. The interior of the church reveals the wide variety of bright paint colors available to designers of the time. Marc also tells us the image of “God” appearing over Jesus in the main mural at the front of the church is borderline sacrilegious. It does sort of remind me of the irreverent Monty Python movie, “Search for the Holy Grail”…

Qingdao is also helping host the 2008 Olympics by holding all the sailing events in their newly built facility on the ocean. We are starting to see signs of the Olympics all over China, and Qingdao's Olympic sailing facility was a lot of fun to tour.

We also visited a castle residence built by the Germans with gorgeous ocean views. In a decidedly Chinese touch, there was a "Love Playgound", complete with a giant heart teeter totter, and faux wedding aisle built into the castle gardens. Of course they charged us extra to take pictures in the garden, but for 25 cents we just couldn't turn it down!

The rest of the time we spent strolling along the boardwalk taking in the sights and enjoying the salty ocean air. We walked by a picturesque spot overrun by brides and grooms taking dramatic wedding photos. Tiffany got stopped for a picture herself, which led to the picture taker wanting his turn, and then some passerbys also wanted to get in the action. All told, Tiffany stood patiently and smiled along for about 15 photo ops with random Chinese men! It was very funny how intrigued they were. Finally, like a true celebrity handler, I waved them off, as a bit of a throng was beginning to gather, and pulled her away from her crowd of admirers.

Next time, on the blog: A trip to Nanjing with Tiffany's co-workers! Chills and thrills as Tiff and Zach sit dumbfounded on a tour bus while everyone yells at each other in Chinese for a weekend.

Will Travel for Good Blogging Topics

We apologize for the delay in entries, but lately, we've been doing a lot of small weekend trips around China. This has increased our fodder for good blogging with lots of stories and photos, but has decreased the amount of time we've had to actually update the blog with quality entries. So to tide you over, be sure to check out some of our recent photos by clicking on on the 'Tiff and Zach's Photo Stream' under 'Links' to your right. You'll be able to take a peek at some of our recent adventures, which will supplement our forthcoming entries where we will include a few of these shots and plenty of 'peanut gallery-esque' comments. Most recently, we've taken trips to Nanjing, the old capital city, and Qingdao, a quaint seaside town that was once conceded to the Germans (which is apparent in the town's architecture and love of beer). We finally have a travel/guest free weekend coming up and will do our best to 'bring the funny' to our upcoming entries, but for now, enjoy the pictures!

New Year, New Look

It's hard to believe, but today marks our 1 year anniversary in Shanghai! To mark the occasion, we've given the blog a new look. Twelve months and 116 blog posts later, we're still as entertained as ever by our surroundings. Apparently, the culture and customs are rubbing off on us.....Case in point, recently, Zach thought it would be brilliant to wear our matching 'Black Eyed Peas Concert shirts out to dinner. It is extremely popular for couples to dress alike on purpose. There's even a Chinese term for it, 'qing lu shan', which literally translates to "emotions alike clothing". Our friends insisted we take a picture in front of one of the concert ads to fully document our 'qing lu shan' debut.