Here are a few of my (Tiffany's) friends from work. These are the girls that are fully responsible for navigating me through life in Shanghai. They provide me with lots of mandarin vocabulary, shopping tips and do the majority of my ordering in restaurants. They're great, except for the first 'hazing' day where my lunch included jellyfish and pork blood cubes! Since then, the meals have gotten A LOT better! 

Sep 14 (2 of 2) - And here is proud dad Mike, wisely shielding the baby from Dan, who was already trying to gauge Dylan's hand-eye coordination and athletic potential. Early word is that Dylan has "powerful legs"! 

Hmm, let's try this again. 

sep 12 - so here's an argument for language study: Today, as usual, I got lost. Unfortunately, as I was trying to meet Tiffany at 6pm (it was 5:57pm), I was in kind of a hurry. Lesson 1: ALWAYS bring a map. I, of course, had left mine at home, confident in my heretofore 7 day crash course on Shanghai navigation. So a very nice Chinese lady gave me the "look", as in "you poor chinese boy who can't speak chinese what is wrong with you boy are you pitiful" look and was trying to help me. It was going nowhere, so I grabbed a random white person walking by and asked if he could help me. The only English he knew was, "I'm sorry, I don't speak English." Lesson 2: All language study is GOOD. He then asked if I spoke French, or how about Spanish? "Yo hablo espanol!" I replied excitedly. Anyhoo, he gave me perfect directions in a jumbled combination of Chinese, Spanish and broken English, and it turns out I was only about 3 blocks away from Tiffany's work. Chalk one up for Piedmont High's Spanish Department! 

Sep 10 - Also, a big CONGRATULATIONS to Becky & Mike Ordin!!! I heard through Dan Jin that Becky delivered their first child, Dylan Thomas Ordin, 7 lbs. 4 oz., 20 inches long, on September 9th. Hopefully, pictures to follow :) 

Sep 10 - One last note, today marks our first full week in China, and it's amazing how much we've done in just one week, and how many highs and lows we've been through! It has been a real adventure! 

Sep 10 (5 of 5) - As well, the locals have been nothing short of saintly in the patience they exhibit with our feeble language abilities. They are always happy and eager to try and help us, and though they might be laughing at us, hey, at least they're laughing. So eventually we always end up getting (sort of) what we were trying for. We might not get the exact food we thought, but we're not starving either. And each little daily task we accomplish becomes cause for celebration! So today when we figured out our hot water heater (ok, so our landlord had to show us), we danced the Dance of Joy for at least 10 minutes! Our level of appreciation for previously-taken-for-granted tasks is at all time highs! The first steps are always the hardest, but we constantly remind ourselves that they are also ultimately the most rewarding. We didn't expect the move to be easy, so now it's just a matter of putting in the hard time. While daunting, our life here improves every day and we are encouraged. I look forward to documenting increasing victories over the next many months, and decreasing frustrations!