Who is singing??

The city has street sweepers on nearly every block picking up trash, planting flowers, and trimming plants. They all don light blue uniforms with plentiful reflective stripes, and matching hats. Except for one fellow I saw, who had on a sombrero, colorful embroidery and rim flipped up and was happily singing as he went his way! How admirable to have no shame.

My office is on the 17th floor not too much of a commute from street level, but enough to see what people are doing on their roofs. (Laundry and storage, mostly) My desk faces the open window, and in comes the sounds of car horns, squeaky brakes, and singing. Singing? It wasn't just one person either- it was a group, sounding like a choir, maybe on their first day. After 5 minutes, they didn't stop; my curiosity got the best of me as I peered out the window to a hair salon below with 8-10 people in uniform standing in formation, and doing exercises(?) in unison while singing! They didn't look like they were enjoying it, but was kinda a cool way to start your workday, I suppose!

photo collecting

Here are some intriguing pics that I've been holding on to for a while.

From our weekly trek to the fruit store:


Pedaling hard, the recyclers on tricycles pick up cardboard and/or bottles. When we were in thailand, it was late evening and impossible to be seen/get a taxi back to our hotel. The only person who stopped for us was a recycle lady like this one. She was really sweet, (and also had a motor powered bike to pull her load) We rode for about 20 minutes on top of stacks of cardboard in open air. It was amazing.



This is my green onion plant. My friend's mom used to do this in Oakland, so I thought I'd try it, so I'd have green onions all the time. But they are soooo tiny I can hardly taste them.



Guess what these are! Candy. Chinese Candy, yes. Timon kept saying, "Ooh, these are so good! You should have one!" And I couldn't figure out how Shrimp flavored candy could ever taste "good"- I had a shrimp waffle before and it was g-r-o-s-s. And when you open the paper wrapper, the candy inside is a beige log with brown/grey stripes, like a shrimp- I guess. Well, contrary to its packaging, it IS delicious!!! It's actually a Butterfinger!!!! Score 1 for Chinese candy! We just have to figure out how to buy more.

sightings

Today I saw an old man cross a busy street by yelling and threatening cars with an umbrella. There were about 10 of us on the center divide waiting for the 3 lanes of traffic to stop, but this fearless fellow was not losing any time. Some stared in disbelief and concern, and one man chuckled at the old man.

After work, a lady put her very cute puppy in the basket of her bicycle, and proceeded to walk her bike out to the street, and the puppy, with his paws on the handlebars, trying to get out. It was heart warming!

And upon getting to my apt complex, a frenchman came asking around for a certain address, but talking to me in mandarin. I was couldn't decipher his Chinese (mostly my problem, but maybe his too) and then was confounded whether I should respond to him in Mandarin, French, or English. I chose the latter. I think we were both confused.

This weekend Timon's Uncle was in town for a business trip and allowed us to drag him all over the city showing him amazing things! One of our faves was the Urban Planning museum, which has a huge scaled model of the city:



This view shows our area, Zhongshan park. The tall grey building on the left is the Renaissance hotel, and has bright blue lights making it a great navigating point at nighttime.

Flat sam

Flat Sam came to visit us here in Shanghai.Flat Sam, being a flat self portrait of my adorable cousin back home. She has adorable high heeled shoes, and a matching purse!




On the Bund 外滩 seeing the famous Pearl Tower.

yougurt

A little while back I got the grand idea to make my own yogurt. I love eating it everyday with my breakfast but hate hauling all the little tubs form the store and spilling it on myself because the lids are so securely melted on.

I did some research, and was delighted to find that I only needed to incubate boiled milk with the yogurt culture in it! I dreamt of fresh tart yogurt (Chinese yogurt tends to be really sweet) But it required LIVE yogurt culture- sold in packets in the states. Tad out of my reach, but figured it wouldn't hurt to just try with some yogurt from the shop.

Then I forgot about the yogurt dream until I saw this:



Cultured yogurt? Native american? Afro yogurt? is it the flavor?.....what would Native american yogurt taste like?

Flat me + super spring!

This is Flat Samantha, my cousin from Cali. She came to visit me thru the mail, and I am showing her around shanghai, and sending her home with some cool souvenirs! Flat Sam's project was inspired by Flat Stanley a book about a boy who travels places, by sending a flat version of himself through the mail. You get the idea.

So here is Flat Sam sitting in on a Chinese lesson at our house. Tomorrow we will go to the Bund and see the pearl tower!