Blogs from Pudong, Shanghai, China, Asia

I have never been very good at languages. I took Latin in high school, from the teacher who probably invented it. Then German at U.C. Berkeley, which I enjoyed but could not dedicate much study to. My grandparents across the street spoke mostly Japanese. Since we grew up with them, we have a decent vocabulary, and know the correct pronunciation of much conversational Japanese. And I have studied numerous online Japanese language courses prior to our visits to Japan. I enjoy Pimsler the most, very straight forward, conversational and interactive. No hangups on grammar. But Japanese, German, and English do not compare in difficulty to the five most difficult in the world. What are they? Turkish is the 5th hardest, perhaps most prevalent in its agglutination, in which multiple individual words are pushed together to create ... read more

Sizzling and Spectacular Shanghai – December, 2016 Mainland China has always beckoned to me, and even though I have visited Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan previously, I consider them to be just tasty appetizers compared to the dazzling entrées that China offers. When the Chinese government decided to expand their visa-free transit policy for a few specific locations back in January, it was a sign…..destiny was knocking on my travel door….Shanghai here I come! For anyone also considering Shanghai as a destination, this newly-expanded policy is a godsend, but of course there are restrictions which apply (isn’t there always a dark side?) Currently, travel to Shanghai is allowed for a layover of up to 144 hours (6 days in total, as the clock begins counting down at 12:01am the morning after airport arrival). The caveat here ... read more

I woke up Thursday morning at 5am, which apparently was my new normal wake-up time, and did my usual routine of work, gym, and getting ready before breakfast. Once again I stuffed my face at the buffet - my low-cal start to the day included a Japanese beef soup, sesame ball, kim chi, Singapore friend noodles, air-dried beef, shrimp shumai, sushi, and a few other things washed down with coffee and watermelon juice. I had to refrain from a full plate of seconds. The morning in the office was again fairly leisurely, with only a couple hours of training before it was already time for lunch. My coworker Xiuran invited me out with him for a sort of street food from a hole in the wall own the street. "Not healthy, but I like it", as ... read more

The tour guide in Beijing said that ‘Beijing is China today; Shanghai is China - future!’ within moments of arriving I see what she means. We arrived at modern Shanghai Honqiao station and within minutes we were heading towards the centre on the busiest subway system in the world. Our destination for the next five nights, was to be a hotel near Peoples Square, as we would later find out, very convenient for exploring Shanghai. We thought we had booked a hostel, but had been previously bought and renovated by a big chain. The first words from the receptionist was that our room was in use, our tired bodies slumped, ‘so we have upgraded you’, yes-result! It turned out to be a very nice suite which done us well for our time here. With large cities ... read more

Well, it's been a month now since I've come to China. It hasn't been an easy road. When I left for China I was ready to have an amazing time. When I got here things didn't come as easily as they have in the past. This trip so far has been filled many issues that I've had to overcome. There are days where it feels like I can't overcome them. But I'm not alone. God put some amazing people in my life over this past month. They have helped me through when I felt like giving in. I'm now in my apartment. This is one of the things that has been so hard about this trip. I've had so many problems with the apartment. The air conditioner in the bedroom wasn't working so that delayed my ... read more