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In early December we had several co-workers in town from the Orlando office so we took them to see an acrobatic show in Shanghai called ERA. We had never seen the show before, but had read about it online and heard it was similar to Cirque du Soleil which we had been to several times in Orlando and really enjoyed. The show was absolutely unbelievable and I would recommend it to anyone in town. They didn’t allow pictures so sadly I can’t share any of it here, but if I had to briefly describe it - I would say Cirque on Steroids. They did many of the amazing things you would see at Cirque, but always took it to the next level with much more danger… all safety cautions removed. This includes 6 motorcycles speeding at ... read more

Food is one thing in China that is very foreign to other places we’ve visited. Sometimes I’m blown away by the things that are cooked and presented as ‘food’. When it comes to food in the US – I consider myself open to try anything. That is definitely not the case here. There is a saying in China… if you can cook it, they will eat it. Many of the food conveniences of the US are either not available, not safe to eat, or simply ridiculously expensive to buy here. (We found a western/expat grocery store with cereal… too bad they were selling it for $14 a box!) This has led us to be a little creative in our cuisine choices. We’ve certainly had some interesting experiences with food. Here are two that happened recently that ... read more

One beautiful fall Saturday in early November, we decided to check out Zhujiajiao (which means Zhu family settlement). It’s an ancient water village (kind of like a Chinese Venice but slightly less remarkable) that was built 1700 years ago. According to our travel guide, we had to find the pink bus near People’s Square with the characters 沪朱高速快线 on it. We arrived early and went searching for the pink bus. After carefully scrutinizing the characters on the front of the bus, we realized it was the one (the only one) with a line down the street. When in China, if you’re going somewhere touristy, just look for the long line. We waited for about an hour and a half and watched 3 buses come and go. We finally boarded a bus and paid our measly 12 ... read more

Beware this blog is going to be full of random thoughts! We have officially made it one month in China! Can you believe it?! Just as we expected, time is flying by! Guess we must be having fun! If you’ve kept up with the blog, you’ve read about all the fun we’re having experiencing new adventures everyday! Well, during my first month I have learned that there are some cultural differences that I am never going to get over. I wouldn’t call myself high maintenance… I like camping, wildlife, experiencing new places (clean or dirty, exotic or luxurious); hell I’ll even eat chicken out of an open-air bin and taste pig’s tongue! But I do enjoy living a rather comfortable and clean lifestyle in which I don’t have to worry about contracting diseases from foreign creatures ... read more

Last Saturday (October 9)… we had the exciting opportunity to visit the World Expo, which is coincidentally in Shanghai while we’re here! Since May, the World Expo has attracted over 60 million visitors to the Shanghai area. Can you imagine the boost in economy of the city hosting such a large event (wake up United States)! Well, Expo was amazing to see! If you don’t know what Expo is, it’s basically a big park (similar to Disney World’s Epcot) where you can walk around and learn about countries around the world without actually travelling there. Most countries build a pavilion which represents the character of their nation inside and out. We didn’t go inside many pavilions since the lines were miles long, but as engineers we enjoyed the architectural features of the buildings more than we ... read more