The Travelling Strawberry: Spring Break Visitors!

I had many adventures last week when Breanna, Tyler and Bernd came to visit me. The simplest things kept them very occupied as evidenced by the fact that grocery shopping kept them entertained for an hour.

Grocery Shopping:
- I had them try and steer the carts here. They're different :) And apparently difficult. They slide around. But once you get used to them, the carts back in the states are super annoying.
- They found naked turtles. I usually don't go to the live seafood section, but it kept them entertained for awhile.
- "Green" things can sometimes be flavored mint I supposed, but look out, in China it's also green tea flavored. Yummy oreos :)

Bike Riding:
I took them up into the hills and the villages, and down through the busy streets in Beilun.
- They survived :) Once you understand traffic, it really does flow beautifully.
- We stopped and talked to a very sweet couple from one of the villages. Between my broken Mandarin and Tyler cheat sheet that he made, we were able to have a fairly basic conversation!

Shanghai:
- We spent much of our time trying to track down Tyler's bank, which ended up being in a building called 'Park Place' (Wanna buy it?!) but along the way we found so much more.
- We ran into the Jing'an Temple.
- We found the sports bar I was looking ... which I thought was actually 3 more subway stops down.
- A funny looking rhinoceros... ?
- We ate yummy street food, and in doing so met the 4 little grandma's out for their evening walk. We also had a basic conversation with them. Every small piece of understanding in Mandarin was a huge victory.

Mandarin: Oh the small victories!
- First, I was able to order bus tickets correctly, TWICE, including specifying the day and time that I would like to travel. Woot woot!
- And several successful encounters with some locals. These 3 people made me get out of my apartment complex and interact with the public, which was nice for a change. Sometimes I hibernate after a long day at work.
- Bernd came to one of my Mandarin lessons. He was very overwhelmed, which is of course, how I feel each time. But it was nice to have someone understand how much it makes your brain work, and how you just want to be a zombie afterwards.

Maybe it doesn't seem like much, I can't remember all the little silly things that happened ... like maybe I left out that I almost caught my kitchen fire when the oil in the pan spontaneously ignited into foot high flames ... but you know, it was a good week. Here are some favorites: