Travel Week

This week we will be traveling to the southern part of the Fujian province. We have the first week of October off - I know, we haven't even been in school very long, but we're not complaining. We booked tickets last week and fly out of Shanghai on Saturday morning. We'll land in Fuzhou and take a bus to Xiamen and then fly back out of Fuzhou on the following Saturday. We really don't know much about the destinations, but we've done a bit of research on www.ctrip.com. It's a great site and will tell you all about where we'll be. We won't have our computers with us, so we'll be out of contact for the week. We'll hopefully have some good travel stories and pictures when we return.

Take care and have a great week!

This is the area that we will be traveling in. A few days in Fuzhou and a few in Xiamen.

Go Sharks!

Today was the first soccer practice for the SMIC Sharks fifth and sixth grade boys soccer team. We will be a force to be reckoned with! Some of the kids don't speak English, but I speak the international language of soccer. We'll practice a few times a week and play on Thursdays. I wasn't expecting to coach soccer again after I hung up the cleats at MHS, but they must have heard about my state championship with the Zephs. They begged me to coach. I can't escape my fame even across the globe. Oh well, all I know how to do is win. Ho, hum, another ring for my collection.

An active weekend

This past weekend we went up into the fourth tallest building in the world - the Jin Mao Building. It was incredible! The views were a bit hazy because of the pollution, but still impressive.

Looking out from the Jin Mao building. That's the Huangpu River and the Pearl Tower. The Jin Mao is on the Pudong side of the river (the good side).

Outside the Jin Mao building.

True love is good at this elevation.

A Journey Across the Huangpu River

This is a view from the ferry.

This weekend we traveled to Puxi to pick up some clothes from the clothing market. It's unbelievable! You just walk in, point to material and they make whatever you want - and it's cheap. So far I've gotten about four shirts and three pairs of pants made. I was disappointed to find out that parachute pants are out of the question. Bummer. We felt daring and took the ferry across the Huangpu river. This is the river that separates the city of Shanghai into two halves - Puxi (pronounce "Poo-she") and Pudong (which is where we live). We got some strange looks, but that's nothing new for us.