Shanghai

Nihao! Our apologies for the century it took for us to update you. We are still in Shanghai, and have been contemplating our next move. We slowed down the pace a little and have been focusing more on chillaxin' after a month of fastpaced sightseeing. Justin landed an english teaching gig with wee kids a few times a week, Kyle and I decided to extend our visa's for another month and are heading to Taiwan after that to try to find our own teaching jobs, hopefully with a visit to Hong Kong first. So...we've been staying with Kendra, SOnja and Cori for over a month now, and today we are moving into a place we will rent for the remainder of our stay here. We've seen some pretty cool stuff so far. A highlight is definitely Shanghai biking...pretty chaotic, and incredibly fun. Also very interesting to see highrise buildings here, and then small alleys with chickens and ducks running around everywhere. Also lots of small hidden restaurants, shops (bags and watches...you buy...good friend....7 for 100 RMB!) small barber shops, excetera. Had a birthday on Saturday, my 26th one. Was a pretty sweet day....started it off with a game of Risk, then had a bunch of people over, played drinking games and 'catchphrase' (do yourself a favor and look into it), had a roundtable freestyle with some guitars. Then headed out to a few bars in the wee A.M., and woke up without a hangover. It was like magic. First taste of Canadian Club for a while too...it brings you back. Checking out an acrobat show on friday, and did a bit of travelling to a small town nearby with a very scenic hike around a lake. Also paid a visit to a mansion that people rent out for parties the other day. It doesn't take long in Shanghai to start seeing the same foreigners at the bar and at parties...very cool that we already know a lot of them. Hopefully will be checking out some more mountaineous regions before we settle down in Taiwan for a while and the Tree Loose Moose split up to 1 and 2 moose and meeses respectively. Haven't had any crazy food really, but we have seen tiger paws, snakes and toads, and lots of pigs feet in grocery stores. Kyle's been playing football (soccer) a few times a week...Justin and I went to watch the last game...and drink...turns out they needed some goalkeepers for the game to happen, so we filled in, beers in hand. Try playing soccer in sandals on turf and not spilling your can. Went to see a live band at a music venue the other day as well....first time in a Chinese moshpit, rocking out to lyrics I don't understand. Linkin Park, Kanye West, and Avril Lavigne shows coming up before we leave too...might have to bite the bullet and check out one of them.

So, as you can tell, not as much sightseeing over the last month....really just soaking in the Shanghai experience. Hopefully will fit in some Shanghai go-karting and paintball, and maybe some shark diving if we're lucky (tried once already but missed our ride). Also gonna have a bunch of suits tailor made for us for incredibly cheap, and send them home, so the next time you see us we should be pretty spiffy lookin. Will try to get some more pics up for you, and start updating more regularly again. Cheers and thanks for checking in!

Mike