Shanghai

Hey,

I just got back from a four day jaunt to Shanghai. I went with Sophia and Shevin to visit their friend Kelly, who works in an international school there.

It was a great visit and Kelly is really great. We had a good time eating and going out. We managed to do a little shopping and some sight-seeing as well. We saw the Bund, the French Concession and one of the world's tallest buildings, the Jinmao building. It's in the photo below.

Shanghai is a cool city. It's pretty polluted, but as it was raining the whole time we were there, it wasn't that bad.

One of my highlights was going to a bootleg DVD store that was no longer there. However, a dude gave us a card with the new address and a ride to the new place in his SUV. When we got there, the store was unmarked and had a false front as a pottery store. Cool. Very James Bondy......

It was cool. Now I'm looking forward to winter break. Right now the plan is 2 weeks in India and one in Thailand. But, as a wise man once told me, "Plan is plan and plan can change."

I'll keep you up to date.

Love,
jc

Happy Thanksgiving!

Greetings to all, I hope you are enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday. My Thanksgiving actually began early this year. Last month, some of the Canadians at school got together to celebrate their Thanksgiving and were kind enough to invite the rest of the world to their party. We had a grand feast indeed, with turkey, stuffing and all of the trimmings. It was a really good meal.

Then last weekend the staff at our school got together to celebrate with the annunal Turkey Bowl. Team America set out to protect our precious undefeated record, and the competition was tough. After the American National Anthem had finished, we endured the Canadian anthem, the New Zealand anthem and the Korean anthem as Team Commonwealth tried to intimidate us with the classic "freeze out" strategy. Undeterred we took the field and began the epic struggle that is flag football. It was a hard-fought battle, but in the end, America wavered and we tied at 28. It was a great game and we followed with another feast. This time it was chili dogs and about 6 different sweet potato dishes (a parent from our school gave each teacher 5kg of sweet potatoes....).

It was a great excuse to get out and have a barbeque, enjoy the fresh air and grow a moustache.

Love,
jc