Well, where to begin. Let's start with the most important thing: it's our 3/7 year anniversary this week - 3 years since we were married, and 7 years since we met. Both are the same day, because we're cute like that. We spent the day going around the city together, and hoo boy, what a day. We left in the morning and didn't get back until bedtime. I even took a little nap at a coffee shop. Before that though, we got some amazing Thai food. This was a nice surprise, because up to now I have been immensely disappointed at Thai food in China. I've seen so many recommendations, like "this one is authentic, that one is authentic." I promise you, almost every one has been trash. Like, one place we tried had *sweet* basil fried pork. What the heck is that? That's like a bitter hamburger or a meaty ice cream. It just doesn't make sense. Thank goodness we found this one, because it has some of the best curry I've ever had, including Thailand. For the rest of the day, we walked around the city checking out the architecture, snacking around, just being a couple. We even stopped at Tian Ai Road, or "Sweet Love Road". It's a nice name, but there isn't much there. A ton of "X loves Y" graffiti that people wrote, right next to the sign that says "Don't write graffiti". For dinner we went to a Bulgarian restaurant, which I was excited for because I have never seen a Bulgarian restaurant before and had no idea what Bulgarian food is like. Turns out, it's pretty similar to Turkish food. But I like Turkish food more. Sorry, Bulgaria. I'm willing to give you another chance.

Another milestone is approaching as well, because in just a week or two will be the end of the semester. That also marks the end of my gig at this school. If I had not mentioned it before, I am moving to the school Ella works at now. We have a few friends who are already there, and it just seems much better run overall. Plus they're offering a higher salary, so it would be foolish to turn it down.

I'm talking too much, so here's a friendly stray cat.

My current school has been... fine. I don't think it's the worst I've worked at, but I'd struggle to say it was the best. Don't get me wrong, I'm still thankful for the opportunity, and I am convinced teaching abroad is one of the best jobs out there. But in truth, I've never worked in a place that I've been content with - see the previous blog for my thoughts on work. Still, I've never found one in the goldilocks zone -  there's always something that is annoying about them. They're often different things, so it's sort of hard to compare. For this one, their deal is that they're incredibly stingy. The way that affects me is by putting a lot of disincentives in the way - even things like getting poster paper involves paperwork, and yes, I appreciate the irony of that. I can understand wanting to reduce waste, but in reality I have been planning lessons and thought "This activity would be good to do, but the admin makes it not worth the trouble." And that sucks, for the kids mostly. Speaking of the kids, I've gotten quite lucky. In the past, I'd often see for example, ten different classes twice a week. This makes planning really easy, but at the same time with 300 students, I don't really get to know any of them. At this school I was seeing a smaller number of kids more frequently, and to help planning it's divided up with your co-teachers. The coordination can be a pain but it's probably better in the end, because I actually got to know my kids pretty well, and their behavior improved a ton compared to when I started. I will miss (some of) them for a while, but I guess I'm too emotionally cold compared to teachers who stay at jobs they should have left because of an attachment to their students. I mean yeah, they're cool kids. I'd be willing to help them down the road. But I'm ready to move on. This probably explains why I'm not interested in having kids of my own, because I hear there is no return policy for them - not even store credit.

But this is a travel blog first and foremost, so what travel have we done? To start, we went to the World Expo Museum. What is a world expo, you ask? Well that is a silly question, it's right there in the name. Shanghai had theirs back in 2010, and believe it or not, it was a really big deal. Probably not on the world stage, but for Shanghai it was. This was right after the Beijing Olympics, where China was all about the "show the world how amazing we are" thing. So the world expo marked a pretty big turning point for the city. In the run up they built a million metro lines, cleaned up all the street food, and basically turned it from a "lived-in, Chinese city" to a "world city". Of course this was before I had ever been here, but it's easy to imagine what it would have been like. I mean, I lived in Guangzhou, which despite being similar in population has a very different feel from Shanghai. Guangzhou feels like China, whereas Shanghai feels like Singapore, or Tokyo. I like them both, but... wait, I was talking about the museum.

So the museum is one of the pavilions leftover from the expo, and now it's basically just a collection of some of the stuff the countries were willing to donate. They have some very interesting things, and it is worth a look. But you get the impression from this big building it's going to be a massive exhibit, when in reality, there's not all that much. I wonder what the rest of the building is used for. Anyway, some very neat things, worth a look. The exhibit from Thailand was especially nice, it brought back some memories. This place sort of flies under the radar of tourist attractions in the city, and it's pretty centrally located. So I think it's worth stopping off in if you've got time.

The museum train keeps on rolling though, with the Minhang Museum and the Jewish Refugee Museum up next. The Minhang Museum is the district we live in, and it's fine. As you'd expect, it goes through what Minhang used to look like back in the day, along with some things discovered here. Surprise - it's pottery. I think I've gone on record that pottery at museums suck. News flash - everywhere has pottery. It all looks like brown pots. In fact this is the official record for this blog: Museum pottery sucks. Anyway, the museum is pretty small, but it did have some things that were pretty cool, like old musical instruments. Worth it for us to kill time on a Saturday but definitely not for any visitors.

The Jewish Refugee Museum though... wow. This should be at the top of Shanghai tourist attractions. Quick backstory, although you can probably guess, around WWII some Jews fleeing Europe ended up here. The museum talks about their crazy journey to get here, their life, etc.. And I know being a museum in China, they want to show their best side. But honestly, even after digging, I found that the Jews really were treated super well by the locals. There was a lot of community outreach and help to get them acquainted, and everyone seemed to get along really well. And then, shortly after they got settled, the Japanese invaded, so things went from bad to worse. But they weren't left to fend for themselves, the locals still shared what they had and were just solid people overall. So that's a nice story to give you a warm and fuzzy. Also, the museum itself is just fantastic. Really well done, with super high-tech displays that feel like you're in Minority Report. It can get a little dark at times, but still, can't recommend it enough. A+ experience.

Now to turn back to an anti-recommendation, I have to call out Jingan Temple. So, if you've ever been to Shanghai before, you know Jingan Temple. It's a big metro station, smack in the middle of the "foreigner" part of town, surrounded by malls and restaurants. Not exaggerating, I've probably walked past or under it a hundred times. But I have never gone in. One Saturday we were in the area with time to kill, so we thought "Why not? If it's in the middle of everything, it's got to be good, right?"

Not really, no.

I should really listen more to Past Mike, who has gone on record to say "If you've seen one temple, you've seen 99% of them." Jingan is a perfectly fine temple, but has nothing special to offer. And certainly is not amazing enough to charge 50 yuan ($8) a person. The fact that they charge anything at all is kind of weird, if they're a temple shouldn't they be supported by donations? Anyway, if you're in Shanghai, I would only recommend it if you've never seen a Chinese temple before and are super short on time. While not 100% Chinese, a much prettier, more interesting, and cheaper option is the Jade Temple, which is only 2 stops away. It has a bit of Japanese inspiration, but is still quite cool and peaceful, unlike the throngs of tourists that descend on Jingan every holiday.

For travel, I suppose that's it for the time being. At least until summer, where we have plans to travel around. Probably towards the center of the country, somewhere like Chongqing / Chengdu / Xian. I've never been there before, so they're worth a look. And honestly, there's not too many other places in China that I'm eager to check out. Xinjiang is one of them, but I've heard the bureaucracy is annoying during normal times, and with COVID it's on another level. So that may have to wait a bit. I'm also curious about Tibet. I've brought Tibet up a few times with folks during my stay in China, and the ones that have visited there all give me the same answer - it's just not that interesting. So while I am curious, it's gone down the list. If I was reaching for more places to go, it'd probably be Harbin, Guilin, Xiamen, and Dalian. By then I would consider myself pretty well-traveled in China, and hey, it will only take like 20 years to get there. Being married to a Chinese person, I bet one day I will get to that point. No rush though.