I feel official "settled" now.

I'm going to bore you a bit and talk to future me about our new life in Shanghai (with photos!). To sum it up, living next to "things" is a game changer. I think one of the things I didn't like as much in Guangzhou is that the only place in walking distance was a supermarket and a few local restaurants - and even that was about 15 minutes. What a change to here, with so much being a few minutes walk. Farmers markets, western and local restaurants, banks, Carrefour (like Walmart), movie theater, malls (they just opened another yesterday, so now there are four right next to each other), and two metro stations. One of the lines has a lot of the popular sights and nightlife of the city, and the "fun stuff" starts just 3 stops up. So this is definitely the closest I've lived to the heart of a large city, and the closest I've lived to a metro station. I think it's not a secret how much I like metros, so the only way things could be improved is if I could move my work and home on top of one. (or in one?) But for now, I thought I'd give you a tour of our neighborhood. There's so much around that I feel we still have a lot to discover, but at least you'll get an idea of what "regular life" in Shanghai looks like.

Outside our door

Our street

One of the malls

Footbridge from the mall to metro

Not on the commute, to Ella's disappointment.

Speaking of work, I have my commute worked out. I've walked once or twice, but it's about 25 minutes. Then I took the bus, which took about 15. I found out it's much faster to take a bike. China is pretty big on these dockless bikes, where you scan a QR code on the back and it unlocks. They cost 1.5 yuan per rental (20 cents or so?), though you can buy packages to lower the cost. At first I was a bit nervous about riding a bike, as I hadn't done it consistently since Hangzhou. But in Shanghai it feels a lot safer. They have dedicated bike lines, and I'm by no means the only one using them. I'm starting to recognize people who leave around the same time as me, so I like to think we're the most uncool bike gang in the world. I never thought I'd be one of "those" people who bike to work, but here I am.

Speaking of work, work is... not what I expected. I thought working at an IB school, everything would be run professionally, I'd be the newbie teacher, and at the start I'd work my butt off to catch up to everyone else. Nothing could be further from the truth. Essentially, it's not that much different from any other school I've worked at, minus a bit more collaboration between the foreign and local staff. While I'm not the only new IB teacher, during an icebreaking game I was surprised to find I'm the 2nd most experienced in our department. But it's good in a way, not unlike my situation in Thailand - people just sort of assume you're doing the work and leave you alone. I like it, but I can understand how some (such as Ella, for example), would find the lack of instruction (and confusion on where to get things) unnerving. One nice thing is that I only have two classes, whom I each see 6 times a week. This is the first time I've gotten a chance to really know my students well, and although there's more lesson plans to juggle, it's overall less and more satisfying work. I can't say I'll be there for 10 years, but right now I like it. Let's see how that changes over the next few months.

This is the part where I talk about all the amazing sights we've seen in Shanghai. I'm sorry to say there's not much to talk about. In truth, we've been super busy socially. We've been hanging out with two couples a lot, who are all just stand up folks. The six of us are new to Shanghai as well, so we're all trying to figure out where the cool stuff is. For example, we recently went to a stand-up comedy event, which surprised me at how funny it was. We did that once before in Bangkok, but I felt this time was even better. Other than that... lot of malls, eating, and drinking. We even had a pal from Guangzhou stop by, which was a very welcome surprise. However, I do want to mention something. I noticed one of our new couple friends, who-shall-remain-nameless-to-potentially-avoid-embarassment, takes photos of their food. Now, I admit I'm not on the Instagrams. I don't know if that's the culture there. But should I be taking photos of my food? I suppose it is different than what you get in the US. I just can't think that anyone would care. If you would care, give me a shout, I'd be happy to oblige.

We did explore a little bit though. One stop was Longhua Temple, which I just thought we'd see because it was a metro station wee passed. It's a nice stop if you're in the area, not worth a trip. It does have a lot of stray cats though, so it was a big hit for Ella. The more interesting temple option is the Jade Temple. While I didn't really see any jade, it is a remarkably well preserved (or more accurately, renovated) temple that wouldn't be out of place in a kung fu movie. I feel this is worth a trip if you're a visitor to Shanghai, and maybe if you're a local. Although as I've said many times before, "If you've seen one temple, you've seen 99% of them." Still, it's been a while, so it was a nice distraction. Next to the temple was a weird sort of arts district, which had an exhibit on technology. I don't really know what a live display of German flight logs has to say about art, but... well, it's there I guess? They did have these cool AR displays though, so that's more my speed.

Another place we went to was the Shanghai Movie Museum, which is pretty cool despite me not knowing any of the movies or actors. Normally it's 60 yuan ($9), which is probably not worth it. But they had a discount week of 30 yuan ($4), which is worth it. It's not exactly huge - you can blow through it in about 45 minutes. But they did have some interesting stuff. For starters, when you walk in there's a light up red carpet complete with the sounds of an adoring crowd, which basically made the whole thing worth it. But in addition to that, there was a lot of stuff that you can appreciate even if you don't know Chinese cinema. Things like video cameras from the early days of movies, props, projectors, and film development. They also had some interactive stuff for the kids (and me), demonstrating stop motion and other physical animation stuff. Worth it if you're strapped for stuff to do, probably not if you're just here briefly. But because I live to embarrass Ella, I took a video of her there which I am quite proud of.

Anyway, next week is National Holiday, which means a week off of work. Ella and I have tickets to a place neither of us have been before, so you'll have to wait for the next update to see where that is.

Well, we've certainly made our way around these past few weeks.

We took a train from Guangzhou to Shanghai, because it wasn't that much slower than a plane and a lot cheaper. It was pretty uneventful overall, and we went from the train station to the hotel we had booked. Except when we arrived, just like the droids in Mos Eisley Cantina, the front desk person pointed at me and said "We don't serve your kind here."

Actually they were very nice, but they didn't take foreigners. Apparently Shanghai has some rules about that, that the rest of China doesn't. Annoying, but oh well. Instead we went to another hotel recommended by the school, which was... meh. But it would be our home for the foreseeable future, because we had three jobs to do:

1) Find an apartment
2) Sort out my visa
3) Get Ella's Shanghai residency

The last two were just paperwork, so unless you are on the edge of your seat wondering about the intricacies of Form 10B-7, I'll skip that. We booked a real estate agent, who was just awesome. We told them where we wanted to live, our price range, and suddenly we were off on motorcycles zipping through the neighborhood. We had a place picked out in two days, oddly the first one we looked at. We were moved in just two days after, and here it is - or at least, the bedroom plus a little bit of the living room and kitchen.

Actually funny story - our agency, Lianjia was really great. But we did look through others. One day as we were getting dropped off for lunch, a dude approached us (I guess seeing we were with Lianjia agents) and asked if we wanted to look places he had. Thus, he was branded as "creepy dude", because that's either quite a coincidence he was there, or he's being pretty stalkerish. Not having anything to do, we did look at his stuff - meh.

I also used another app who's name escapes me, that had beautiful apartments for quite cheap. I asked if they were available, they said yes. I asked for the address, and they were just not matching up - some addresses we had even seen before, and they were not those apartments. When I pointed this out, some ghosted, some tried to bait and switch, while one just admitted the listings were fake to get clients. Thanks for the honesty guy, but also no thanks.

Anyway, I love our new place. It's in between two different metro lines, lots of shops and restaurants outside, and there's three malls just down the street - and they're building a fourth. We spent the week just settling in, getting supplies, and cleaning. We actually have a legit mailbox now, the first time I've had one since leaving America. If you want to send letters/postcards, throw me a message and we can work out an exchange.

After that... off to America! I had about three weeks before work began, and a new nephew we had never met. He would have to wait though, because our flight was to New York. Ella and I had about two days there, or as I've (somewhat) jokingly said, "two days where we lived in The Met". I like The Met. It has some cool stuff. Ella *really* likes the Met. She took a billion photos of a bunch of art, so go look at her Facebook. We also went to The Met Cloisters, which is probably the best kept secret of NYC. Not a secret I guess, since The Met promotes it, but many don't bother to go to the northern tip of Manhattan. Their loss, because it's totally worth it. It's an old monastery from who knows when brought over from Europe piece by piece. You know when Indiana Jones said, "This belongs in a museum!"? This is where it goes. Great place, and better than the actual Met (sorry Ella).

After our little art tour, it was off to Cincinnati. Oddly enough I don't have much to say about Cincinnati. We didn't do much except meet people and eat. Managed to get to the museum (nice, smaller than I remember). An old historical house in Burlington. But mostly a lot of meeting, eating, and drinking. Not that I'm complaining. I managed to catch up with many of my old friends. Like in Thailand, it's "same same but different." They're still the good folks that I know and miss. I enjoy hanging out with them. But life is pretty different now. So many of them are starting families, one even having a baby while we were there. And I'm really happy for them, because they're happy. But I'd be lying if I said that I didn't miss the old times we did have, where we would hang out at bars and people's homes until 2am with no responsibilities until Monday morning. While I don't think I could stay up until 2am anymore without coffee distributed via IV, I'd still like to give it an attempt. Sadly I don't think that could happen anymore, but who knows - maybe one day.

The family is mostly in the "same same" camp, minus our two new nephews. While not surprising, it is interesting to see the older one develop much more of a personality in the past two years. Apparently his personality is "I will never stop talking", in which case he takes after his mother. He is fun, but oh my god is he exhausting to be around sometimes. I don't know how they do it. I'm lucky as a teacher, because after 40 minutes, I'll leave and won't see this kid for another week / a few days. Parenting is just... relentless. I guess I'd learn to love and appreciate it if I was in that position, but currently I'm glad I'm not. The younger nephew reinforces that idea, because he's much more chill. He doesn't really fuss much, and is pretty quiet. Considering his loudmouth brother, they may have a relationship pretty close to mine and my sister's, where I had to wait for her to fall asleep before meekly asking "Is it my turn to talk now?" We'll see how he turns out.

Anyway, full of Mexican food, we weren't heading back to China just yet. We also had three days in New York with Mom and Dad on our way out, you know, to see what exists outside of The Met. Many things were a repeat of my visit a few years ago - the statue, Natural History Museum, Wall Street, Chelsea Market, Chinatown, etc.. As to be expected as one of the "capitals of the world", New York has a bunch of great stuff to see. And I'm sure many of you have been there before, so you don't need me harping on about stuff. But I do want to mention two areas you likely haven't been before, but Ella found on this trip using Chinese website magic. First is The Museum on Eldridge Street, which doesn't really have an accurate name. It's an old Jewish Synagogue that was left to ruin, but now they give tours about it. It was surprisingly cool, and really beautiful, so I'd recommend checking it out. The other standout was Teddy Roosevelt's birthplace. It's just an old house run by the National Park Service, but the tour is really nice. The house is also pretty interesting, and costs a cool $0. Can't beat that.

Now sitting on the flight back to Shanghai, overall it was a good trip. We didn't stay long enough for it to feel stagnant, yet still had almost every day filled with things to do. Plus I got to show Ella NYC, the only city in America I could really ever imagine settling in. Maybe one day we will.