Arrived!

Well we did it! We arrived in Shanghai on Thursday night with the cat in tow. And funny enough we were able to avoid the quarantine period for little woo - needless to say that was a HUGE relief! It's been busy ever since!

One of the things that had hit me is how many high rise apartment buildings there are, and they are everywhere. From my window I can see 20-25 at least. See the pictures below:

Let's see what have we done since Thursday night....hmmm..

1. Tried (but failed) to set up a bank account

2. Registered at the Local Police Station (all foreigners must register within 24 hours of arrival in China)

3. Found a lovely fake Christmas Tree and set it up in the temporary apt

4. Investigated Local Grocery Stores

5. Managed to avoid eating chicken feet!

There's still so much I need to do, most importantly Chinese classes, I see now that without basic conversational chinese living here is going to be very hard. Taking a taxi is going to be impossible without written directions in chinese for the driver to follow since none of them speak any english. The younger generation apparently speaks more english, but the older generation doesn't speak any at all. I have yet to do much investigating on my own but I will post more in the next few days on how things go!!

It's almost time to say good bye to Cali

Well, we're almost on our way out of the US and into China - it's going to be a new experience to spend the holidays (my favorite time of year) in Shanghai. I'm wondering how easy it'll be to get a christmas tree and all of the necessary decorations, because every christmas lover knows the are necessary!!

I hope to post many pictures of the corporate apartment all gussied up for the Holidays. I'm sure the cat will enjoy knocking down the ornaments just like she always does at christmas. Assuming she gets out of quarantine without any issues (my biggest fear of moving to China is putting the cat into quarantine! - call me a crazy cat owner).