I'm finally back in the city of Shanghai, where I belong.
I expected winter weather to be starting already--typically, the not-too-hot-and-not-too-cold autumn season lasts just several weeks. But it turns out I arrived a couple weeks before the onset of the cold (and bitingly wet) Chinese winter.
(Xujiahui in autumn...this is the section of town where I'll be living.)
My stomach is behaving reasonably well (despite what happened Saturday night, when I got carried along with a local cell group to an all-you-can-eat Japanese BBQ place). I wish I'd had a camera to take pictures of what we were eating...the foods were fascinating, to say the least.
And I noticed this morning that my sinuses are re-adjusting to Shanghai pollution--which means I carry several packets of tissues in my backpack at all times. And, despite the admonitions of the local government, I feel compelled to abide by traditional Chinese custom...i.e. I have to spit a lot.
(Part of the Chinese government's anti-spitting campaign...and probably a great boost to the world's largest tissue manufacturers.)
I expected winter weather to be starting already--typically, the not-too-hot-and-not-too-cold autumn season lasts just several weeks. But it turns out I arrived a couple weeks before the onset of the cold (and bitingly wet) Chinese winter.
My stomach is behaving reasonably well (despite what happened Saturday night, when I got carried along with a local cell group to an all-you-can-eat Japanese BBQ place). I wish I'd had a camera to take pictures of what we were eating...the foods were fascinating, to say the least.
And I noticed this morning that my sinuses are re-adjusting to Shanghai pollution--which means I carry several packets of tissues in my backpack at all times. And, despite the admonitions of the local government, I feel compelled to abide by traditional Chinese custom...i.e. I have to spit a lot.
