4 days gone already

Firstly thank you and congratulations to Jonas and Steph for being the first and only people so far to provide a comment. It's great to know someones reading my ramblings but it's better to have people share an opinion or observation. So feel free to comment because I know that a one way conversation with me is boring after a while (I know living in a country where almost no one speaks English, you spend a lot of time asking yourself dumb questions)

So, here I sit in my small apartment (I know why the have meow curry in restaurants now - there's no room in the apartments to swing them). Sorry about that, it was too good an opportunity to do a cat and food gag.

Back to the story.... I sit here in my small apartment reflecting on the day. What insights have I detected, what learnings do I have? Let's see.

Bull frog tastes like fishy chicken.

Did you get that gem of a learning? Just in case, "Bull frog tastes like fishy chicken" and, it looks like a dirty grey raw fish. Yum.

Actually it didn't taste too bad, but I aint racing down to the local pond either.

Today I had the privilege of a great lunch with the Mars Account Management team. We went to a quality Chinese restaurant. A shared meal for 12 and a couple of the guys ordered their favourite dishes. Apparently, they would normally order to suit the visitor (me) but I was a late inclusion, so they ordered all the good stuff.

Some additional food learnings. Pigs ear when thinly sliced is not as chewy as the ones my dogs eat as a treat. Chicken feet are very chewy and crunchy. Bamboo in chili with chicken is awesomely yummy. Fish head in chili is spicy and juicy. It was quite a feast. Everyone enjoyed the food and laughs (at me).

Oh, and do chop sticks ever get easy to use for us westerners? I have bung fingers and the dexterity of an elephant, so image what a challenge eating large beef spare ribs is like with chop sticks. The ribs were bigger than the sticks. And, they are hygiene obsessed here (I think its a class thing), so you can't use you fingers when eating. Sometimes, they even have two set of sticks. (one for picking up the food and the other for eating) More on that later.

As there were some new team members at, they were asked to introduce themselves and one interesting fact. Many were in awe of Liana as she has a tattoo on her wrist and is still to decide if she believes in God or Buddha. I was impressed with her honesty and in awe two, as I don't have a 'tat' and have never thought about the alternatives of God and Buddha. I was the last to be asked for an intro (they are so polite). The best I could do was that I played some professional Australian Rules football. To my surprise, most were very excited by that. Then Jason (Singaporean Chinese guy) explained to them what Aussie rules was like in Chinese and all of a sudden, the room erupted with very fast excited Chinese chatter. Later Jason explained that they were all very impressed and excited that a 'footballer' that played Aussie rules (apparently the toughest of all football games) worked with them.

Now, for picture of the day, I captured the pedestrian stop signs countdown to death signs (see previous blogs)

3 seconds before YOU turn red (or run hell the cars are coming)

To finish, I have another amazing traffic observation. In the mornings, there are people in uniforms with orange vests and little red flags at major intersections. They are "pedestrian wardens". Why? To manage the pedestrian traffic flow. That is, to stop pedestrians blocking the roads. (chuckle) Get the irony in all this? Like they need them when the cars just push though the pedestrians anyway no matter what colour the lights are. It just doesn't make sense to me. All these people and signs and no-one obeys any of them. Mmmm.

Best saying today goes to the young girl that makes me a coffee of the evening in a 2sqm shop, (for my work friends, its about 1/4 the size of Fil's place). She is still learning her English.

I said, "good evening." Her response "Nee (you) ice?" At first I thought she was asking if I wanted Ice Coffee (which she sells a lot of) But no, she cared if I was cold. It's so sweet she tries to chat, with me each night. And I just keep returning for average coffee and 3 word sentence chatter. That's life as a westerner among 20Million+ Shanghainese.