Hair

The ladies who work in our school warehouse are my favorite.  They are native Shanghainese and I enjoy them immensely. This morning when I went in to visit them one of them said to me. "Your hair today.....um... no"

I am glad that they are here to be honest with me :) I better go fix this mess!

Bri's Favorite Matt Quote of Last Week

After returning from a run he said "I ran into three people today when I was running.  I don't mean I saw someone I know, I mean I literally ran into three Chinese people walking on the street."

Bri

You there! Don't even think about it!

On a river cruise sponsored by the school it was too hard not to mock the "No Striding" sign.

Cricket Sale!

     Sorry for the blog delays.  We've had trouble getting pictures uploaded recently and blogs aren't as much fun without pictures.  Everything seems to be working now so hopefully this lasts.

     This couple weeks ago I went for a run early on a Sunday and where I finished happened to be a block of cricket salesman. At first I was perplexed at what these cans were doing on the sidewalk.  I heard the distinct chirp of crickets and saw a few men huddled around another collection of the cans.  I could tell by their lively interest that there was something in the cans, that or they were all loco.  I inquired and they let me have a peek.  These were crickets which I understand are good luck to have around as a pet.  This is different than the grasshopper I showed last year.  Those are for fighting like cock fighting.
Matt

This is what I stumbled on after ending my run.  The sound of crickets filled the air but with their lids on I could only assume what was inside.  

A man showed me his merchandise.  He told me it would cost an amount equal to $5

Believe it or not this lady is chasing a cricket that jumped out its cage. Unfortunately I didn't get my camera switched to video mode from photo mode quickly enough.

This lady has a cricket in her hand under the small net.  Then she keeps them in hallowed out bamboo tubes. There were a dozen or more people sitting on this street checking containers.  I imagine they were doing a head check to make sure their stock were all still chirping.

Tension

Here is an article about the tension between China and Japan.  We are currently unaffected and that will hopefully continue to be the case.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/17/world/asia/china-japan-islands-dispute-explained/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

That must be great gelato!

Often we're amused by signs around Shanghai that contain translation mishaps.  Here's one we saw this afternoon at a nice restaurant that specializes in chocolate desserts.