nǐ hǎo

At the airport with my Mom 

With my Dad

Ice blocks in the ocean

Chinese Candy

Aunt Jen with seaweed strips

Chinese treats

My aunts favorite tea

About a year ago my Uncle Jeff, Aunt Jen and cousins, Nico and Anthony, followed my Uncles job to Shanghai, China to begin a three year adventure across the world. I was fortunate enough to not only have them fly me out to live with them for five weeks in the spring of 2012, but to completely spoil me with the luxuries of living in China.

My expectations for Shanghai and the realities of what the city was actually like differed quite a bit. My first reactions upon arriving in China:

• Complete surprise at the amount of smog that seemed to loom over the city at all times.
• Being quite impressed with the amount of greenery in a very urban location; any potential green space was taken advantage of including medians, along highways and overpasses, and roof gardens. 
•  The buildings are all very tall, but they are set back from the side walk so the street scape is not as defined as in other cities, like Chicago.
• Coming from The United States, the melting pot of nationalities, it was very interesting to see the conformity of facial features and body types in China. I stuck out like a sour thumb where ever I went and was often stared at, which was a new experience.
• Taking my first high speed train (200 MPH!) to my cousins basketball game-- we traveled between two developed cities and in between there were extreme rural conditions.