Check out my new pics!

I put up a bunch of pictures on my flickr site taken around Shanghai! There are some very funny ones! Can't take credit for them, got them off a local website, but they show Shanghai very well! The winter, the new year, etc. Also putting up pics I took from the balcony yesterday as the men cut the trees back. A real site! Also! The outfits we had made from the fabric market. I take no responsibility for Norman's 'Remarkable' outfit! (You'll see!) Happy with the way mine turned out, but will have to take better pics when I haven't just rolled out of bed! So I am being tested as a host for an online show here in Shanghai, basically I go to events and interview people etc. Could be a great job! Hanging out with more Chinese these days and really working hard on the language. One of our Chinese partners came over the other day and I impressed her! It felt great! Hanging with Chinese girls is becoming more fun now that I understand them a bit more. They are in the position my mom's generation was, as in, for the first time ever they can go to college and get jobs and make their own money and don't just have to get married and have babies. This is an allowance they are taking very seriously and many are determined to get ahead and compete with men. Also, it supports their attraction to Western men because many of the Chinese guys feel a bit threatened by this and feel it goes against traditional values. Interesting! Went to the Jinmao tower the other day. Was on the 85th floor looking out over the city! It was spectacular! We were right next to the tallest building in the world that is still under construction! Wow! Meeting people and contacts left and right. The expat community is vast, yet small, and 3 times yesterday, in 3 completely different situations I mentioned someone I know to a new person I met and all three times we had that person in common. Everyone is very excited about the club and say it is perfect timing! Oh! It looks like I will be performing here during the Olympics! Don't want to say too much until it is finalized, but looking very likely! Have had a string of people through the house, Joey, Daphne, Sonya. This is actually the first time I've been alone in a long time here! Going to practice Chinese now... A few facts I just recently learned: It takes an english speaking person 3 times as long to learn Chinese as it does to learn German or French or Russian (I have some catching up to do then!), and this is very random, but i find it very amusing for some reason: The Bible is the best-selling book ever, but it is also the most shoplifted book ever! Go figure! By the way, the weather is beautiful here, I think it is safe to say winter is over! Apparently, according to some friends who know, mercury is in retrograde which means this break, you can lose things, appliances fail etc. In the last week: my jacket broke, my bag broke, Joey broke my bike, screwed up the tv/dvd player 3 times!, I left my ATM card at the bank (freaked out, but got it back!), and My phone went Chinese on me! Hope it's out of retrograde soon! That's it for now! Lots of love, Amelia