China Recap Part 2: Eating in Shanghai and Wuzhen

On Thursday of my trip to China, I began a 2-day all day meeting with the local team there so I won't bore you with the details of that work meeting.  However, I did enjoy learning about how work culture is different in another country.  One thing that stuck out as being sort of interesting to me was that in China they were a lot more blunt about certain things.  Such as your salary, title/rank at work, or things like that.  At one point in the meeting we broke into two different groups for a break out session and we appointed "captains" (one of which being me) and were directed to pick who we wanted on our teams -- sort of like middle school/high school gym class dodge ball style.  I really wasn't comfortable with that so I pushed back saying I didn't think I could pick team members (having just met the majority of the people that day, I would have been choosing so arbitrarily!)  However, everyone told me, "It's not a problem, just choose!  We don't take it personally here!"  But, I just couldn't do it.

We also had a really snazzy "lunch box" brought to us midday to have our meal.  Again, it makes sense based on the cuisine in China, but I thought that the lunch box was so cute!

I also loved the rule that the business leader put in place for the meetings.  If you were late coming back in after a break, than you had to buy the group ice cream.  I was all set to be late on purpose just to get me some ice cream, but luckily I didn't have to and ice cream was had by all (multiple times...)

At the end of the first day of our session, we all went out to eat as a team, which was a really cool experience.  I'd heard about the restaurants that have lazy susans in the center, and this was the first time I tried one in China.  We sat in a private room with two large round tables, and in the center of each table was a lazy susan that all of the small dishes were on.  You simply had to rotate the center console to have all the different foods in front of you.  It was so convenient and easier than trying to pass dishes all around!

There was a LOT of food consumed, but it didn't really feel that way because you would have a few different bites of all different sorts of food.  My Chinese coworkers complained that when they come to the U.S. they find it very hard to order off of our menus here because you have to choose only one item that you want to eat.  And if you don't like it than you are sort of out of luck.  I totally felt their pain there and sympathized with them on that one -- I have major food-ordering-induced stress at times!  In China, there definitely was a lot to choose from.

However, I did miss my American desserts.  Despite dumplings usually being my favorite part of the different meals that we had, the dessert dumplings weren't all that great.  I'll take chocolate cake to a pumpkin flavored dumpling any day (but that's just me...)  Although they were pretty!

It was great to be able to get to know my coworkers more on a personal level and socialize outside of the meeting that we had been in the entire day.  

It was also an interesting experience to see how working in a time zone 12 hours ahead of U.S. time makes things interesting.  E-mail traffic was very slow during the days while we were in the office, and then started to pick up around 7-8 p.m.  A few times throughout the dinner, people had to step away to dial in to calls in the U.S. which was just sort of a common and unquestioned thing.  Whereas in the U.S. if we had a call at that hour, it would be a big inconvenience.  Many people were planning to go home after the dinner we had and join different calls as well.  It is definitely a different style of work and I can see how it is challenging.  I had a hard time turning my phone off at the end of the night because e-mails kept coming in and in and in!  However, it also wasn't hard to fall asleep at the end of each day :)

Friday morning, I started the day with a run, because it was Friday and that's what I do on Fridays!  For some miraculous reason, when I woke up the sun was shining in Shanghai so I decided to go for it and run outside.  I hadn't run on the treadmill in a while before arriving in China so it was getting old.  Plus, I have been having fun racking up the list of places around the world where I have gone on runs and I really wanted to be able to say that I had run outside in China!  Hopefully I didn't damage my lungs too much but I took the opportunity of a seemingly bright clear sky and air to run outside.

I took my time and enjoyed myself, stopping to take some pictures.  You can see the skyline of Shanghai in the background and the large buildings that I had been walking near the days before.  There was a park nearby my hotel that I had been hoping to run in, but for some reason it was closed. During the time that I was in Shanghai many things were weirdly closed like some of the subway stops, markets, parks, etc. which apparently was beacuase there was some sort of big energy meeting going on (yes, I work in the energy industry, no, I am not referring to the meetings I was at!!)  I heard rumors that Putin was in town was Russia and Ahmadinejad from Iran.  I have no idea if this is true and I also have no idea why the park near my hotel would be closed even if they were (maybe they needed the officials who usually work the park to work the meeting?) but this is what I was told.  However, it's highly likely things were lost in translation!

Some scenes from my run on the outside of the park...

After my run I had a 7:00 a.m. phone call with someone in California.  And the only reason that I mention that is because it totally blew my mind.  The call was at 7:00 a.m. in China but 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon -- the day BEFORE -- in California.  Time zones are weird!!

After another day in the office, my official meetings in Shanghai were over -- however, the fun was not yet!  The previous day as I had been talking with coworkers I asked if they had known a former coworker of mine from my previous job.  I had met her multiple times on her trips to the U.S. and had also taken the time to spend time with her outside of work while she was in the U.S.   We'd gone shopping, to the movies, dinner, etc. so we had really had a good chance to get to know one another, but we'd lost touch since she had left the company.  Well, it turns out she is still good friends with some of my current coworkers so they sent her a message on Thursday with this photo saying, "Guess who is in Shanghai?!"

One thing that I have found true from my travel in Asia... which I consider to be Shanghai and my prior trip to Turkey (1/2 Asia kind of...) is their incredibly hospitable nature.  My former coworker immediately asked if I had plans on Friday night and if she could take me to dinner, which, of course, I gladly accepted!!

I am always SO appreciative of the people who go out of their way to help take care of me when I am traveling.  I am lucky that with many of the places I have visited, I have had wonderful colleagues who have taken me out, cooked for me in their homes, and done so much to make sure I am comfortable and entertained when visiting new places.  It makes adventuring so much more enjoyable, less scary, and a real cultural experience when I get to spend it with locals.

Because of this, I always try to go out of my way to do the same when I have coworkers or out of towners visiting the site where I work.  Americans I feel have the tendency to get very wrapped up in their own lives.  They have families, out of work priorities, and often just an air of letting people fend for themselves.  I like to live by the virtue of treating others how you want to be treated yourself, which is why I always go out of my way to at least offer to take people out to dinner, cook them dinner, or show them around -- like I did for this coworker when she was in town years before.  And I ended up having such a fabulous evening in Shanghai because we were able to reconnect and she offered to take me out!

She picked me up from the office and took us to a fantastic restaurant with an incredible view overlooking the Bund.  The clear sky from the morning stayed throughout the rest of the day and we ate dinner sitting outside with a fabulous view and atmosphere.

The view continued to stay amazing as the sun went down.  As I mentioned last time, Shanghai really shines at night.  It is breathtaking, right??  Man, this view was unreal.

We had a great dinner with wonderful conversation as I asked and learned a lot about dating and relationships in China, how women are viewed inside of work and outside of work, the education and school systems, and more details about the rule of only one-child per household.  I laughed a bit at one point as she told me a story that, unintentionally by her, actually I think showed a lot about the American school systems!  I had asked how her family was, as she has one brother, and she explained to me that they had been having a hard time because her nephew, her brother's son was struggling in school.  She explained how the pressure to be the top student in the schools is so high in China.  They put a lot of pressure on students to be the best and compete against their classmates.  Her nephew, was not keeping up to the same standards as his classmates so his self esteem was suffering and he was not very confident.  Additionally, her brother, was receiving regular phone calls from his son's teacher to talk about his performance.  She said that he joked that he heard from his son's teacher more often than he heard from his boss!

So what did they do?  She explained that he had family on his wife's side that lived in the U.S. so they sent him to the U.S. so that he could finish his schooling here, and now he is at the top of his class.  He is feeling confident and his self esteem has improved now that he is in school in the U.S.

When she told me this story I said, "Well... I am VERY happy that your nephew is doing better now and is doing well.  But, MAN, that is TERRIBLE for the U.S. that he was at the bottom of his class in China and now is at the top of his class in the U.S.!!"  We laughed about it for a bit, and she felt bad because she didn't really realize how it sounded for America :)

After dinner, my friend took us to a local shopping district.  We had stayed a while at the restaurant, so we only had about 45 minutes to walk around the shopping area, but let me tell you, it is possible to do a bit of damage in that time :)  She took me to her favorite stores, and the whole experience was very cool because the shops were all tucked away in tiny winding streets and around corners that I could never have navigated or found my way around without her!

The whole night was really magical and I was so thankful that my coworkers reconnected us the day before.  My friend who I spent Friday night with is a Shanghai native and truly loves her city and loved showing it off to me.  When I told her that I was going to Beijing next, she said she wanted me to be sure that I knew that Shanghai was the best city in China :)  She was so hospitable and it was great to see her again.  For fun, she had brought along a photo from the last time that we had seen each other.  And in addition to being a really funny photo, it's also amazing what a difference the years have made!  I sometimes forget how far I have come with my weight and health over the years.  I do not want to go back there!

Friday night was a really special night and an exciting way to start my weekend in China.  The next day, my coworkers had arranged for a tour through a water village called "Wuzhen."  It was similar to Venice, how there is all sorts of canals with buildings and homes built into the riverside and there was a lot of museums, restaurants, shops, and cultural displays all throughout the village.  I have never been to a tourist attraction like this and it was very interesting and a ton to see!  We had to drive a way in a hot car ride to get there but I think it was definitely worth it!

Plus, there were some interesting sights along the way!

Here are a few pictures from when we were actually walking around and exploring Wuzhen and all that it had to offer.

One of the most memorable parts of the day was when we sat down for lunch.  It was a really interesting experience for a number of reasons.  One of which was an observation of the class system that they have in China.  As an example, we had a tour guide that was with us for the day showing us around the water village.  She was young, really sweet, and talked with us throughout the day.  However, when it came to lunch time, we sat at a table by ourselves and she went and sat by herself at a table.  I essentially was just following my coworkers leads, but I felt bad and wanted to invite her to eat with us!  The meal however was really good, and I requested white rice, which is sort of a love of mine.  It was quite yummy and made for a fun challenge with the chopsticks.  I also thought it was just totally fascinating to watch the order be written down in Chinese characters.  They totally intrigued me.

Additionally, we had a funny situation where when we sat down, my coworkers asked if we wanted to try Chinese white wine with lunch.  I figured, sure, a glass of cool white wine sounds delicious (it was a REALLY hot day out!) with lunch!  When I said yes, I was very confused by one of their reactions of, "Okay, but if you get too drunk I am not carrying you out of here!"

I was a little confused because a glass of white wine really wouldn't do much to me at all, but hey, what are you going to do.  Well, when the "wine" arrived I realized why they had said that.  The Chinese "white wine" was really NOT wine whatsoever.  Calling it "wine" is a big fat lie because it is really a super strong alcohol of about 55% alcohol (but it can range up to 70% alcohol.)  The smell alone was so strong it was hard to even smell.  My coworkers got a kick out of documenting me trying the alcohol.

It was a fun day in Wuzhen!  Before departing, my coworkers also had me buy a special food to take back to my hotel for dinner.  It came wrapped in these bamboo leaves and was white sticky rice that was wrapped and steamed around different types of fillings.  Apparently it was a speciality of the Wuzhen village so they insisted I get one.  Oh, and we got some ice cream.  Because it's my duty to try ice cream around the world.

I also brought that white wine with me.

No, not to drink, but to keep the container!  It came in this really beautiful bottle, that when you buy it in the restaurant, you get to keep.  I felt bad wasting it, but I dumped out the alcohol so that I could take the bottle home with me as a souvenir.   When we said goodbye and dropped me off at my hotel at the end of an awesome day, they joked that they didn't think I would actually eat the sticky rice ball, and to be honest, I wasn't sure if I would either.  But it actually ended up being delicious and I ate the whole thing, taking pictures as evidence to send to my coworkers, now friends!

I know it looks gross, but I swear it was good!  Following the dinner in my hotel room, I ran back out the door again because my colleague and I that I was traveling with had last minute bought tickets to the Shanghai acrobatics show.  It was amazzzzzzing and totally impressive.  There were definitely some tricks that you would never see in the U.S. and a number of *gasp* worthy moments.  At one point there was about 6 motorcyclists revolving in circles in a cage, moments away from a huge crash.  It was scary and cool at the same time!

At the end of this, I was about ready to pass out though.  It was a totally incredible day and I am so glad that I squeezed so much into one day because I feel like it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to have a free weekend day in Shanghai.  However, sleep felt good that night!

And the next day?  It was off to Beijing!

The next part of the trip will be the Beijing portion.  Thanks for reading!

Boilermaker 15K Race Recap

Hey everyone, I hope you had a great weekend!  I had a very nice, albeit low key weekend in Albany with a half day trip out to Utica today to run the Utica Boilermaker 15K race!  My weekend all revolved a bit around the race.  I stayed in on Friday after work because I was really exhausted and just fell asleep on the couch.  And I started Saturday with the same circuit workout I did last week, followed by a trip to the Troy Farmer's Market.

It was a hot and sunny day so a perfect time to walk around the market with good friends, exploring the produce.  I picked up some veggies, granola, and a new headband (I know, random, but there was a cute vendor!) before heading from there to Trader Joe's to do a little more grocery shopping.  I knew I wasn't going to want to do much after the Boilermaker so I wanted to get some of my things done for the week on Saturday rather than on Sunday.

I lay low the rest of the day and went to bed way early.  Earlier than I do during the week.  My alarm for this morning was set for 3:50 a.m.!  In reality, that's only an hour earlier than I usually wake up on my morning run days but mentally, it felt like I was waking up in the middle of the freaking night.  Oh, the things I do for running!

I met up with two friends to carpool out to Utica, New York so that we could check in early enough to get our bibs and have time to use the bathroom, warm up, etc.  It started out pretty empty but slowly started to get more and more crowded as the people started to show up.  There are 14,000 people that were signed up to run the Boilermaker this year, so it was sure to fill up!  They had corralled race start and per usual, I was in the back of the pack.  I love the progress that I am making running, but it is pretty discouraging to always be in the back of the pack, but whatever.

The race started and it took me around 6 minutes to get across the start line, and once I did, there was quite a bit of weaving that I needed to do to get around the other runners and find a good rhythm.  The first two miles went by pretty quickly and I started to feel tired between 2 and 3 and it felt like it got a lot steeper.  I knew from looking at the course map online that the race was uphill until mile 4.  I started to really feel the steepness at the 3 mile marker and getting to the top of the elevation really did suck.  My legs were tired and I finished the first 5K in 29 minutes so I knew I wanted to try and run faster when the race started going downhill.

The downhill was nice, although hard on my knees.  For the first time in a race running, my knees hurt.  I also started to feel really really hot at around mile 5.5.  I knew that I needed to hydrate and keep my skin cool so I grabbed as much water as I could at the water stops, drinking it and dumping it on top of my arms, back, and head to try and stay cool.  I realized while I was running that I probably had not hydrated well enough before the race started, which was silly of me.  It was also a humid day, although not entirely sunny.  I am not sure otherwise why I got so warm today, I usually do well in the heat.

I tried to manage the heat with water and fight through the last miles, keeping my pace as much as possible.  I thought of the run as three 5Ks but I wouldn't be lieing if I didn't say this was a tough run!  The hills were a challenge the whole way through.

I was so happy when I finally saw the finish line and sprinted in.  Right when you crossed, there was no water or anything and you had to walk a ways before they had any sort of refreshment which was sort of annoying.  I also was a bit confused because they split the finish shoot into two paths, and as I was supposed to meet my friends, I wasn't sure which way to go.  I picked a path, and luckily found my friends where they finally had a water station.  I grabbed two cups of water, drank some right away and then grabbed more.  They had chocolate milk and fruit cups at different places and it was all very confusing because I am used to bananas, oranges, bagels, etc. right at the finish.

The finishers shoot ended with people handing out a pin that said "Finisher" and then you kept walking a ways until you got to the entrance to the post race party.

I honestly found the whole finish to be very confusing and just weirdly set up.  I didn't understand why they wouldn't have any food or more water closer to the finish.  I didn't know where I was walking to, but just following the crowds.  And when we finally got in to the Post Race Party, I still didn't know what to do.  All I wanted was a banana or something to eat but I couldn't figure out where to go. 

There were TONS of people, and by asking a few different people where to go, we found a beer truck and I was poured a very hoppy Saranac beer, which is just not the kind of beer I like.  And is also not exactly what I consider to be that refreshing after a hot 9 mile run.  I sipped it slowly though and kept trying to find myself a banana or something to eat.

The next vendor tent we stumbled upon was Chobani Yogurt.  I grabbed a yogurt, but again, that was really not what I was interested in having at this point in time.  I saw people with granola bars and bananas and wanted them so bad!

Finally, we saw the Price Chopper vendor truck, which, we realized the key to this whole operation was that the individual vendors had their own stations that they set up however they wanted.  The Price Chopper tent had all sorts of things I DID want like the granola bars, bananas, and chips.  However, they also had a ridiculous line that they had set up, that was bottle necked so bad and we stood there for a while not moving at alllll.

So close, yet so far.

I had enough of squishing up against hot and sweaty other runners and getting no closer to the bananas, so we ended up just abandoning the line.

We walked around a little bit more, found more people that we could ask where to get the finisher goodie bags that apparently existed and were directed to another side of the post race party.  We were able to get in and out of that exchange pretty quickly, getting a plastic Boilermaker bag and a Boilermaker pint glass.

After all of this, we were pretty hot and tired, still needing food, and I had no interest in getting another of the beers that I unfortunately did not like.  So, we headed out.  We took the shuttle back to the start line, piled our sweaty and gross selves into the car, and drove back home.  I was so wet and gross and sticky and smelly, I felt bad for my friends who had to smell me the hour and a half drive back from Utica.  I also had been drinking so much water that I had to go to the bathroom the whoooole ride home.  However, I had packed some peanut butter and banana which tasted delicious on the ride home, as well as some grapes I had brought with me as well.  And the shower that I had when I got home?  It was pretty spectacular.

And I was so glad that i had done my grocery shopping and things the day before.  After I cleaned up I lay on the couch with A) An egg, tomato, cheese and avocado burrito, B) A protein drink with the new Muscle Milk Light Cookies And Creme protein powder that I just got in the mail (soooo good!), C) A coffee that I had picked up at Dunkin Donuts, and D) Ice water.  Everything tasted like the best food I had ever eaten in my life.

So, all in all, I didn't get the Boilermaker Post Party experience that the race is so famous for.  However, I am so glad that I did this race.  It is iconic in Upstate New York and I have been wanting to do it for years.  The course, although challenging, had a great atmosphere and the fans were AMAZING.  There were great bands, DJs, music, funny signs, and people all throughout the race course giving out water, popsicles, orange slices, straying water, and even one group offering a box of donuts!  I finished the race in 1:29:35, which is a much greater PR than the last 15K that I ran in November, that I finished in around 1:37.  I wish that I had run a little faster, but it was a hot, hilly race, so I am glad that I did it and had an awesome time at the Boilermaker today!

China Recap Part 1: First Days in Shanghai!

Hey everyone, so I am finally spending some time to go back to my trip to China and recap some of the details and exciting things I was able to see and experience.  It's been in the back of my mind to want to write some of this down for a while but it always seems to get put on the back burner.  However, the thing that is keeping it coming to my mind is knowing that my grandfather in particular (who is also my biggest blog fan I think - hi Grampy!) I know really wants to read all about China.  And I want to preserve the memories as best I can too.  So, without further ado, here it goes...

On Sunday, May 18th, I woke up, showered, dragged my big suitcase out my door once again and drove 2.5 hours to Newark airport where I then got on a 14 hour flight direct from the US of A to Shanghai, China.

Before I get into the trip itself, let's just talk about that flight a little bit.  Flight time, like distances running, are relative.  A five or six hour flight used to seem like an eternity to me but now it is pretty easy.  A 14 hour flight, however, is a beast.  When you're in your tiny seat for 8 hours and look and see that the time to arrival is still 6 hours away?  Sheesh.  However, marathon training has taught me a lot about these "endurance" things and how to break it up mentally.  Like when going out for a 20-mile run can be a challenge when you think, "Holy crap I have already run 12 miles and I still have 8 more??"  Which is why, I mentally break my runs into smaller runs and broke the flight into smaller shorter segments.

The flight was tough, but not unbearable.  What made it the most stressful was that half way through the flight while I was doing some work on my laptop, the screen broke.  I traveled to China for work and the thought of not having my laptop or the presentation I had to give made me really, really, really nervous and anxious for the rest of the flight!  I watched some movies and TV shows though, read, slept, listened to music, ate a weird egg thing, etc.

Our in flight food consisted first of a choice of a vegetarian or chicken lasagna, then we got a little turkey sandwich and a cup of ice cream, then for breakfast they must have decided that were were now more on the Chinese side of our journey because our choices were "eggs or noodles?"

When is "eggs or noodles" ever the two alternatives to one another??  That was when I really started to realize my culinary adventure was just beginning.  I had spent a lot of time preparing for the trip on the work side of things and realized as I was packing that I had done little to no research on the practical side of things.  What kind of converter do I need for my electronics?  What is the exchange rate? How do I say hello and thank you in Chinese?

When I arrived at the airport I took out the most amount of money that the ATM would let, which, I had no idea how much that translated to, but I hoped it wold do the trick for the time I would be there.  I got a pretty impressive wad of 100s which made me feel pretty badass, I must say!  Later  I learned that the translation is about 6:1 RMB to dollars.  I used my calculator on my phone a lot throughout the week multiplying by .16 to get the exact translation of what things cost in China.  Some things, like Subway rides, were really cheap (3-4 RMB) and other things were a lot more expensive than in the U.S. (such as coffees at Starbucks!)  Which, Starbucks had a completely different menu in China, by the way...

As I headed from the airport to the hotel, I tried to take in everything around me.  The sky was just completely gray, which I wasn't sure was a factor of the smog I had heard so much about before traveling to China or if it was just a cloudy, rainy day.  Everything felt very quiet since I had gotten out of the plane too.  In the airport, on the roads, etc. it all just felt very subdued, which was a little surprising to me because given the amount of people who live in China, I figured it would be chaotic and crowded almost always!

Shanghai is the most populated city in the world with 24 million people living there.  New York City has 8.5 million people and knowing how cramped and loud that is, I guess I was surprised that the roads weren't a complete noisy cluster.

Aside from that, my first observations from the car were that it was rather... ugly?  I don't like saying that about a city but the gray skies really don't do anything for a new place and there were heavy duty transmission lines everywhere and TONS of large construction cranes everywhere.  Seriously, I am not really that observant of a person, but the amount of construction cranes were undeniable.  It immediately told me that Shanghai is still growing and scaling up as fast as it can.

I checked into my hotel, showered, and then went directly into the office where I stayed for a few hours before meeting an American friend I have who has been living in Shanghai for the past 18 months for dinner.  When I checked in to the hotel, they gave me a cup of tea while I was waiting, and I swear, I stared at it for a good 30 seconds trying to figure out if there were fish in my tea or if this was a part of the cup... I ended up having to stick my finger in and touch this because it was playing mind tricks on me.  I didn't want to drink a fish!

When I walked out of the metro at the Jiang Temple stop (awesome metro stop name, by the way), I immediately realized that Shanhai was a city like Las Vegas, where during the day it isn't much for the eyes, but it is almost breathtaking by night.

There were lights everywhere.  Lots of neon signs, twinkling lights in the trees, and a great energy.  It was drizzling a little bit and I was jet lagged, but energized by the new scenery around me.

My first meal in Shanghai I was like a bright eyed little kid.  I wanted to try everything and take everything in and I felt very thankful that my first meal in China was with a friend and not coworkers!  He was very patient with me learning the chopsticks, asking about the foods, language and life in China in general.  I learned that the Chinese don't usually use soy sauce with their food, but vinegar.  And the Shanghaiese speciality for dumplings are made with some soup or liquid inside and were really delicious!

The other thing that stands out from that first meal in Shanghai was that the toilets had a button that you could press that played noises like running water.  How cool is that??

Anyways, I luckily did pretty well with the jet lag, with the exception of waking up a few times throughout the night on Monday night and having a little bit of a slow start on Tuesday, I felt good!  I ran on the treadmill in the morning, which I think really has helped me adjust to time zones in the different places I have traveled.  However, due to the smog, it was an indoor run for me.

I was in China for work but was luckily able to spend some free time on Tuesday exploring Shanghai a bit and checking out "the Bund" which is this cool area that provides a beautiful view of the city.  On one side of the river is the newer financial district of the city with buildings such as the Oriental Pearl needle and the under construction Shanghai tower, and on the other side is some of the more traditional building, including a little shopping area I explored.

I had been nervous about the food situation going in to the trip, I figured that I would just eat what was put in front of me when with coworkers, however, I had a hard time when eating on my own.  For the most part, food just didn't look appealing to me.  The last time I was out of the country in Paris, I wanted to eat every single thing I saw, smelled, or was told about.  The food in Shanghai did not have that same impact on me.  It was very interesting to observe though.  Everything was so different from what I am used to and it took me a long time to make decisions about what to have for meals because nothing really looked very good to me.

I actually bought something in a store that was called "bread cheese" and took one bite, spit it out, and threw it away.  How can something called "bread cheese" not taste good?!  I have no idea, but I couldn't even swallow a bite.

I had dinner with my friend again, this time at a vegetarian restaurant that was pretty cool and again, lots of new food, and even more questions I had for my friend after a day of exploring and making some observations. In the picture below you can see his hands pointing out what everything in front of us is on the menu :)  We had a really good time at dinner, and at the end of the meal a colleague of his came and met us out and we all went to a local rooftop bar for a drink, which was great to get additional perspectives and thoughts on life in China -- this time from a native European.

The following day I spent more time in the office and then one of my coworkers arrived and I took her to see what had been some of the coolest spots in Shanghai I had seen the day before.

We ate dinner overlooking the Bund, which was really interesting to notice how the smog in the city changed from day to day.  The day before when I had been there by myself it was a beautiful and clear day.  That day, it was way smoggy and the horizon was a blur.  You could also taste the smog as you breathed in on the bad days, which was gross and disgusting to feel like you were polluting your lungs just by breathing (the first few days I was in Shanghai I only ran on the treadmill!)

We made it an early night (after catching up on work from the hotel room!) as our official business meetings started the next day.  I knew that once the official meetings took place, we'd have a packed schedule -- and man, was I right!  However, the first few days in Shanghai were truly eye-opening, exciting, a learning experience, and fun.  The adventure had barely just begun though!

(Part 2 to come!)

Georgia Peaches

Hey everyone!  If you saw my post on Instagram or are my friend on Facebook than you saw my big announcement yesterday.  At the end of the summer, I will be packing up my home in Upstate New York and starting a new adventure.  I'm trading in New York apples for Georgia peaches and moving to Atlanta, Georgia to start a new job that I officially accepted and announced this week.

You might be thinking, "Katelyn, are you insane?  I don't know a ton about your job but you do post all the time about how you love it and you get to travel to exciting places like Romania, Turkey, Spain, China and cool places in the U.S. like Vegas!"  And this is SO true, which is what makes this decision all the more bittersweet.

Let me first explain that although it is a new role, new team, new business, new location, it is all still within the same company (which, the flexibility in career is one of the pros of working for a large company.)  Although I am going to miss SO many perks about my old job, my coworkers, industry, etc. I am hoping to take some of the pros of that job with me, such as the travel (!), and also experience some new things.  I always want to be learning in a job, continually challenged, and never comfortable.  And I will say, that when you are in a job you love, it doesn't feel like work, and when it is fun, you don't mind working hard at it, and without even realizing it, you'll be successful and have people calling you about new opportunities (which is sort of what happened in this case.)

Another major thing that is coming along with this job change is the location where I live.

I have been living in Albany, New York for more than 6 years now.  I have been in Upstate New York for 10 years if you include my time at Syracuse.  Being 27 years old, that is essentially half of my cognitive life.  It is the entirety of my truely adult life.  The other 17 years of my life were spent a few hours away in Rhode Island.  I have spent my entire life living within a distance that covers 5 hours by car.  And while that might be enough for some people, I have a curious personality and a bad case of wanderlust that has caused me to want to see and explore pretty much everywhere I have never been!

Moving to Atlanta, and to the South, will be a big challenge for me.  I will be a plane ride away from my family for the first time in my life.  I will need to start over building a network of friends.  Finding my "community" of people.  I will need to find new doctors, a new person to cut my hair, new favorite grocery stores, restaurants, and running paths.  I'm really nervous about a lot of it (I've been told by my love, Kimmy, to not use the word "scared" anymore when talking about the move) but the excitement overrides the nerves.  

I am trying really hard to not think about the sad part of the move.  About the things, places, and more importantly, the people that I cannot take with me to Atlanta.  It's not even something I want to write about here because I can feel myself getting emotional already.  However, what gets me through is knowing that many of my friendships I will not be leaving behind.  At least thats not how I am going to think of it.  My family has expanded so much through the years that I've been in Albany and although there are many that I won't be able to see on a regular basis, family is forever.  Albany is no longer just a place I have lived, but it is a home to me.  Although I am moving, I will not be gone for good.

I'm excited for what is to come and excited to blog through the journey and process!  Thanks for being a part of my life and cheers to Georgia peaches!