Having a great holiday

I did try blogging last Friday but the second time all my typing disappeared I gave up. Mike is here. We have been having a great week sightseeing. Last night we went to dinner with a chinese friend of his from U of T. It was a very interesting night for me. I was in a different part of Shanghai that just demonstrated to me the size of this city and the diversity. The diversity being in the look of the surrounding area as opposed to different people or customs. I felt like this is the normal city not new like where I live and designed in western style and not a tourism area or historic area. His friend, wife and son took us out for dinner in an everyday chinese restaurant. The food was very good and it was to me like the real china which we are always searching for. This friend is teaching canadian lit at Shanghai Normal University and Mike brought a bunch of books over for him including The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence - one of my all time favourite stories. So our evening included some discussion of this book. This is a fantastic story and I recommend it to you. It is especially good if you are caring for aging parents or even more so if your parents are caring for their aging parents. It gives you a very good perspective on life.
New Year's Eve here was very loud with all the fireworks. Mike arrived in time for supper that night which we did in Puxi with about 5 or 6 of my friends. Unfortunately the jet lag settled in so he and I went home while the others proceeded to Yu Garden where apparently it was pretty dead. They then went to the Bund where things were wild and fireworks were everywhere. In the meantime Mike and I arrived home and by 10 o'clock he was sound asleep and missed all the fireworks in and around our complex. I didn't know which was to look as I stood on my balconey because fireworks were going off everywhere. At one point I realized it was even safe standing out there. There was a piece of left over firework on my balconey. We went to a great restaurant (the one I would like to go to for Christmas dinner this year, brothers) for dim sum on New Year's Day. It is behind the Pearl Tower so we spent the rest of that day sightseeing in that area.
Yesterday, we got in free at the Shanghai Art Museum which was very good. I saw 2 pictures I really liked - one for my place (yellow flowers, flying robins) and one for Richard's cousin, Robert of ducks swimming. There were some beautiful winter paintings and some interesting sculptures by a Chilean artist. They were rocks (ordinary rocks) to which he added clay to create various animals. They were excellent. Don't ask me who the artists were. That is just too much information for my little brain to absorb.
Okay, Mike and I are off for another day of sightseeing and a hot oil massage.