It's not goodbye, it's until we meet again...

My first memory of arriving in Shanghai was stepping off the plane, gathering our luggage, going through customs and then being greeted by Adam.  The only other non-Chinese person who worked at Joel's office.  I remember a feeling of relief, to see his smiling face after 24 hours of travel.  He picked us up with a van, helped us load our luggage and got us to our house.  He even had our address (we didn't know it at the time) and our house keys.  We had to do nothing but follow which was so amazing.  It was so nice to not have to figure things out for ourselves for the first few days of living here.  Over the next few days he helped us set up our cell phones, showed us where to get really good american hamburgers and helped us learn our way around.  He speaks fluent mandarin, so I even had to call him when someone showed up at my door and we couldn't understand each other.

We found out a few short weeks later that he was leaving Shanghai for an amazing opportunity working and learning back in the states.  It was a little sad but we were very excited for him.  He is now closer to his family and plus, we will still keep in touch.  We also got to travel to NYC with him for a business trip and had a blast.  Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of our trip.  But believe me, it was great.

His last few nights in Shanghai we went out to dinner every night.  He had a friend in town, who he calls Ayi.  It means Auntie and it is something that you call an older woman who you are very close to.  She didn't speak any English but Adam interpreted for us and we all became fast friends.  She even invited us over to dinner when we are in Beijing next month for home-made dumplings.  Yum.  I am looking forward to it.  Anyway, we did get to take some awesome pics from a dinner we had at the Hyatt Regency, it's the building next to the one that Joel and I had been to for my birthday.  The food was terrible, and my martini wasn't very good (still looking) but the company and views totally made up for it.

I added a few pics from another dinner that we had with Adam and Ayi that was seriously amazing.  Lots of food pics if you are interested!
Video on how to eat Peking Duck

We hope Adam will keep in touch, and stay away from glass doors that are really clean!