Post from Shanghai

I'm back in Shanghai for a few days.  We are enjoying some of the last great weather of the season.  The weather was great this weekend but we know it won't last too long.  I was in Beijing last week and it was below freezing and the damp cold winter of Shanghai is just around the corner. 

 Recently two-time Ironman World Champion Chris "Macca" McCormack came to Shanghai.  It was arranged that I got to go do a training ride and run with him.  After the workout he and I went to Starbucks and chatted for about an hour and we arranged to send a treadmill to his house in Sydney, Australia to help him train for the London Olympics.  The treadmill was delivered a couple days later.  He loves the product and we've kept in contact and in a couple of weeks he'll be coming to Utah to have meetings with us on how to work together.  I'll have to find the link to the youtube video that shows us riding our bikes in Shanghai, he had a film crew following him.

This is a recent picture from the Bund in Shanghai.  We live about ten minutes from here.  Does this make you want to come visit us?  We welcome visitors!

Lately everyone says that June looks like me and Will looks like Jen.  You decide.  

June just started rolling over and Will is loving doing puzzles and throwing things from our 6th floor balcony, Jen's cell phone was the latest victim to go off.  We had a special lock installed yesterday so he can't get on the balcony any more.  He continues to get funny looks from people when he starts speaking Chinese to people.  It's pretty funny.  For now he still prefers Chinese to English.

Here Will and June pose for a pic in their jammies.  Will is getting so tall and June is growing very big cheeks.

My vpn just stopped working for a few minutes so I'm having to redo this blog post as it was deleted.  Very annoying.  Anyway, these pictures are from a bike race I went and did last weekend.  It was in a small town about 4 hours drive outside of Shanghai.  My friend Jeff and I went and did it.  We thought it was going to just be a small little event but we were wrong.  At the starting line there was an hour long opening ceremony complete with a big stage, dancers, kung fu performances and speeches from government officials and of course big fireworks.  In front of the stage they had a sign with each team name that the team was supposed to line up behind.  Our team, Slice, was originally on the far side but when we lined up they quickly moved us to front and center.  Then at the starting line they also made us be at the front and center for the cameras so it appeared to be an "international" event.  At the finish line they also had a big stage, dancers, fireworks etc.   Just after I finished a local TV crew came to interview me.  After a few questions they turned off the camera and told me what they wanted me to say.  Then turned it back on so they could get footage of me saying that it was such a great event and a nice area and that I would want to tell my friends about this place.  The scenery was in fact very beautiful.  The picture of the lake was outside my hotel room window.  Hotel probably isn't' the right word, hostel would be more accurate.  A steal plank would have been softer than the bed they had there.  

Jen wanted to put on a Turkey Trot 1 mile race this year.  We got started too late so the event so couldn't come together in time.  Next year we will prepare.  Jen still wanted to run though to see how fast she could run a mile.  She ran a 6:09 without a problem.  Congrats Jen!  great job.  Post pregnancy 5 months and her fitness is gradually coming back.  

Thanksgiving was this week.  This is always one of the few times that I feel a bit homesick.  Nothing beats Thanksgiving at my Aunt Kathy's.  It was a regular work day here but I did take off a couple hours early.  Jen made vegetarian chile....she redeemed herself with two pies - pumpkin and banana cream that were good.  She didn't appreciate when I pulled out my camera and started taking pictures once the table was set.  the other dish you see is mashed sweet potato.  On Saturday we got together with several other friends and had a big proper thanksgiving spread, but again - not Kathy's spread.  Maybe next year we will come back for this holiday.  It's one of our favorites.  

This is a picture from the starting line of Ironman Taiwan.  Jen and I went to this beach a few years ago and we love it there.  I thought this was a great picture.

  

Taiwan

I'm in the Taiwan airport right now waiting to go back to Shanghai.  I love coming to Taiwan.  It feels like a second home to me.  Even though my time in the mainland has now far surpassed the time that I spent in Taiwan this place will always remain special to me.  This trip was to meet with a new distributor that we've been working with for about 5 months now.  We decided to be one of the sponsors of the Taiwan 70.3 Ironman race in Southern Taiwan.  It was fun to go work at a race, a race that I was supposed to do but with leg problems haven't been able to prepare for.  Three of my friends from Shanghai came to the race.  They were from Utah, Australia, and Sweden.  They all did very well.  The two-time Ironman world champion was also there for the race.  He won of course but my Sweedish came him a good race finishing in 3rd place in the professional race.

I've also made sure to eat some of my favorite foods while here.  My customer is always getting a kick out of the fact that I never want to go to the nice restaurants but always want to go to the cheap hole in the wall joints.  This is what I ate when I was here on my mission and it became my favorite food.  So we will go out with a group of 4 of us and the total bill is like $15 and the food is awesome.  I had my favorite breakfast this morning at a little shop and my friends and customer alike were loving it.  $10 for all four of us to eat ourselves silly!  I also stopped at a grocery store to pick up my favorite peanut butter that you can only get in Taiwan.  I bought 4 big cans of it as well as 6 bricks of this drink called Dong Gua Cha.  You can buy the brick and boil it down, add water and you've got yourself an awesome drink.  My 6 bricks should make about 30 gallons worth.  My suitcase is now quite heavy.

I feel quite lucky to be able to come back to Taiwan every now and then.  Not everyone gets to go back to where they served their mission.  It is fun to come back and enjoy the people, culture, food, language etc - yes, the language here is quite different from Shanghai.  The easiest way to describe the difference in language would be like comparing English from LA to London, same language but quite different.  With my new customer here I'll be here more often too.