It is 4:30am on Thursday morning and I can't sleep so I thought I would write. You may notice by this time and day that my blog is still on Pacific Standard time. This is a slight annoyance but I can't figure out how to change it so....As they say....don't sweat the small stuff!!

The past few days I have been "hunting and gathering". I needed to finish some furniture shopping for our apartment so we can close the paperwork with our landlord. I only had a few more items to purchase but it has taken me a long time to muster the energy to shop for these items. Shanghai is like a shopping wonderland in some ways and a shopping nightmare in others. Stores are not organized in the same way as in our culture and the price of just about everything that you purchase in China has to be negotiated. Some people think this is really fun.....I think it is exhausting. Part of the exhaustion is converting prices from RMB to US dollars while I am negotiating because that is my only frame of reference to truly understand the value. As for the store organization.....I needed several lamps so I found a lamp store. This store is really sort of a warehouse. It is freezing cold, it has three floors, and each floor has many small shops that are all owned by different people. A few buildings away is a furniture "warehouse" set up in a very similar manor. It is really hard to do "one stop shopping".

I met a very nice lady named Teresa at the Chinese tea class on Monday and she took me to hotel restaurant supply store yesterday morning. Oh My Gosh!!!! What a fun morning. I had the best time visiting with her while we explored the store. Again....it is a three storey "warehouse" (much improved in the last few months according to Teresa) with no heat and it has dishes, teapots, gadgets, pots, pans, cake decorating supplies, and white dishes in all shapes and sizes. The prices were unbelievable and I had a wonderful time. I found so many things that would be great for our church kitchen in the US. I am still pondering how I might transport some of it back.

I found out that Teresa is also a quilter and is part of a quilting group in Shanghai....Yippee!!! A new quilting friend and a dish warehouse all in one day. What more could anyone ask for?

In the late afternoon, I picked Abi up from school and another friend, Laurie, (one of my fun mahjong buddies) from our apartment building and we all went to the pearl/bead market. This was Abi's first time to the bead market and it was so much fun taking her to all the jewelry places. We went to dinner at a restaurant near the market that had simple "western" food (it was great!!) and then stopped by the largest City Shop in Shanghai. City Shop is a grocery store chain that carries import goods. I found an almond joy candy bar!!!!! One...that was all they had and I think I might have wrestled anyone that even thought about taking it out of our cart. Abi found Top Ramen and a People magazine......she was thrilled. See how far our standards have dropped!!!

The sun is coming up and I just heard Tim's alarm buzzing so it is the beginning of a new day....I wonder what adventure we will have today?