It’s the weekend!! Yippee!! I made it through Friday with out crying!! Good to have last week behind us. Last night Tim and I went for a long walk on the back streets of Puxi.

Sights from our walk

The sun was just going down.... Dust in Shanghai

Nice little bakery...it could be anywhere in Europe or the States....
Then....right across the street from the bakery...you see this...
In the background is a produce market....notice the two girls in the center of the picture....they are high school students. All of the kids wear this type of uniform...they look like track suits.

News stand
Restaurants...
Bikes and scooters whizzing by...
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It is Saturday morning and Tim, Tucker and I are on our way back from a furniture factory. We are working on a small re-decorating project in our apartment and as part of this project our landlord agreed to buy us a new dining room set including a hutch for dishes. So….we found a small shop to buy the furniture…the shop is at the Flower Market in Pudong….everyone should know that furniture is sold at the flower market right??? The owner of the furniture shop invited us to visit his factory. The factory is about one hour drive from our apartment. The factory has been closed most of February because of Chinese New Year. Most of the workers return to their home town during this time. This year was a very difficult year for travel because the weather was very cold and the snow closed many of the train and bus stations stranding travelers mid way to their destinations. The holiday “season” is now over and the workers are returning to the factories. Here are sights from the furniture factory….

This is the road to the factory. The area has lots of small businesses and homes. These buildings appear to be green houses...but they could also be workshops

Just outside the factory Mr. Rooster was crowing...and....wandering around the streets like he was the King.
Drying racks for .......?....we are not sure what they were making here....maybe some sort of paper pulp or doing laundry...it was hard to tell.
This was outside an iron shop....it looked like this was the painting station. There were cute little kids running in and out of this shop.

Wood drying outside of the furniture factory....the "factory" was small and Tim's work shop looked like a dream compared to the space where they were working.
Beautiful wood ....
This is a table top similar to the one they will be making for us.

Tim and Tucker inspecting the wood.
The weather was very nice and they were taking advantage of the sun to dry the wood.

This is the "clean room".

This man was carving intricate patterns into a piece of wood.

Wood stacks inside the factory

Tim and Tucker watching the workers.
A paper drawing of the carving design is laid over the wood....

Then...it is hand carved by this gentleman....he worked by the light from the window.

Work in progress...

The factory....
One of the workers...

The wood carver....this was the photo of the day!!