Picture Time!

I've gotten several requests for more pictures on the blog.  I figure a good place to start would be my apartment.  I'll start with by far the least "cool' thing about where I live, which is actually my bedroom:

I guess this is really just a picture of my bed, but that's pretty much the size of the room.  It's a bit cramped, but it will do.  And after a trip to IKEA yesterday to buy some extra storage drawers for my closet, I think I may just possibly find room for all of my clothes.

On to the good stuff!  Just outside my room is a long terrace, which also connects to one of my roommates' bedrooms.  We're thinking of getting a table and chairs for out there, and, as you can see, it's a nice spot to dry laundry (our dryer SUCKS, and the vast majority of Chinese apartments don't have dryers anyway, so air drying is the most popular method of drying clothes here):

The best part of the apartment, by far, is the living room:
                              

It's a huge open space, well-lit, with a comfortable couch and plenty of room to have people over.  Last night, my Canadian roommate invited a bunch of people over to play poker, and the room was a perfect venue, providing ample space for both the game itself, and for people not playing to relax and chat.  Over the course of the night, English, Mandarin, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Hebrew were spoken, leading me to wonder whether I will need to stray much farther than my own living room to find some of the cultural and linguistic opportunities I'm looking for here.

Some external shots now - this is my apartment building, with a little courtyard out front:

And this is the main building from the street corner:

The building itself is quite nice.  So far I think I've only seen one or two other expats in the elevators, it's mostly Chinese.  There's a gym inside the building (which isn't free, but isn't expensive either) which I hope I'll actually have time to join today.  And while this picture doesn't really show it, this corner my building and the coffee shop on the right forms a concrete square, which seems like a popular spot for Chinese parents to bring their toddlers to run around.  I don't really understand why, but it's always packed around here, particularly at around 6-8 pm every evening.

This is the view from my corner:

You're looking across Xinhua Road (pronounced 'shin-hwa'), going north up Dingxi Road (pronounced 'ding-shee').  Another slight drawback to the apartment is its relative lack of proximity to a Metro station, so I do a fair amount of walking around the neighborhood to get to and from work.   Here's a view of Fahauzhen Road, on my way to the nearest Metro station:

And a little park right next to the Metro Station, on Yan'an Road:

Last but certainly not least, I've officially had my first visitor in Shanghai.  He may not have been here exclusively to see me, but Eric Zachs, husband of Jessica and father of Benjamin, Jacob, and Zoe (apologies for the lack of umlaut...couldn't figure out how to do it) emailed me on Friday at work announcing his presence in Shanghai.  We ended up having coffee on Friday afternoon, and spent most of Saturday traipsing through the Shanghai Art Exhibition, where Eric displayed quite the artistic taste.  At one gallery's exhibition, he told the curator that he thought one aspect of the displayed photographs was "scary."  Her response: "Oh...no, not really, I don't think so."

So thank you, E-Dog, for visiting, and for all of the other prospective Shanghai visitors: if you visit me, you will get a picture on the blog.  Now how is THAT for incentives...