26 May 2012 ~ Shanghai

Listening to: Spirit Family Reunion ~ I Am Following The Sound (No Separation)

I had so much fun in Shanghai this week! Sorry I could not post more, but some of you may know that Google is not very popular with the Chinese government and it is difficult to impossible to get any blog or social network pages.

Although Hong Kong is technically part of China, they have the status of "Special Administrative Region), as does Macau (capitalism isn't all dead).

When I arrived on Sunday my friend Eric from Yum!China picked me up at the airport and we reminisced about work and caught up on family/friends. We agreed to meet on Friday night for a team dinner.

The class I taught was fun and smart and interesting. Students came from all over AsiaPac: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, Melbourne, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur.

Here we are celebrating with cake the birthday of one of the students.

The training facility was located in the Bund area of Shanghai. We had a view of the Pearl Tower from our classroom.

After class on Monday we all decided to meet up at the bar "Heaven on Seven" at 3 on the Bund, which is on the boardwalk withh fantastic views of the Pudong area of Shanghai.

It is mostly as I remember it, but the shopping mall (the "small" bulding on the bottom left) is complete and construction is underway for a new "tallest" building in Shanghai.

Here is the Pearl Tower by night. I still have not made it to the observatory at the top.

And last night (Friday) I did get together with my Yum team. James was not able to go, so we hooked up in his office for a quick catch-up.

The rest of the team went for dinner nearby the Grand Gateway. Most of the team is still there, including Daisy, Ricky, Jenny, Amy, Zoe, Zefei, Johnson and Wong Gong. I can't believe it's been 5 years, but it felt like I never left.

This band of the Day, Spirit Family Reunion, is quite good. While posting this blog, I've researched them a little more and listened to several additional songs. Here is a link to the website if anyone is interested.

http://www.spiritfamilyreunion.com/

According to Paste Magazine Best of What's Next "Spirit Family Reunion play homegrown American music to stomp, clap, shake and holler with...Dusty acoustic guitars, wailing fiddles and weeping accordions, with a woozy-yet-skintight rhythm section-- and topped off with burr-edged vocals that sound like they've been soaked in a Mason jar for generations -- it's the type of music that blurs the line between past and present so thoroughly, and so deftly, that time feels irrelevant."