2004-11-14 - 9:58 p.m.

hi yall...This entry is really long and wordy...only read this if you are officially bored to tears.........we were going to wait until our apartment was all nice and decorated to show yall pictures, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen unless a magic interior decorator visits us in our sleep. So here it is-- Zu Jia Hue Gardens (or something like that)in all its glory...
this is the courtyard, taken from our balcony.

These are buildings. Shanghai seems to have lots of them.

This is a very dark picture of our little dining room and the living room. (I should have waited until it was daytime,and then you could see the place really well, but that's way too easy. I like to complicate things!)The bathrooms have heat lamps in them strong enough to give you a sunburn, but the rest of the house doesn't have much lighting. What do they think we do in the bathroom that we need so much light? hmmmm........

Our bedroom, again there is not much light. sorry. it's got that nice big window, which played a very important part in scaring the pants off me...i'll tell the story in a minute...

This pile of crap is compliments of our friends the construction workers. It's right outside our door (that door is our neighbor's)

And I put this one up just to embarrass Mike. Those are HIS Superman undies!! haha, really they are mine. There is one thing I avoid more than grocery stores-doing laundry. Dryers aren't very common here.The nicest apartments in the city usually have laundry hanging out a window. So instead of transferring clothes from one machine to the next, I've now got to hang them to dry on our balcony for all the world to see!!!!!!And if we are lucky, our clothes come inside smelling just like Shanghai. I'm joking about the lucky part--our neighborhood smells alot like fish and curry. Don't you wish your clothes smelled like that?

Alright, it's story time. They say the Chinese invented fireworks, and I think they like to remind anyone who might have forgotten this fact at any time of day or night. It is very common to see or hear fireworks for absolutely no reason. And the people are fearless! Someone will light a large amount of fireworks, and then basically stand on top of them while they go off. Maybe I am a scardy cat- my sister got her shoulder burnt by a bottle rocket when we were kids-but still, there's alot of these things going off everyday. Last night, Mike and I were in a nice peaceful slumber. The contruction workers were also asleep, so it was a very quiet time in our building. At 5am, fireworks started going off RIGHT NEXT TO OUR WINDOW. Someone set them off in the courtyard, and they reached their height or whatever right next to us...I dont really know what I did, but Mike said that I shot out of bed and started making noises like an alley cat in heat, and then I threw my arms around his neck and continued my yowling while my whole body convulsed. Mike started giggling and tried to tell me it was only fireworks, but I was connvinced it was someone trying to get us. Why else would they go off right at our window? That was my disoriented, scared to death logic, which now that I think about it makes absolutely no sense. So we laid back down, and within 5 minutes our friends the construction guys began beating on pipes, sanding wood, and pretty much ending our night of sleep. Mike got so angry. He wanted to punch the fireworks culprits in the face, not for waking him up, but for waking up the construction workers.I am going to throw the biggest party Shanghai has ever seen when this building is finished. By the way, as I type this, someone is setting off fireworks somewhere really close. What are they celebrating? Yay, it's 10:40 on Sunday night! Hooray for 10:40!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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