Our Adventures in Asia: Weekend with Friends

Our friend, Chris Tang, from Oregon was in town for work and we were able to get together on Saturday with a couple of mutual friends of ours, Quyen and Loc, who live in Pudong. Pudong is across the river from where I live and while it is still Shanghai, it could be a different city. We hardly ever go to Pudong because it's about a 45 minute taxi ride on a good day. And the only time that we do go to Pudong is when we need to make a trip to Toys R Us. But Chris' visit was worth a trek to Pudong.

Interestingly, I met Chris through work. We negotiated a contract together on opposite sides of the table and became friends in the process. His wife made Sydney a beautiful blanket and bib when they heard that I became a Mom. Chris also introduced me to his friends who live in Pudong when he heard that I was moving here and I've become friends with them too. So Chris has been very good to me and I was happy to be able to see him yesterday.

I don't know how I managed to spend the day in Pudong with friends and not take one picture. It's mostly because we were too busy eating. We had fantastic dim sum for lunch and stayed in Pudong long enough for dinner. Quyen and Loc have been in Shanghai for 1.5 years and they are practically fluent in Chinese, and so are their kids. As a result, we were able to eat at places that I would have never tried because I wouldn't be able to order anything.

It was a beautiful, warm day in Shanghai today so Sydney and I went over to Chung's house to play with her daughters, Keira and Riley. Sydney was able to work off all of the food she ate on Saturday by riding a bike (actually, she only scooted on it using her legs), kicking balls and playing tag with me and her friend, Riley. Colleen and her kids, Riley (aka Big Riley) and Nicola (Sydney's classmate), came over to Chung's house later and we finished the evening off with pizzas.

Now that it has warmed up a bit here, I look forward to more weekends of playing outside with friends.