2 years and counting :-)

Weather: fine Spring day
Temp: 16 - 23
Sinful: The Shanghai gang (Holly, Me, Frikkie, Rachael, Pete and Andrew) at Sin on Saturday night.

Frikkie and I celebrated our 2-year anniversary on the first of May. It was also exactly 1 year ago that we first set foot in Shanghai. Much has changed since then: Frikkie and I are infinitely happier, we now live in Shanghai, we can speak a smattering of Mandarin, but mostly it's Shanghai that is changing around us by the second as the city gets ready for the 2010 World Expo. It is amazing to see - construction on an enormous scale going on day and night (as the earth moving trucks thundering down the round outside our apartment at 4am bares testament to). We read in the paper over the weekend that the local government has decreed that property owners need to spruce up their building in the next 6 months and if they don't do it themselves, the local council will and owners will be presented with the bill. Just like that. What is perhaps not so nice about the clean-up is that the street food will disappear as it is now illegal to operate a business from the back of a bike. Street food is the best food. It's fresh, tasty, convenient and cheap. Sigh - will sure miss it. It is also now illegal to spit in public. This will not be missed.

I'm off to fabric market with Rachael and her friend Merte this afternoon. Am really excited. Our boxes arrived yesterday, which means my sewing machine and dress-makers dummy are here, so I can sew!