superior employee development

Forgive me my two-week absence; I've been busy playing tour guide in this adopted city of mine.

Not two days after my old roommate left, my manager came to stay with me for a week and a half. She's been to Shanghai a number of times before and has seen all the touristy sites, so this time we tried to see more of everyday Shanghai. Here are some highlights (or at least places and activities for which I have pictures).

Confucian Temple
The temple doubles as a school for Confucian scholars.



Yu Yuan (Yu Garden)
This 'old city' area of town is done up with old-style architecture and offers various stores where you can buy touristy knicknacks and jewelry. We went simply to fulfill my manager's craving for xiaolong bao (little dragon buns).



Zongzi Party
Our coworkers came over to my apartment and we made homemade zongzi (sticky rice stuffed with pork and wrapped in bamboo leaves). Considering none of us really knew how to make them, ours actually turned out pretty well.



Plant and Pet Market
Our visit to the market ended up being more disturbing than entertaining. Most of the animals were clearly ill or dying. They also were not living in even close to ideal conditions: I saw more than a dozen kittens crawling over each other in a small metal cage, dogs for sale with their ears dyed bright orange and their tails dyed blue, and, most disturbing of all, a young miniature Schnauzer being painted black with something like shoe polish because light-colored Schnauzers apparently don't sell as well.

World Cup Watching
We went to an Irish pub filled with equal parts Dutch and Chinese to watch a couple World Cup games with our coworkers.



It's amazing we got any work done at all last week. My manager - she's a wild one alright.