Street Meat

It was only a matter of time. As many of you know Jeff and I spent the year before we moved to Shanghai working with a dog rescue organization. Fostering dogs was a great learning experience that was both very rewarding but at times a little traumatic. When we moved to China my parents graciously offered to keep Doozer during our time here. It was hard to adjust to not having a happy wagging tail to greet us every time we came home.

Recently, on our way in to our apartment, this little guy was hanging around the front door. Our friends had seen him around with the security guard who was trying to give him to anyone that would take him. At that time he was hobbling around on three legs because he was kicked by a kid. With no one around to claim him and the temperatures dropping outside I decided to bring him in and feed him.

He was pretty nervous at first and I am not sure he had ever been inside a warm home. He spent the first couple hours keeping a 15 ft distance. As the time clicked by he grew more trusting and crept his way closer, inch by inch.

After a day or so he made himself right at home, including constantly trying to join us on the couch! I found out that our complex workers called him Dadu or “big belly” since he was always looking for a handout. It is quite possible that I stole someone’s pet since Dadu already knew how to shake paws, sit and was pretty much potty trained. He was quite popular around the complex as well. He happily greeted everyone he came across. I ran into his former caretaker who told me to keep him. He was just trying to help out this friendly little pup and just wanted him to have a good home.

The first night he was here I immediately felt some buyer’s remorse and was worried about what we were going to do with him. We definitely had no plans to get a dog and we travel frequently. Having one long term was not in the cards. I contacted Jaiya’s Animal Rescue who offered to help find temporary fosters during our vacation and they posted him online. There are not very many qualified vets and most people are not too knowledgeable about pet training. I was worried we would not be able to find Dadu a good home.

We decided to check out the adoption event ourselves when we returned home from the Maldives. Dadu had spent the week with an expat family with two little girls and he had done great. So I was hopeful he would find a good family. As we arrived at the event we were a little shocked. This was not the small organized rescue event we had become accustomed to. Over 50 people arrived with dogs on leashes, puppies in crates and a few random cats. Most of the dogs were little and appeared to be pretty young. We found out that this event was more of a ‘pet exchange’, volunteers looking after their rescued pups and some willing people looking for a new pet.

One family quickly was drawn to us. The fact that Jeff was wearing Tigers gear and that we were not Chinese probably helped. The Dad of the family was also from Detroit and was wearing a Tigers hat as well. Their little boy immediately took to Dadu. Within 20 minutes he was giving him walks around the place and asking how much we wanted for him. I was getting pretty hopeful since they did not get too distracted by the other puppies running around.

Flash forward a month and our little guy found his forever home. Dadu now Duncan has a big house with heated floors, a small backyard (not common in Shanghai!), and two kids to love him. I am so grateful that this family decided to take a chance on our little rescued pup!

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Happy Chinese New Year! We were not really sure what to expect as we spent the first two days of the Spring Festival in Shanghai. For one of the biggest cities in the world the Shanghai streets were nearly empty on New Year's eve (Feb 2). Many country side people return home to spend time with family and the many expats take the week long holiday as a chance to escape the city. There is not much to do as everything is shut down for the most part. We decided to head to Jeff's parents to get a view of the city and see the chaos that we heard would erupt at midnight.

We didn't have to wait until midnight, as many people started the festivities just after dark. Firecrackers and fireworks rang out throughout the night. However, this wasn't a state-sponsored celebration. If there was, then it would have been a waste of money. The people of Shanghai put on a show that I am sure is matched if few places across the globe. Around 9 pm, we took a stroll through the streets of Pudong to get a ground level view of the experience. And what an experience it was. Almost as soon as we walked out of the front door we were treated with a fury of firecracker bangs and fountain style fireworks. From the looks of the debris covering the streets, it was near the end of this particular groups display. A quick turn around the corner and we were treated to another first. Two guys pulled over on a main street and got a box that was all red and the size of a dishwasher out of their trunk. They then lit the fuse and stepped back to watch 100 3 inch shells be blasted int the sky. These weren't your backyard fireworks. These were spree quality fireworks reaching 40 - 50 stories in the air and exploding into cloud size bursts of red and green fire. Another three of four microwave-sized boxes of fireworks later, we continued down the street to an impromptu firework stand that was selling fireworks to passersby. I stopped to inquire about the price of the washing machine sized box. I was blown away when they quoted me 1,300 RMB (about $200). We were only at the stand a couple of minutes before 1 of the 2 large fireworks were purchased and dragged away in a cab. Considering the price, we figured that the largest fireworks were probably priced out the average Chinese persons budget. Boy how we were wrong....

Around 11:30PM the people of Shanghai had all took to the street to begin the "real" celebration. Imagine a firework display on the 4th of July at your favorite lake, river or park. Now imagine that firework display occurred concurrently with every other city in the areas fireworks. But, instead of being 30 miles between cities there is about 300 yards between firing locations. Then, multiply your normal 20-30 minute display by 3 to account for the fact that the show lasted from about 11:30 PM to 12:45 AM. That is exactly what the Shanghai skyline looked like on Wednesday night. The video attached barely does the scene justice. From my parents 39th floor apartment overlooking the river, you could see skyscraper tall fireworks in every direction. Truly amazing and a must do for firework lovers out there.

This year begins the year of the rabbit and people born in this year don red undergarments to ward off evil spirits. Some people get rabbits for pets and I am not quite sure if they stay pets or end up as dinner one day (probably the latter)! The new year also brought some great weather into Shanghai. The sun has been shining and the temperature has started climbing into the 50's. The most impressive thing on our walk back to our place the next morning was that by 10am the city had already cleaned up most of the debris left behind from all the prior nights festivities.

Bowling for Turkey

When we moved to Shanghai I took a risk in allocating 40 lbs of our allotted 750lbs of air shipment by bringing our bowling gear. After a few months here our bag was still collecting dust in our storage room, and we still hadn’t seen the inside of the bowling alley. At home we got the chance to bowl in a monthly league and I spent the past year having weekly bowl offs for lunch against Patrick with the end result of usually me buying.

Things soon changed when we heard about a weekly Wednesday league that was organized by one of the softball guys, “The Hammer”. Hammer is easily the best bowler in our misfit group and a great host for the league. He supplies a few rounds of Tsingtaos and covers for those of us who sometimes leave without paying him for bowling. He also organizes a skins game for those who like to gamble. We were pretty confused at first about the idea of winning skins in bowling but the concept makes the league a lot more fun for those of us who like to play.

Since our bowling group changes week to week with anywhere from 10 to 30 people, the skins system lets everyone come and go as they please while still establishing an average for the season ending tournament. We usually play 3-4 games each time with the first game being a warm up game. The next two games you can opt in or out of the skins game. You can win skins a few ways. Any split converted, any turkey, and high 10^th frame all are automatic skins that will get you 5rmb per person for each skin. An untied high score each frame also wins a skin so there is plenty of rooting for/against other bowlers depending on the scenario. This skin creates a lot looks from other people bowling as our crowd gets pretty rowdy when only one strike is on the board. There is also a trash skin called the ‘CJ strike’ aptly named for one of the league member whose ability to throw a first ball gutter and still get a spare is legendary. Given that our best bowler has about a 180 average while the field averages around a 125, anyone can win money with this system.

This all culminated with a 16 man tournament to end the fall season. Timely corresponding with Thanksgiving, the big prize was a smoked turkey. The league is not short of big personalities, so the trash talking and wagers on who would win began a couple weeks in advance of the actual tournament. As the lone female in the tournament, I was letting everyone know that I was ‘dark horse’. I know my game is consistently inconsistent, thus I could either be an early exit or make a deep run into the finals. This was single elimination tournament so I was pretty nervous going in. However, my confidence rose quickly as I knocked out the defending champion by 60 pins in the first round. My next round was against the Hammer and I got a little lucky. The lanes were dry and he couldn’t find his mark and my 47 pin advantage was too much for him to overcome. Round three put me against my friend Adam, who had previously duped his girlfriend and I into a sucker bet the week before so I was out for blood. Karma was on my side as Adam bowled a sub par game and I won the match straight up without needing my 14 pin advantage.

I headed to the finals having to face Noah in a two game high total match. Noah was the biggest trash talker and most of the crowd was on my side. Unfortunately, I did not make the first match very interesting. I had a hard time following through and missed my mark just too many times, giving up my 30 pin advantage between two games. Winning straight up the next game was just too big of feat after four games behind me and my turkey dreams were soon crushed. I guess I’ll have to wait until next tourney for redemption.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Running in Shanghai

Before coming to Shanghai I wasn’t a big fan of endurance sports. I was much more likely to be seen burning calories on an ice rink or a soccer field than pounding the pavement. I attribute this partly to the fact that I grew up in the suburbs and was never too far from an ice rink and or park. Since moving to Shanghai though, the opportunity to play team sports diminished quite a bit. I still spend Sunday’s in the spring and fall playing a pretty competitive level of softball, but Monday through Saturday was leaving a pretty big void.

A couple of friends of mine have always encouraged me to start getting into endurance sports. They run 10k’s, half marathons, and triathlons all of the time. One even travels to Asia every other year to compete internationally. I have always dismissed their suggestions as “not for me” because I thought running/biking/swimming was boring. Things changed this summer when I decided to do Shuan T’s “Insanity” workout program. For those of you unfamiliar, it is probably the most intense home training program on the market. It makes P90X seem easy. After completing the 60 day program (in about 70 days because I couldn’t keep up), I was probably in the best shape I had been in a very long time – maybe ever. I wasn’t motivated enough to start over and do 60 more days of insanity, so I decided that I needed a new goal. Enter endurance sports.

I started to set my sights on doing triathlons. The reason being is that I just couldn’t imagine myself running over 5 miles at a time, let alone 13 or 26. Thus, I decided that mixing in three activities might be more exciting. A couple of problems: 1 – I didn’t have a bike, 2 – I didn’t have any swim equipment, 3 – the only triathlons I could find were outside of China. Apparently endurance sports are not the most popular activity in Shanghai. I have solved two of the problems by buying a very nice Specialized bike and all new swimming gear. What I couldn’t fix was the fact that there were not any triathlons in the area. So in the meantime, I focused my attention on running… which is where the interesting part of the blog begins.

My ultimate goal is to compete in a half Ironman. I was hoping to compete with my friend in Singapore in March, although I am not sure a half Ironman is a great idea for my first tri. In the meantime, I have decided to register for two events. The second is the Shanghai half marathon on December 5^th. I am still pretty nervous about running 13.1 miles at one time, but I have been training diligently and think I will be ready. The first event I ran was the Nike Shanghai 10k. This event took place in the Songjiang university district on the west side of Shanghai. Let me just say the runners were an interesting bunch.

I coaxed my Dad’s driver into picking me up at 6 AM and taking me out to Songjiang (about an hour from downtown – Shanghai is a big city). Registration was supposed to be from 6:30 to 7:30, with the event starting shortly there after. “Shortly there after” is a relative term in China. Since I arrived around 7, I was signed in and ready to go in plenty of time. Unlike events organized in the US, the starting area of the race wasn’t divided by the expected pace that the runners plan to run at. Instead, in true Chinese fashion, all the Chinese people decided that they needed to push their way as close to the start-finish line as possible. Also in Chinese tradition, the event organizers had split the groups into two classes. The common people (which I was apart of) was kept about 100 yards from the start finish line. In the “special group” the organizers had arranged for a local fitness trainer to lead people in calisthenics. What was particularly strange is that these individuals were probably the same people that had no business running 10k in the first place. There were out of shape people, people in jeans, and others wearing loafers all sweating to the pretty low impact exercises. Meanwhile, I was crammed like a sardine with the 10,000 Chinese students that were not part of the special group. After fifteen minutes of “yòu biān”-“zuǒ biān”, which means “right side-left side” we thought the event was starting. They dropped the rope and let us jog to the start/finish line. To our surprise, there was another rope at the actual line and now we had just run into the group of Jane Fonda imitators. The event coordinators were not too pleased. The stage was set up back where we had come from and they decided that 25 more minutes of speeches and introductions was necessary. Then, all of the sudden, without much notice the final rope was dropped, the clock started and we were off.

I thought this event was scheduled to be a 10k. Normally, a 10k requires a pretty consistent pace to complete the entire thing without passing out. This strategy was lost on about 70% of the Chinese students that were registered to run. It seemed like we were in a 100M sprint as people with backpacks, jeans, and dress shoes went flying by me in the first few meters. Needless to say I passed about 90% of these people within the first few kilometers as they had already begun walking or barfing on the side of the road. Certainly an interesting site watching 10-20 Chinese students losing their breakfast before the 2 km mark. I have to admit that I was a bit thrown off by the early pace. I had my training software set to tell me my pace every 1 mile. First update: 1 mile in 6 minutes 20 seconds. My response….oh shit! I was not prepared to run over 6 miles at a sub 7 pace. I was planning on about an 8 minute pace. After the first mile I knew I was going to be in trouble.

I ended up scaling down my pace to a more reasonable rate and ended up finishing my first 5km in 22 minutes and 30 seconds and finished the entire 10k in 46:14 (7:26/mile). This was about 3 minutes 30 seconds faster than my goal. I was happy about that, but my legs and body disagreed. It probably didn’t help that after the event I spent the afternoon walking around Sheshan Golf Club watching Tiger and Phil in the HSBC World Golf Championship. The race day proved a couple things to me. 1 – a half marathon is going to be a long run. 2 – I need to do much better at pacing myself. 3 – Chinese college students are terrible judges of their athletic abilities.

My training for the Shanghai half marathon has continued with me running 4 days a week. I typically put in between 5 and 10 km. The best part about training is running through the streets of Shanghai. Each run is full of excitement due to the looks I get from Chinese people wondering who is chasing me and the constant excitement of almost getting hit by cars/trucks/bikes/pedestrians/buses. On yesterday’s run I made the mistake of turning down one of the busier streets in Shanghai. Since the streets were packed with people it was going to be impossible to run on the sidewalk. Traffic was hardly moving so I decided that using the shoulder was a safe bet. Little did I realize that the shoulder was reserved for “bumper bikes.” I was about halfway down the street as an older gentleman on a bike pulled out directly in front of me. I figured that he was on bike and I was on foot he would likely be moving faster than me so I pulled up behind him. I was wrong and this guy was seriously slowing down my pace. So I juked left, split two cars and came back out in front of this guy. Apparently that must have had a negative impact on his “face”, because he was not happy that I passed him. I didn’t realize this until I felt the guys tire ramming the back of my leg. Not once, not twice, but three times in about 10 strides. As I turned over my shoulder to see what the deal was, I saw the same guy I had just passed with a slight grin on his face. Apparently giving me tire burns was hilarious to him. I tried to let it go and picked up the pace a little bit. About two blocks later he had caught back up and tried to bump me again. This time I was prepared. I side stepped his tire, which put him right next to me. An “accidental” nudge of my elbow into his handle bar sent the guy veering off into the guard rail. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him fall rather harmlessly onto the side walk and yell something at me in Chinese. I felt bad for about .5 seconds until I looked down at my left leg and saw the tire burns. I wonder how his “face” is after a “lǎowài” put him on his ass?