Seven days ago I was itching what appeared to be a bug bite on my leg.  I did not think much of it at the time.  A few hours later I looked at it again.  It was a little more swollen, red and itchy.  I figured I should head down to Shanghai East Hospital clinic [...]

The first museum where the Communist party was founded was at the actual location of the meeting. It was at a time when the rest of the (western) world had claimed parts of Shanghai and parts of China, after China has lost in the Opium wars and a group of gentleman wanted the foreigners out of China and wanted to “bring power to the people.” There were a bunch of players and I am not even going to try and recite the history in this blog, but essentially, they met with both a Dutch and a Russian representative from the Communist party and spent six or seven days hammering out what Communism meant for China.

I am always amazed at what I see loaded up on bicycles here. Some guys haul fruit and other guys haul trash. The other day I saw one guy who blew them all away. This guy had a full size fridge strapped to each side of his bike. I could not believe it. He was swerving all over the road trying to keep from falling over. So the next time you are out riding a bike and the going gets tough, just remember, you could have a couple of fridges strapped to your bike.

Happy New Year! I guess it doesn’t start until the Chinese New Years, but it will be the year of the PIG. Good luck to all with new years resolutions. I think mine are to shed a few pounds by following a more Chinese-like diet, finish my MBA, learn how to relax (better and more easily) and to do a lot of travel around Asia.