I am here teaching English to little kids – mostly Koreans (the company, Readingtown (RT) is run by Koreans and caters to them at their many locations worldwide) – and taking Chinese classes at a local university. Everything has been going well so far, minus the vicious leg infection I got within my first week here that led to a delay in starting to post, as well as almost anything except going to work and laying in bed.

I think I can say that being here is really starting to have an effect though, as for the first time in my life I had a dream that included spoken Chinese last night. I don’t remember the specifics at all (I’m not much of a dreamer and remember little to nothing of them) but I do remember waking up this morning and finding it so odd that my dream had included people talking to me in Chinese and I believe me responding in Chinese. I took a little Chinese (as well as Spanish) during various levels of school and always remembered teachers saying that once you started dreaming in the language it was some big step. Had never happened to me though, as I usually only had exposure to the language in my classes and even then it wasn’t that much. I guess this whole “emersion” thing isn’t overstated!

Besides that, not too much to report thus far. Like I said the injury/infection has kept me mostly home/neighborhood bound for these first few weeks. Certainly heard about a lot of cool things to check out, but have yet to actually get to many of them. Hopefully this weekend I will be heading to Moganshan, the main contemporary art district of Shanghai to check out a few galleries. My roommate/fellow teacher Tim was over there last weekend, and found that a few of the galleries recommended by our mutual friend Daniel (also a teacher at RT) were closed. So it is back there this weekend to see if we can find them open. Last weekend was a holiday, so I’m assuming that is why they were closed, though Daniel has also mentioned that many things in China (or at least Shanghai) seem to have very odd hours. He meant this more for events I think (gallery talks/openings), but did say that for our work hours (about 3:30pm to 8:30-9pm daily) they were incredily inconvenient. Have to see how that develops.

Finally, discovered that very close to my apartment is the “best location for a solid burger in Shanghai” as related to my by an older man from Florida I met while at the ex-pat hospital for my leg. It’s called the Blue Frog, and while expensive for China, is about nothing outragous for the quality of the food and decor (about $25 for a good burger with fries and a few beers). Definitely not an every day or even every week sort of thing, but good to know it’s there.