China #10 - More Shanghai

October 20, 2012
hey there folks....well i am finally getting the chance to say hi and check in again from china....it seems like this year is just overly busy....so much to do for school and so much play in life away from school, keeps me moving a quick pace these days....i am again in a few different supper groups, singing in a choir, swimming three mornings a week and have now joined zumba.....woot!!!  i am also in charge of what is known as our House System....its SCIS' version of hogwarts....so we have five different dragon houses that all of the middle school students participate in for academic competitions and sport competitions and service learning....so its been fun working with house captains that are kids and the great people in the middle school this year....its a complete 180 degree turn-around from the feelings on campus last year.....i'm lovin it....but i am a bit exhausted with everything....

i decided to do another round of pictures form shanghai....since i do live here and try to get out and about as much as possible....i was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for october break visiting a friend and her family who have moved there this year....and those pictures will be in the next update....but for now i am sticking with shanghai....the glittery, crazy, china-lite city i live in :)  first stop the junketeria.....
  

the markets in china are an amazing thing....and you can find them all over the city....i have a new friend who has moved into town and she wanted to pick my brain for a day and wander everywhere to find things for her house and classroom....and she came up with the junketeria....i had never been there so i thought....why not....whoa....it was an elementary school teachers dream....you name it, it was in the junketeria....the picture above is only one aisle of the first floor...it has SEVEN floors with about 15 aisles each....and literally you can find anything....
 

for example the things above can be found there....i think this one store has at least 50 different kinds of googly eyes...and look at all of the string and yarn....when i say you can find anything you can find anything.....
 

but it wasn't just crafty stuff....it was also holiday stuff...i could have already started stocking up on decorations for the chinese new year and that's not until february....one of the funniest things i saw at the junketeria was an older gentleman playing with a snake made out of wood....he was prenteding it was scaring him and in return was frightening the children around him....that doesn't sound funny, but everyone around them...and yes, even the children, were dying of laughter...i do have to say the chinese people love to smile and laugh...i see that all the time...
 

one last shot from the junketeria...yep...you can even find underware there...all shapes and sizes and styles....and its just a stall next to the googly eyes and stickers....simply amazing....and what's even crazier is that there is a similar sized market, that sells mostly the same stuff, just two blocks down the street....really, you can find anything in china....odds are good, but goods are usually not high in quality....but you can find them....
 

we came across an amazing noodle stand on the side of the road while walking around, you just point to what you want and they make it....choices were veggies, beef, fish, chicken, pork, organs of various animals and of course amazing noodles...probably made by the guy's wife and grandmother at home....i love these stands...and you can find them anywhere....street food is always best after a long night out though, when you have been having a drink or two....the perfect nightcap....yum!!!!

the two pictures above come from my local wet market....this is where i buy my fruit and veggioes and tofu...but you can find all sorts of food stuffs here....it is also in a local neighborhood...and in the first picture you are seeing the local chinese older guys reading the newspaper through the glass...the newspaper gets changed daily and really, it gets read....every neighborhood like this one has a news area....it also has an exercise area and a place to sit and catch up on the latest gossip of the neighborhood...the chinese really do get out and about and community does mean a lot to them....the second picture i love...its the ice man delivering ice to the stalls in the wet market....because as i said before, this is where you can get everything....you can pick out chickens and have them plucked and killed right there...or fish fresh from the ocean/river delivered that morning....or eels...right now, hairy crabs are in season....i had dumplings with some crab in them last weekend...not really my favorite...but here in china they come from one region of lakes and are quite the delicacy.....but i love the way this guy is delivering ice....you can do everything here in china with a bicycle or motor scooter...its amazing.....
 

i don't know if any of you recently saw that china was in the news about some islands in the south china sea....these particular islands and who owns them are being fought over by the chinese and japanese and philipinos....its pretty crazy....about a month back there were a lot of demonstrations against the japanese and how they were claiming these islands....and one of the demonstrations went past my house....it led to demonstrations outside of the japanese embassy and some businesses around china were attacked....even some of the car parts factories that are japanese owned....tensions are still high, but i haven't seen any acts of violence or demonstrations recently....the japanese and chinese are not the best of friends however....so who knows where this could lead....

the picture above is me with bao zi - its a bun, cooked in a steamer that i sometimes have for breakfast....you can have them filled with pork or beef....but of course i get the ones filled with veggies and tofu....you can see there are many different levels of the steamer...all holding buns for folks to enjoy....these breakfast foods generally cost me 15 cents each....what a tasty bargain i say :)
 

one of my favorite sights of shanghai is the couples who match what they are wearing....yes....they actually dress the same...and this is very common....especially younger couples and families traveling together...i have seen families of six and seven where everyone is wearing the same outfit....my favorite just this morning was a couple out walking in their matching pajamas...here in shanghai if you are out in your pjs, it means you have time to be leisurely....so it means you have money and time to relax and can show the world this fact by walking around in your pjs....simply amazing!!!!

recently i was down at the bund for some drinks on a rooftop bar...and every time i go, i have to take this shot...i just love it...what i also love is that the lights do not go on until 7pm and they get turned off between 10:30 and 11pm these days....really they do think about conservation of energy in ways that surprise me every time...

where else but china could you get your hair done and smoke a cigarette, all on the sidewalk for others to notice you and what you are doing....this guy was actually having his hair colored....from grey to black....it looked like shoe polish and i have no idea how long it lasted...but having him as the demonstrator was pulling people in to buy the stuff....who knows why...i love the cigarette....its just another way to spend your day in china.....
 

i have seen many different modes of transportation here in shanghai and these are two of my recent sweet ride shots....the one above is great because we are coming into winter and you want to be sure your passengers are comfortable and dry when you are taking them somewhere on your trike...but its surrounded in plastic....not glass...but it does have the frame....so maybe that's the next step....
 

in shanghai there are tons of the side car motorcycles...you can even do a tour of the city in one...they are everywhere when the weather is good....this one is really well maintained and i have seen it all over the place...the guy who drives it has the old style goggles to go with it and it is in mint condition....anything goes in shanghai and if you want one, you can find one...no matter what it is...

for my birthday this year i tried out a new restaurant down on the bund...quite tasty and it had an amazing roof-top bar....on the way back and down the steps they had this incredible piece of art....they are ceramic characters of chinese hanging the length of the staircase...just incredible....but they are more curvy than normal characters, giving them a sense of calmness i just don't normally feel from chinese characters...i loved them....

this last shot is of me at the rooftop bar of the restaurant...look at that view of the bund...simply awesome....this city has it all....and its is still so much fun to explore...cheers....

and there you have it...shanghai in a nutshell or at least in a few pictures.....i could send out many, many more as i am always surprised by something in this city...but next up is kuala lumpur....a city filled with color, greenery, traffic and som incredible architecture.....it was a fun vacation...more to come...

i hope each of you is well and happy and feel free to drop me a line whenever...i really do try to answer email as fast as possible...because if i don't, i forget to later....so if you want to get in touch...please do....all the best in the next few weeks and i hope to have the next update out sooner rather than later...talk soon.....
 

China #9 - A New Year in Shangai

September 9th, 2012

Hi there folks.....well, its official.....I am now back in Shanghai!!!! i had a great summer seeing folks and catching up with many in the USA....from seattle to philly, from denver to jersey....it was a great summer....a bit hot, but overall things were relaxing and filled with laughing and hearing stories from the past year and beyond....thanks to all who i saw and stayed with....it was nice to hear your updates in person....i am headed back to the states over next summer...so if i missed you, hopefully we will connect this coming summer.....

i have been back in shanghai for just over a month....and what a crazy, busy time it has been....i have moved into a new apt....same complex, but a different place (pictures to follow)....i have been given a new classroom...funny stories here...more to follow...i have met 41 new teachers here at SCIS...which sounds ridiculous when i tell you we only have about 90 teachers to begin with....but it has been a great thing....i have spent many days and night showing people all around this city...and i have started school....which is always a lot of work.....BUT....the year for work has started off well, and so far i am much happier than last year with my situation.....the new folks have breathed new life into this place and people actually are smiling and excited to be here...its a great feeling.....

but let's get to the pictures and i'll tell the stories along the way.....as you can see from the shot below, for the first time in my life, i decided to fly executive class back to china....its a 14 hour flight and we earned a bonus last year that i put toward flying in this manner....and i have to say...it was AH-MAZE-ING!!!!! i have no idea why i have not done this before....okay, actually its rather expensive, but its totally worth it....the seat that you see below, turns into a bed and for the first time ever, i got some sleep on a long flight....it rocked.....the food was good, the movies were good, i had no one next to me....i will do this again, but only on the really long flights....this is what i have decided to do as an adult :)  gotta love it....

thanks air canada...it was a great trip :)  woot!!!!

once i was back in shanghai, things started happening fast...this place has sooooooooo much to do and see and experience, and it felt like i picked up from last year....a friend had her mom visting town, so they were headed to a brunch on the bund (the river area you see above) and they invited me along....it was a very warm and muggy day, but we almost had blue skies....so of course i went for the view and the company....the food was pretty darn good too....but this was the shot i took from their balcony at the restaurant....i do love this view....

  
as some of you may remember, i had to move my things at the end of last year into a new apt....so i decided i would show you how it is shaping up....i am in the same complex and there are some new perks with this place, but overall it is smaller and less pretty than my last place....but very functional and works for me....in the shot above you can see my dining room....the glass circle on the far wall is one of the perks, as it lets me display life stuff....and can be back lit....the doorway on the left goes to a full bath with a shower and the doorway on the right leads to the kitchen...you can also see a polka dotted thing to the left, and this is the door to may spare bedroom (come on over for a visit!!!!)

this next shot above is looking from my dining room into my living room and enclosed balcony....it has been too hot to use this so far, but someday it will be cooler and less humid....someday....this was before i put any art of the walls, so it looks a bit less sterile now...but that is still coming along....not finished yet...its hard when your walls are cement...need to borrow a drill....

and last, but not least, this is my kitchen....the reason i had to show this was because i have been lucky enough to get an oven with this place....this is rather rare in china and many other places overseas....yes, i will need to guess at temperatures as the numbers on the dial are missing....but its exciting to have one of these....and located just next to the oven is the washing machine - yes, for laundry....gotta love that in your kitchen ;) all-in-all its a nice and cosy place...i think i have worked out the storage and space issues and am now in the process of making it look better....but i am not much of a "nester"...so putting art on the walls is probably the extent of what i will do....come for a visit!!!!
 

on with the show....i decided to take a picture of a lady i see all the time on the way to my friend's place....yep, she is a tailor...on the street, with a very old fashioned sewing machine....you still make it move by pumping with your foot....she of course recognizes me now and waves hello every time i walk past....she usually has quite a few customers, as she has set up shop across the street from the hutang near me, where lots of folks live and most of the have no electricity or running water....and she does their tailoring and fixing of things....i just lost a button on a shirt, so i will need to try her out :)

school, as i said, has been extremely different this year....the admin is going out of its way to treat us well and give us little thank-yous...its quite nice....and one of the best ones they have given us this year was a river cruise on the Huangpu in shanghai....this is the river you see in all of the pictures of the bund....and lucky us, it was on the night of the full blue moon....as we were walking to the boat, i took this picture of the moon rising and linked it up with one of the many cranes in shanghai....not bad, as it looks like the moon is hanging from the chain of the crane.....

this was the boat we went on....as you can see it is sponsored by a corporation...all of the boats are well lit and have a sponsor....and there are quite a few...it was a two hour river cruise and below you can see some of the fun shots i took along the way :) it was a beauty of a night....
 

this first shot is of me and lindsey, acting out the bad "chinglish" on the boat - if you can't read what it says - its...."The working orea The tourist halts"....lovin it....we tried to look as serious as we could...that way you would follow the rules better ;)
 

this is a shot of the pearl tower all lit up....i love this building....it is a tv building that you can go inside...i need to get back over there again this year, as the last time i was there was when i was a tourist in china....not living here...i need to walk on the glass floor and take some shots....and i hear the museum at the base of the tower is pretty good concerning the history of shanghai....

in this shot you can see the financial buildings in pudong, the tallest one being the one outlined in blue that looks like a bottle opener....over to the right you can see the moon...and the boat in front of the buildings was one of my favorites on the river that night....it has dragons on the front of it....and was lit up well...its sponsor was china telecom....one of the the country's phone companies

the last shot from the cruise is the other side of the bund.....the building with the flower like top, is the westin....one of my favorites....the architecture on this side is quite different than the other side, as many of the lower buildings look like they should be found in europe...love all of the lights....
 

as i mentioned above, i got a new lab this year, in a different part of the buildings of school....this used to be a normal math classroom...but they have remade it into a science lab...its a bit small, but has all of the necessary parts....the funniest thing about this though was that when they built the room, and took all of the teaching things out of it - bulletin boards, a white board or two, the smart board, the clock....they gave them to other classrooms...so literally when we got here, it looked all pretty and new, but there was no way a person could teach in here....i just thought that was funny....it seems to be working well, but we start labs this week and we'll see how it works with 23 kids...a bit tight....
 

its funny, they also left me no wall space....so great storage, not that i have any stuff, but trying to put things on the wall is definitely a process.....i need to figure out where i will put the goggles holder next....it has to have enough space for 120 kids....yep....i have quite a few this year....6 classes, almost all at or over maximum capacity...this place is a lot of work...but again, my kids are great....so that i can deal with.....

the next few shots are things from around town that show some of my daily sights and experiences....i had to take a picture of this sign for my mom and her friends....look the toilet is more than a toilet....it is delicious and happy....i have no idea what that means....and it was NOT  a western toilet....so i am not really sure what they mean by this....thoughts????

people wanted to know this summer if shanghai was a clean place....and the answer is yes, with a little asterisk next to it.....we have tons of street cleaners like this guy..notice the uniform and the style of broom....plus he has to carry his little wheeled part himself....there are tons of these folks everywhere in shanghai....so its a clean place....but lots of folks spit everywhere....and i mean everywhere....and people go to the bathroom everywhere....personally i think these two things are gross, but maybe they are why we have so many people cleaning streets...because really, when you look at the street, it looks clean.....

the other thing that surprised most people this summer was how anything and everything can be delivered to your house.....and i mean anything.....so i took a picture of a mcdonalds delivery guy on a scooter....he wouldn't smile....but this is the way most things are delivered to your door...its amazing what you see on motor scooters here...i will try and make those a focus with some pictures in the near future....i have seen everything on them....

for the next two pictures, the school started the year off with a good luck lion dance and acrobats...i only had my iphone, so the pictures are not that great....but i loved these lions and thought it was a cool good luck thing for the school to do....there are two guys inside the lion...one is standing on the other ones legs....that's how they get the height....
 

we also had performers and this guy was amazing at balancing...he is on a wooden board, that is balancing on 5 metal tubes that are all rolling around on each other....again, not very clear....but i thought he was incredible....acrobats are very big in shanghai...i am hoping to go to one of the shows sometime this year, as i never made it to one last year.....

i love this last shot of the bund, as it was taken out on of the windows of a bar along the bund....i took some of the new folks out for dinner and drinks with friends of mine and was able to take this beauty of a shot, as it was a somewhat clear evening....it just makes me smile, so i thought you might like it too....
 

the last shot of me is a traditional one of me with a beer...taken of me on the river cruise....with their cool fish tank and staring waitstaff, i know i am stunning :).....it was a fun trip on the boat and it was terrific gesture by the school....it has been a great start here in shanghai and i have a fun fall/winter breaks already planned...i am next traveling to kuala lumpur,  malayasia to see some friends and relax in october, friends from the ice are headed here in november and i am doing a trip in india for the winter break.....so things are shaping up nicely

i hope you enjoyed this update....i will try and have another out about shanghai sometime in the near future and then will probably send out one about my time in malayasia....woot!!!!  if you have any questions or comments or an update of your own, please send them my way....i hope everyone is well and happy and enjoying their fall or spring....talk soon.....

China #7 - Beijing

July 8th, 2012
     hey there all and happy summer to those in the northern hemisphere....happy winter to those in the southern....i am hanging in the states in a few places this summer, but much of my time will be in pennsylvania....if you are in the area of philly, get in touch.....sorry it has been about a month since the last update, but i haven't had much time for covering the adventure after singapore til now.....i was in seattle for almost a week and had a blast...and i head to denver next week and i am sure i will have a great time there too....

this time around the pictures and stories are from the second half of my spring break....my friend kat came to visit and for the last part of the week we headed up to beijing.....china's capital city and one of the most polluted places on earth....while there you will find ancient treasures and crazy food at the night market and some really great versions of "chinglish"...all of these you will see below....

even though it was just a weekend trip, we had a blast and made it to the wall and the forbidden city and the old olympic village....we even stayed in a hutong - an old style chinese house that has a courtyard and rooftop garden....more on that later.....probably the highlight though was the street food at the night market....really, if you have never been to beijing....you should come and spend some time....maybe not in the spring, as that is when the sand from the gobi desert comes blowing in....but it is a place you should not miss if possible.....on with the pictures.....
  

we decided to take the bullet train up to beijing from shanghai....a normal train ride from shanghai to beijing is an overnight affair...but now that the bullet train is running its only about 4 - 5 hours to get there....as you can see the train maxs out at about 304 km/hr....for those who don't know metric, that's just under 200 mph....pretty darn fast.....we were traveling in style in first class for the trip and it was great!!!!  the way back was not as much fun as we had a really obnoxious child on the train....his mom was not keeping him occupied.....this is rather normal with chinese kids...as you are only allowed to have one and many of them are treated as little emperors and empresses....kind of annoying.....
 

once we got into beijing we took three metro lines to get to our hostel....rather crowded and extremely far down in the ground...but very efficient and easy to use.....the hostel we stayed at was a hutong....these are alleyways that are formed by old style chinese houses....called shikumen in shanghai....these old style houses have courtyards and used to be shared residences either by many members of one family or many families together...in the courtyard/shared portion would be the space for the kitchen and then each family/portion of the family would have their own living quarters/sleeping space radiating off the main courtyard....many times these did not have running water or electricity....and that is still true today for some of them...our hostel did have both amenities.....the doorway you see above is the entrance to our hutong....always red - for good luck and prosperity!!!!!
 

during our nights in beijing, we went to the pedestrian area where the night market was located...unfortunately we did not eat there the first night and had some american food, that was not so good, but we were starving....luckily we ended up finding the market and did have dinner there the second night....it was amazing how many things had really bad english translations on them....you can see one of my favorites above....if you figure it out, let me know what it means :)
 

saturday we headed to The Great Wall....we went to the most touristy part...mutianyu....as you can see from the picture above, we caught a chairlift up to the wall....i think most people have a hard time grasping just how enormous and majestic and powerful the wall is....8850 km (5500 miles) long....but this does not include all of the branches off of it....its simply amazing.....
 

as you can see from the sign, we were in the land of civilized sightseeing....and don't worry, there is no driving on the wall...actually i have no idea how a car would even handle the wall with its steep steps and bumpy parts, at times you did better to use both hands and feet when going up and down certain parts of the wall....i can only imagine how long this took and how many people died while building it....insane....
 

i like the shot above because you can actually see blue sky - a rarity due to all of the pollution and you can get an idea of how long the part of it we were on stretched on for....we did not walk everything you see...not enough time....but the horizontal part of the wall in the top part of the picture is where we started from.....not such a crowded visit....which we were really happy about :)

here's a shot of the two of us on the wall....this was after kat had heard enough kumbaya from a church group who was visiting the wall from the states....as you can see  i have adopted the traditional korean girl pose....this seems to be what i do these days in pictures...amazing how things rub off on others 
 

i took this picture so you could see just how steep the stairs are on parts of the wall...its incredible to think that soldiers needed to patrol this wall, that there is a full marathon held on the wall and that a fashion show was hosted on the wall....i have no idea how the models did it without killing themselves in heels....simply crazy!!!!  but a must see if you can....you can also see how the stairs are slanted to the left...and that means they are leaning towards the chinese and not mongolian side of the wall....they did this so they could collect water from the rains and would not have to carry it up from the villages below...smart thinking!!!!

the way we came down from the wall was tons of fun....yep...we tobogganed down on a luge....it rocked....here you can see kat getting ready to take off....you can tell from the picture she was just a bit excited about the entire experience.....
 

this is a view looking down the luge to where kat is.....for much of the ride i did not use the brake at all...so a few times i needed to slow up and wait for kat to get out of my viewso then i could go as fast as i wanted.....zoooooooooom!!!!!  if you do go to the wall, this may seem like the cheesy, touristy thing to do...but really, its a heck of a lot of fun :)
 

we also made a stop in the beijing olympic village....here you see the bird's nest....the chinese have been quite smart with these buildings....the bird's nest is used for concerts and such and the swimming cube is now a huge water park.....so they have made them useable for all....of course we saw the folks selling all of the previous olympic paraphernalia and per normal there were people selling the small opera mask kites....the color of the sky here in this shot is more of what we experienced in beijing while we were there....blech.....

while we were walking down our street to the hostel we kept seeing these makeshift hub caps....we had no idea why folks did this, unless they didn't want to scratch their "real" hubcaps, so we nicknamed it the "beijing boot"....also interesting to see how many bicycles were chained in car parking spots to reserve the spot for the owners....the bikes were being held upright by two taught chains...one to the front wheel and one to the back wheel....interesting method that works!

now on to the night market.....what you see in these pictures is a selection of foods you could have fried and/or eat off a stick....kat and i were daring....but we did not try the grilled starfish....i just couldn't imagine eating one of these, but we saw many folks enjoying their very crunchy snack...if you look closely you will also see above the starfish, spiny sea urchin and the long things to the right of those that are darker in color are eel.....

in this shot however, you can see something we ate....it was not the silkworm larvae or the big black scorpions....but we dared each other to eat the smaller scorpions....there were two on the stick...one for each of us....simply perfect....they take these sticks and fry whatever you see on them for the person to eat.....
 

me with our tasty and rather crunchy snack....really they did not have much flavor and it was like eating plain old potato chips, because they did have some salt and a lot of grease on them....sorry i did not post the picture of the empty stick...but hopefully you believe me when i tell you we ate them ;)

before we move into some more non-traditional choices...i figured i would show you the caramelized fruit sticks....these things are amazing and you can find them in shanghai too...they take the fruit, pour liquid sugar over them and then add heat so they will harden....kind of like candy apples....and they use many different types of fruit...i have to say i love the strawberries this way....yummy!!!!!

back to the non-traditional....in china you can get lots of meat things on a stick...beef, chicken, pork...plus you can get parts (chicken feet and heads) or organs (liver, heart, tripe) specifically to fry as well....in the shot above we were given the opportunity to fry up some sheep penis....that's the one with the double sticks.....i can honestly say both kat and i passed on this rare treat....would you pass?????
 

however we did not pass on the fried snake.....this was quite possibly the most chewy food i have ever eaten....i don't know if the guy didn't cook it long enough or what, but it was impossible to bite off a piece here...this shot was taken before we both gave it a try and had rip off a piece....needless to say, we did not eat the entire thing...things we also ate that were very tasty were veggie dumplings/goyza, crab dumplings, a type of chow mein noodle and fried ice cream on white bread....the last creation was sickeningly sweet, and definitely not a favorite....it was a great experience walking up and down and trying all of the different treats at the night market.....
 

the morning before we left we went to the forbidden city....this is where chairman mao's picture looks out over Tienanmen square and where many of the emperors lived when they ruled....mao's body lies in the square in a mausoleum....but we did not have time to see him....this is the picture of mao that is updated each year over chinese new year....they say that each year his picture is getting younger and younger....kat is just helping him stay aloft :)

i decided not to include many pictures of the forbidden city, as ih ave already been there and if you go into past updates here in this blog, you can find other shots....however, i was intrigued by the sun dials in the forbidden city and happy to see that they all agreed and seemed to still be working....how cool is that :)  i know, i know....always a science geek!
 

this last shot from beijing is me with one of the imperial guardian lions for where the emperor's throne room was.....i have opted to have my picture taken with the female lion, as she has her left paw on her baby....these lions are known as the "shishi" and can be found in front of important places because of their protective benefits.....they are always found in pairs in china, to represent yin & yang....the male with his paw on a representation of the world and the female restraining her playful cub...you can find of these many places within the forbidden city.....this specific pair is from the Qing dynasty...roar!!!!!

overall beijing was a great weekend trip from shanghai....it was great to go with my friend kat there and if you head that way, please let me know and i will meet you if possible....of course, i also recommend you head south to sparkly shanghai where i live....free bedroom included.....i will be there for at least one more school year, but after next june i cannot make any promises i will still be there.....it was a crazy year for me with work and i have not decided if i will be staying for a third year in shanghai....but when i make a decision, i promise i will pass it along

i still have africa and australia to live on for continents....and who knows what will happen....but i do recommend a trip to china....so much to see and do....so much history....it is an incredible place....and although i am happy i am on vacation from there at the moment....i am really happy i live there and i really do like shanghai.....so that's the latest update.....i probably will not send another this summer, as i am traveling a bit and head back to work at the beginning of august....feel free to drop a line and say hi....and remember, if you are in the philly area, get in touch.....