The past month has been a very hectic month for the two Iowans abroad. Our school hosted a huge music festival called Dynamix. This was a strange event to me, and stressful. I won’t go into too much detail, but basically the festival only involves our own students, but guest conductors and workshop directors came in to work with the students. In previous years, the past band director was in charge, but now the company has broken off and ran the event privately. Since all of our students are involved, I felt personally responsible for preparing every single student on the music. I was a little frustrated by how our music program was hijacked for the first term, but I am relieved that we are now free to plan our own program.

Angela and I decided to go on a fancy date this week. I decided to surprise her by picking a fancy restaurant. A few other teachers recommended a place called Hai by Goga at our last teacher meeting. I did a little research and found that it was located in the French Concession. The restaurant is located on the 7th floor of a hotel tucked away behind a block of restaurants in the heart of the expat French Concession. We found our way up, and discovered a pleasant little restaurant with windows on all sides and a great view of the city.

The food was delicious. We started with some black pork belly, moved on to scallops and ended with some mac n’ cheese. Actually to be honest, the meal progressed from best to worst, but the mac ‘n cheese was not terrible by any means. On our way home, we stopped at a place called Abbey Road, which is a bar that is themed in homage to the Beatles album. I was glad to have a fun night out on the town, because I had sort of forgotten why it was fun to be living in Shanghai for a little bit.

I have also begun a new project that is one of my life goals: to building my own bicycle. I ordered a Raleigh road bike frame and a fork. The frame is scandium and the fork is alloy. I will include more detailed information and some pictures when they arrive. All for now.