Well, it is very odd to not be at the lake for memorial day.  Our weekend started with us trying to do Skype with my family at the lake only to find out our sound board in the computer got burned up Friday when they came to replace the TV....so no sound -- we talked to Apple and get to go tthe Best Buy here in Shanghai to see if they can help us....we have been there twice and typically there is one or two people who can speak english -- I'm sure we will have a good story from that.  One thing we have learned in China is that NOTHING is ever easy...even if you think it is, it isn't.  Also, if you think it will take an hour -- it will actually take at least 2 -- unless its a massage and then they run right on time!

Well here is our first post on our "blog" from Asia Pacific.....I am not to sure what to say except thank goodness we are in our apartment and have unpacked.  Molly's temper tantrums paid off and they delivered all of our stuff within record time once she became person non-grata.  (For those of you who know her -- I am sure you are surprised that she could be mean and appear that snotty :).  The apartment is coming along nicely except for fact one of the TV's is broken so they had to take it away for a "repair."  After we get it back we will take a video of the apartment for people to see where we are living.  Apparently in China -- quality for their own "living stuff" is not that important -- there really is such as a thing as "its good enough."  We have had multiple items not working correctly -- and it seems like every day there is a different repair man making sure that we are fixed.  The good news is that they come really quickly and solve the problem -- it just is painful to get through.  The other interesting thing is having people work with you and you don't speak the language -- trying to demonstrate what you want them to do and then communicate if it is right or wrong -- takes a lot of energy and still only works about 70% of the time.


Another key point about living here -- all the appliances have directions but they are in chinese....it has taken Molly 4 loads of laundry to figure out how to work it properly (trial and error) and we had a big problem that we could not get the dryer to work - it was taking 4 hours to dry things.  It turns out that there is this "water catcher thing" (that is the best description we have for it) and since we were not emptying it -- the dryer basically was not working.  It appears that we are back on track now that we are emptying this thing.  It seems minor but these little things have caused us to go a little crazy at different times.  However -- our american stuff we bought before coming over does work (thank goodness!).....


Overall we are doing pretty well.  Molly has been to Singapore and Australia in the last 2 weeks.  The weather in Singapore was amazing (it seems like a good place to go for hot weather)....Sydney was really cold and rainy since it is their fall...Molly will be heading to Europe in June on Business and then probably to India in early July.
Eric has been traveling within China to the plants and seeing customers.  He is getting ready for a trip to India in early June.


The humidity is crazy.  We have never experienced anything like it....It is hard to believe that next weekend is Memorial Day and we won't be at the lake....We are thinking of everyone and missing the US.  Take care and we will keep you updated.