Thanksgiving '08

Ammar with the 25 lb turkey!

The HUGE turkey!

The 28 guests packed into Ammar's living room

Many of you have been asking us if we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving over here last weekend, and yes we did!  We recently met a couple at church called Pam and Ammar.  Pam is from Manitoba and her boyfriend Ammar is from Oregon & Kuwait.  Anyways, we started hanging out with them and really enjoy their company... they are both really into working out, being outside, travelling, etc... much the same as us.  They invited us to their feast and we were thrilled... we actually looked forward to it ALL week long b/c we're getting a bit tired of just eating rice and noodles over here and were stoked for some proper Western food.  Ammar hosted it at his house as it's huge, and it was pot-luck style, so everyone brought a dish.  Team AC did it's typical mondo-salad!!  Loads of people from their schools, work, and church were invited and it was a great opportunity to meet more expats our age.  Ammar's apartment was also incredible... he is on the 18th floor with windows all over it, looking out over a man-made lake in his complex (where you can rent kayaks), the city, and farmland WAY off in the distance.  He is actually paying more rent there than we are renting our place out for in Vancouver... o ya, China can be expensive if you want it to be.  This place was like the Hilton!  We will be happy to go visit him again!

The only lousy thing that happened that night was that my mobile phone was stolen out of my purse on the subway trip on the way over to Ammar's house.  I was SO careful to keep my purse in front of me the whole time b/c it was super duper crowded in the subway, but then moved it behind me for only about one minute while walking over to the doors right before we got off.  I guess that's when it must have been stolen.  To be fair, it was kinda my fault b/c it wasn't zipped deep into my purse like it should have been to make it more secure.  But still, someone lifted the flap-pocket of my purse, found the phone, and took it.  Arggh!  The funny thing is that everyone I've told over here in Shanghai has had absolutely no sympathy for me... they all say stuff like "well you really should have been more careful" or "ya, that's happened to me 3 times on the subway already, be careful!".... so I guess I learned my lesson the hard way.  The good news is that I bought a way cooler phone yesterday that I like even better than the stolen one... so it's all good!

Anyways, that's last week's update... sorry for the delay!  Hope you're all well.