The last hoorah

This was my last weekend in Shanghai for the rest of the month. I'm doing a bit of a U.S. east coast final tour prior to the OFFICIAL official move which commences 1/1/12 when Anthony and I fly back over together… for good good. I land in NYC Sunday night (currently writing on the plane) and will be there through Tuesday afternoon when I fly to WPB. There will be a lot of family bonding time (and helping to get the house in tip-top Christmas shape) until December 21st when I fly back up to meet Anthony for our 3 day stint in Delaware by way of Newark. We fly back to WPB Christmas Eve so we can be thoroughly disected and inspected TOGETHER, as a couple, by my family (they've only ever met Anthony sans me, brave soul that one). Then we're back up to NYC for NYE2K11 (my second annual NYE in the city) and on the first day of the new year (or the year of the Dragon) it's off to Shanghai we go. That's 6 flights in the next 27 days folks, in case you lost count. Anthony accompanied me to the airport by way of the Maglev. The Maglev is a train that uses magnetic levitation (aka no tracks/wheels) to suspend the train basically a few inches in the air. The train gets you to the airport in 7 minutes flat, at a speed of 268/mph. It was pretty cool, I must say (just don't tell Anthony, I wasn't in the mood to help, more like watch him lug 40+ pound bags around a train station thus wouldn't concede this point at the time).

I'm excited to get to spend the rest of this month surrounded by familiar faces, places, smells and sounds. Anthony says to wear myself out on all the things I love, like to the point I'm sick of them, the things I can't get in Shanghai. Of course my mind goes immediately to… food. Yes, food. This means I'll be hitting Chick-fil-a for breakfast, lunch and dinner, downing 12 glorious inches of Publix subs like they're going out of style (all you Floridians can understand this) and ordering American Chinese food by the quart-fulls. I'm sure this last want sounds a bit ludicrous, but alas that greasy, addictive, amazingly satisfying (and great hangover cure) known as General Tso's chicken (and egg rolls, egg drop soup and fortune cookies) are about as authentically Chinese as I am. Tough break…

I'll be stocking up on products galore over the next few weeks (get ready CVS and Sephora). You know, the essentials - 55 cans of Pssst dry shampoo, 28 bottles of Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer and Morrocan Oil by the gallons are all on my short list of items that will take up the better part of a second checked bag. I've had to become creative as of late with how to come up with suitable substitutions for things I just can't physically get it Shanghai (see my prior post re: faux Starbucks Peppermint Mocha Lattes). As luck would have it, about a month before the soft move a Pure Barre studio, http://purebarre.com, opened up in Columbus Circle and I.was.obsessed. Understatement. If you aren't familiar, get familiar. Any free time I had, I wanted to be there. Let me make it clear, this is NOT usually my style. I go in waves with my workouts, waves where I'm all in and will get myself out of bed pre-dawn to get to the gym. Then there's the wave where the sight of my tennis shoes makes me nauseous (that was the most recent wave, from about May to November, you're welcome Bally's for the $37/month donation). Since I very well can't bring the studio to Shanghai, and exhaustive Google searches have proved unsuccessful for any workout of this type in my new country (the bar method hasn't caught on in the far east) I'll be turning our living room (or maybe the underutilized office) into my own PB studio, with the help of the DVDs I ordered, a resistance band and a tiny medicine ball. I'm PUMPED. Also pumped to not have to use jars of tomato sauce for bicep curls anymore…

About 4 hours, 1 movie and a lackluster airplane dinner in, I'm ready to pop an Ambien and wake up on the other side of the world. Check bag for my next blog post about our cultural Saturday in Shanghai!

Blog you from America,

Xoxo,

Jess