Excellent days - the last few have been wonderfully warm and relatively fresh!  Saw numerous stars down in the city at least one night - for downtown Shanghai, think 20 million people, to see over 20 stars while looking between the buildings is quite awesome!

TRYING to get caught up with blogging, websites and a phone call or two!

So a wonderfully rainy Sunday morning, when I was supposed to work (the government gives a Friday holiday off, but everyone must work on Sunday as if it was Friday.  The schools all follow (Universities too) and most businesses, so the whole COUNTRY travels! 

Labor Day used to be one of the "week" long holidays.  Again, to get a "continuous 5 day holiday", everyone works one of the weekends - yeah, I am NOT kidding!  For 2008, the government CHANGED this to a 3 day holiday and added, Tomb Sweeping Day (Qing Ming Jie), Dragon Boat Day and one other.  So the Chinese government (and most others) get 4 three day holidays (January 1st also), a week at National Day (Oct. 1) and Spring Festival (The TRUE New Years for all Chinese).    Total days off is 11 now, up from 10 last year, with all of the rearranging.  Also new, you might remember, employees (of the government) that have worked for a full year, will receive 5 paid days off, 10 vacation days after 10 years, etc.