First year away

Wow! Iron-wife has just informed me during dinner that I "have been in" Shanghai over a year now. Left Canada on Sept 4/07 and arrived on Sept 5/07. Man o man. So what exactly have I accomplished over the first year away, well:

- I start understand Mandarin and talk more and hear more.
- I finally can use pinyin to type Chinese SMS or letter to my parents.
- I renewed my Portuguese passport so I didn't have to waste the last 4 pages of my Canadian passport due to expire in 2011!
- I got this express pass in and out of Hong Kong airport.
- I trim down, holding at 79-80Kg.
- I start knowing Shanghai streets better.
- I can use a wok whipping dishes like no tomorrow.
- I have more time to be a geek.
- I can actually converse with our regular airport run driver and the Ayi (our house helper).
- I got married? :-P
- I have cooked more than my last 5 years in Regina. Cook not instant noodles or campbell soup.
- I have sampled how Western foreigners in business here in Shanghai still think they know everything.
- I have traveled all over Asia, safe places only. And can go to Singapore knowing my way around without much help. I can even be a tour guide there ;-) India couple times.
- I think I am just scratching the surface of a very complex environment; but it is due to the tug of war between the "developing mentality" of the next generation of Chinese and the Commie controlled doctrines.
- I still have my Mac and think will be just a Mac family - unless Steve Jobs begins to peeve me off with less functional and more elegant products. Next procurement will be either a phone or two and the Macbook Air with Solid State Hard drive.
- I have no TV in the house for a year now; does not seem to miss it much. Funny. But after having TV on in CNBC all day in hotel rooms, my brain just wants the TV off.

Wonder what the second year holds.