Shanghai Surprises

Things that make you go "huh?"

2010-02-14T03:38:00.000-08:00

Wow- hope I never end up at this place:

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! Enter the year of the Tiger.
We are off to New Zealand so look for upcoming blog about the land of the Kiwis!

Shanghai Hair cuts

2010-02-07T03:23:00.000-08:00

Since we have moved to Shanghai nearly 2.5 years ago, the cost of living here has risen quite dramatically. But some things remain cheap such as the cost of a hairwash. Since some locals do not have access to a private bathroom, it is quite popular to go to the salon to have your hair washed, scalp and shoulder massage, and a blow dry. Usually runs around $5. We decided to take the girls for a haircut today and I was sure they wouldn't go for the full hairwash but to my surprise, they were totally down with it! And afterwards, a little trim and viola! All for $7/kid which is pretty cheap compared to what we used to pay in the US for a kids haircut where the stylist only used a water bottle and no blowdry!

A enjoys her first "salon" experience

Ahh, this is the life...

The chinese style towel wrap

The girls enjoy all the attention (clearly, they were a little slow that day)

A with bangs! We think she looks so grown up now- even with the silly face she's making in this picture.

It's still a Shanghai surprise...

2010-01-16T03:43:00.000-08:00

After 2.5 years of Shanghai living, it takes A LOT to shock me. So I had to share my latest shock story with all my faithful readers. The other day, we were driving down the street and I saw an older gentleman, dressed in normal clothes (so definitely not a worker), peering down into a manhole. I then noticed he had an over sized ladle in his hand which he was using to scoop poop out of the open sewer. Oh, and by the way, this was all taking place in front of the food stands lining the street. Now, I cannot for the life of me figure out why he was doing this- maybe he needed the poo for cooking fuel or something. Regardless, I did a double take and it's been a long time since I've seen anything that made my eyes pop out of my head.

Along the same lines, nothing shocks me with food anymore either. I've seen it all and for the most part, I've been able to avoid eating it; however, I was recently in a situation where it would have been very rude for me not to eat what was in front of me. And so now I can say that I have eaten shredded pigs ear (tastes like bacon), eel (tastes like white fish), and chicken feet (can't say what it tastes like as I quickly and discreetly spit it in a napkin while my hosts wasn't looking).
So after living in China for so long, I can still find it shocking...sometimes!

Mahout for a day (Chiang Mai part 2)

2010-01-03T00:42:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my last post that one of the coolest things we did on our vacation to Chiang Mai, Thailand was to spend time at an elephant farm as a mahout. A mahout is a professional elephant caretaker. This particular elephant farm is dedicated to the conservation of asian elephants and they have about 16 elephants that they care for. Upon arrival, we were given special clothes to wear so that the elephant knew to identify us as a caretaker. We were each assigned our own elephant and we started off by feeding them (always bribe an animal to like you with food). I had the only male elephant in the group- and his enormous tusks were very intimidating at first glance! When feeding, you put the food directly in their mouth, rather than letting them pick it up with their trunks. It was like reaching into a slimy hole- and we got lots of elephant slobber on us- yuck. Next, we had to examine their poop to see if they were healthy- 10 turds good, 2 turds bad. And we had to smell it- if it's healthy, it actually doesn't smell like anything. I wasn't as grossed out as I thought I'd be (changing diapers for 2 kids kinda makes you get used to dealing with poop).

Feeding the beast!

Afterwards, we brushed the dirt off with a branch and then took them into the river for a bath. Fun for us and the animals! Then, we learned how to properly get up on the elephant- grab the ear, step on their leg, and swing a leg over. When riding bareback, you sit on their neck with is terrifying because it's a LONG way down if you fall and there is nothing to hold onto!

Brushing off "Boon Pak"- that was my guy's name!

A wire brush feels so good!

Sev rinsing off his elephant

We rode the elephants into the forest for our picnic lunch. Our guide explained that it's not cruel to ride them as these are domestic animals- they were all born into captivity. So, just like you would with your pet dog, you feed them, exercise them, clean them, and ensure that they are given a safe place at night where they can't wander off. I thought that was a pretty interesting way to look at things.

Sev climbing up

Victory!

The view from the top- a long way down!

After lunch, we took the elephants swimming. It was fun but I was really apprehensive at first. I kept thinking "what if I get stepped on or he rolls over on me"- you have no idea how utterly huge these animals are until you are up close and personal!

An awesome traditional thai lunch- lots of sweet rice, fruit, and fried chicken.

Begging for food- our elephants got to eat our leftovers from lunch.

Bathing boon pak

A new meaning to the words "log roll"- scary!

All too quickly, the day was winding down and we headed back to "camp". Honestly, this was one of the best things we have ever done and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Plus, it's all about conservation and saving the Asian elephants- and after you spend a little time with them, you'll want to save them too.

The worst santa ever?

2009-12-31T22:15:00.000-08:00

It's getting harder and harder to explain the "fake" santas to my kid. Especially when they look like this:

Well, it's China. You work with what you got, right?
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Chiang Mai, Thailand (Part 1)

2009-12-22T04:47:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my Cambodia post, Sev and I really wanted an adventure vacation where we could do some things that we wouldn't be able to with the kids. Having never been to Thailand, I knew for sure I wanted to go there on our kid free trip but I figured since we could always take the kids to the Thai beaches, we should try the mountain city of Chiang Mai. On the agenda: visting some of the many temples in the city, zip lining through the rainforest canopy, traditional thai massage, and lots of thai food! Oh yeah, and a visit to an elephant farm which was so amazing, I am going to cover it in a separate post.

First off, we chose a small botique hotel called Rachamanka. It was decorated in the traditional Lanna style and the owner has filled the hallways and rooms with beautiful antique furniture. Plus, no kids under 12 allowed which was another reason we liked it! It was like an oasis in the middle of a busy city- I think I'd go back to Chiang Mai just to stay in this hotel! Plus the staff was amazing, and it seems that service and hospitality are something they pride themselves on in Thailand. On our first day in Chiang Mai we found out we had arrived just in time for one of their huge celebrations - the festival of lights. In the evenings, all of the temples and plazas were decorated with beautiful lanterns and we got to see a parade with all of the locals in their traditional costumes- so cool!

On day one, we spent our time wondering around the town and visiting many of it's famous temples. Along with the temples come the monks- they are everywhere! I don't know why but I got such a kick out of seeing them walking down the street (usually barefoot), in taxis, and on their cell phones- yep, cell phones! It seemed like a monk convention and we saw many young boys in training- wonder how one decides to become a Buddhist monk at the age of 10..hmm..

The next day we went zip lining in the rain forest. For those of you who don't know what that is- zip lining is a "sport" where you are strapped into a harness and you are connected by a pulley to cables which are strung (in this case) between trees. It's super fun and terrifying at the same time. I am apparently developing a fear of heights the older I get so I don't think I'd do it again but it was a great experience with amazing views of the forest.

All too soon, our time in Thailand came to an end but we both loved it and cannot wait to go back next year- I can definitely see why people get addicted to this country and go back year after year- it's been one of our favorite countries in South East Asia so far!

Outside of a temple.

Teenage monk on his cell phone- kids are kids no matter what!

The monk mobile- a public taxi rushing the monks to the temple.

Sev and I repelling down during our zip line adventure.

Me- finally brave enough to let go but I wasn't too happy about it...

Sev repelling down to a lower platform

Monks lighting up a temple during the light festival

Something for the ladies- Thai men in the traditional parade.

Our hotel courtyard- miss it already!

A gold gilded temple

A close up of the ancient elephant statues on top of the ruined temple

The ruined temple- at least 1000 years old but exact date unknown...

Lanterns which were hung all around the town

Gilded dragon at a temple

Cambodia

2009-12-12T01:07:00.000-08:00

One place I never thought I'd ever visit is the Kingdom of Cambodia. It was never even on my radar screen until we moved to China and I began to hear other expats talking about what an amazing place it was. Fortunately for us, my parents have a wanderlust and were planning a 22 day tour of southeast Asia which gave me the perfect opportunity to convince them spend a week in Shanghai and watch the kids so that Sev and I could get away on our own (first time in 3 years)! When deciding where to go, we wanted to hit some places that we otherwise couldn't visit with the kids in tow. We decided on Chiang Mai, Thailand and Cambodia (Chiang Mai is covered in a separate blog post). And so began our adventure in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The town is really nothing special- except for the several ancient temples which lie nearby. The temples were built over 1000 years ago and all now listed as world heritage sights. As with other ancient temples (egyptian pyramids, Manchu picchu), Cambodia's temples were built with no mortar or cement and were only held together by the perfect fit of each stone. The most famous temple complex is Angkor Wat, which is where we started our journey. Most of the temples were built either to honor a specific buddhist or hindu god, or as a final resting place for the king.

As we explored the various temples, I felt totally overwhelmed by their size, beauty, and the ingenuity it took to build them so long ago. Honestly, I would rank them right up their with the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City in Beijing. The funny thing is that when we told our friends back in the US that we were going to see Angkor Wat, not one person had ever heard of it. Crazy! By the way, the below pictures do not even come close to doing this place justice!

One of the many temples- look closely to see the giant faces carved into the stones.

A close up of one of the gods.

The citadel of women- built out of pink sandstone to honor a goddess.

One of the small temples in the Angkor Wat complex

Many of the temple walls were carved with these Apsara dancers or other stories about life during the time the temples were built (Sev liked this carving for obvious reasons).

A sign in front of one of the temples we visited- just 2 years ago we would not have been able to go there due to the land mines.

On day two in Cambodia, we took a boat tour of the flooded forest, Tongle Lake. This lake grows 20 times in size during the rainy season, flooding everything around it, yet providing a livelihood to the many local fisherman. It was on this trip that we really got to see how truly impoverished Cambodia is. Again, google Pol Pot if you want to understand why- he was a REALLY bad guy who totally screwed up the country and they are just now starting to get straightened out. I knew going into this trip that we were going to see some tough things- there are a lot of land mine victims from the civil wars (including young people), young children running around naked, and many kids from about age 7 were actually working- either tending to the family's cattle or trying to sell things to the tourists. It was really hard to see but everyone we met was very gracious and always thanking us for choosing to visit their country. Overall, it was an amazing trip and we would definitely recommend Cambodia to anyone with a sense of adventure!

A young boy tending the family cows.

Public transportation for anyone who is not a tourist- yikes.

3 children in a boat- alone- in the fishing village (and yes, the little kid in the back is naked).

Typical fishing huts on the lake.

Two small boys with huge knives- I swear they weren't much older than our kids! And there was not a parent in sight...

These kids had knives too which they apparently used to cut down firewood. Can you imagine American kids going out alone into the jungle to gather firewood?

Vietnam

2009-11-22T04:35:00.001-08:00

I recently had the chance to meet up with a friend from the US in Ha Noi, Vietnam for a few days. Since Sev always gets to travel on business trips, I figured it was my turn to get a way for a change! I arrived in Vietnam the day before a huge typhoon hit so needless to say, the weather was not good. I was on my own for the first day so I got a guide and drove a couple hours out of the city to visit on old temple. The temple itself was not that interesting but the ride sure was! Rice paddies and water buffalo were the order of the day. I was really surprised by the amount of propoganda signs that I saw everywhere. They mostly consisted of pictures of Ho Chi Minh (the great communist leader of Vietnam from WW2 until 1969) and had slogans reminding people to live their lives the way Ho Chi Minh would want. Weird- he's been dead for over 30 years! His body is on display in Ha Noi but my friend and I opted to skip the viewing.
A buddist cemetery in the countryside

Snake and scorpion wine for sale

Very communist looking building which is Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum

In the afternoon, my guide took me to the prison where John MacCain was held during the Vietnam war. Again, serious propaganda here- all the photos on the wall showed the American POW's laughing, playing badminton, enjoying cultural films about Vietnam...where in reality, several POW's barely survived the "HaNoi Hilton".

Day 2, I met up with my friend and we wandered around the old city. I have never seen so many motorbikes in my whole life. And I thought crossing the street in Shanghai was bad but this place was 10 times worse! The shopping in the city was OK- lots of silks and embroidered cottons. The food however, was outstanding. Lots of french influences blended with asian ingredients. Our favorite restaurant was KOTO which takes in street kids and teaches them to be chefs, servers, etc. It was fantastic and cheap- with proceeds going to a good cause.

Getting ripped off on a traditional rickshaw ride! Oh well, had to be done!

Fruit seller on the street- I couldn't believe people actually wore these hats in daily life.

Day 3 entailed a 3 hour drive to Halong Bay- a beautiful bay surrounded by limestone cliffs. It was lovely and reminded me of my previous weekend trip in Guilin, China (see earlier post). We were "lucky" enough to end with a eurotrash couple from Russia who started hitting the rum and cokes the minute they got on the boat. She stripped down to a g-string thong bikini and a banana hammock for him, which is when I started referring to them as "the entertainment". But back to the scenery- it was very peaceful but overall I kind of felt like I was in a tourist trap. However it was interesting to see the local fishing villages where people actually live out on the water for several months a year.

"The entertainment" and her infamous thong which we unfortunately, saw plenty of during the cruise!

Traditional fishing village- yes, people actually live in these little huts

Another view of a fishing village

Our resort on Cat Bah island in Halong Bay- not bad, not bad at all!

The beach in front of our hotel - but the water was actually pretty dirty :(

Overall, it was a nice trip but out of all the places I've been in southeast asia, I'd say Vietnam was my least favorite; but I would definitely be willing to try it again- I've heard their beach towns are great...

G pissed off because I made her model the hat I bought her- can you picture this look permanently on her face at the age of 16?

Hong Kong side trip

2009-11-03T06:57:00.000-08:00

I recently met up with a friend in Vietnam but because I am cheap, I chose a connecting flight with an 8 hour layover in Hong Kong. For half the price, I figured that I could find something fun to do in Hong Kong for a day! And since the three other times I had been to HK had all been to visit Disneyland, I thought I owed it to myself to explore the city this time. I took the high speed train into the heart of the city where I hopped onto the Star ferry. For a cost of about 30 cents, I got a beautiful view of the harbor on one of the historic ferries. After a few hours of shopping, I met up with some friends who live in HK and they took me to a famous dim sum restaurant. Now, don't get me wrong, I like Chinese food but in general, I wouldn't say that I loved it- until I ate real dim sum! Dim sum basically means little snacks and this place we went to serves it the old fashioned way. People push a cart throughout the restaurant and you can choose what you like as it comes by. Yes, they had some yucky stuff on offer: shark fin soup (which I morally oppose), chicken feet, and the like but on the whole it was delicious, awesome food. My favorites are the BBQ pork buns (fluffy white bun with sweet bbq pork in the middle), sesame seed stuffed buns, and shrimp dumplings. It's been a week and I can't stop thinking about this place- can't wait to go back next time I am in HK!

The dim sum place- it was massively huge and PACKED (this shot was taken at 2pm).

The cart- full of delicious stuff

BBQ buns, sesame buns, and a veggie dumpling (oops, already ate a few before snapping the pic)

View of Hong Kong from the Star Ferry.

Ok, I may be sick but I found this ad extremely funny. Sorry about the glare but if you can read it, it says "live demonstrations in store". A picture of a granny holding a vibrator and touting live demos? Ewww....

Moganshan

2009-10-25T05:08:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a LONG time since I've posted but at least I have a good excuse. The Chinese government has blocked blogger.com, as well as facebook, twitter, and youtube to name a few. So, it makes it extremely difficult and time consuming for me to update my blog. For now, we seem to have found a way around it so I'll try to do as many updates in the next few days as I can.
We recently celebrated a week long holiday here in China, collectively known as "golden week" or October holiday. It's China national day (kind of like our 4th of July) and moon festival all rolled up into one long party week. Since the government is still making stupid rules about H1N1, they decreed that any child leaving the country for this holiday had to stay out of school for an additional 7 days to prevent the spread of swine flu. And yet, it seemed to be OK if you stayed in China and exposed your kid to the massive crowds of people here in town- whatever. We decided to stay in the area and take a roadtrip to a mountain town about 3 hours west of Shanghai. My general rule of thumb is not to go anywhere near Chinese tourist areas during national holidays (see very early post about the crowds in Hangzhou, 2007) but the town of Moganshan is not well known even to the domestic tourists. It is, however, growing in fame and popularity with the expats in Shanghai since the book "China Cuckoo" was published. In a nutshell, a British guy came to China in the late 90s and started up one of the first english language magazines in town. After a very successful run, the government came in and took it all away from him without offering him a penny. So, instead of leaving China, he moved himself and family to the small village of Moganshan- known for it's bamboo forests and clean air- but especially known for the beautiful old villas that were built there in the early 1900's by Shanghai's wealthy expats and locals looking for a summer getaway to escape the heat. During World War 2, the villas were abandoned and fell into disrepair. Anyway, this British guy moved to Moganshan, opened up a little coffee shop and wrote a book about his experiences.

We thought this would be a great vacation for the kids, lots of places to explore and run around, but it turns out our kids don't really like to hike so we ended up carrying them around in our backpacks most of the time. Overall, it was still fun although the town was very "local". Meaning, they don't have too many restaurants with english menus (two chinese places and one western by our count) and other than The Lodge (the coffee shop started by the British guy that left Shanghai), nobody speaks any english. Oh well- that's part of the adventure. One night, the Chinese family dining next to us ordered snake. That's not that unusual in Chinese restaurants but I've never actually seen them kill the snake before- until now. The owner of the restaurant brought out a big snake, proceeded to use a pair of garden shears to cut it's head off and drain the blood on the stairs next to the restaurant, and throw it's wriggling, headless body into a pail where they dumped boiling water over it. In front of our kids. Nice. See video at the end of the blog for proof of this episode. I was sure it wasn't a poisonous snake but that was a wrong assumption as it turned out to be one of the most deadly snakes in China- the 5 step. If it bites you, you can take 5 steps before you fall down dead. And yet, after two years in China, we just laugh about it and take it all in as part of the experience of living here. Now, who's up for a visit??

The old Assembly Hall- this is where the expats held their gatherings and Christmas pageants in the 1920's. Now it sits vacant and decaying in the forest.

House 23- a restored villa, now a bed and breakfast (also owned by the guy who wrote the China Cuckoo book).

A local woman laments to us about how tough life is in Moganshan. "Yes, the air is good, but life is hard here" she said. No kidding- she's carrying water back to her home since her house has no plumbing.

A quintessential scene- Audrey having a fit, a Chinese man and his child staring at the white kid which they have probably never been this close to before, the owner of the restaurant smoking a cigarette which is about to ash on me while he explains the menu.

On one of our hikes in the bamboo forest, we came upon several workers cutting bamboo to make brooms.

One of the bamboo cutters smiling at the foreigners.

Our hike to the tea plantation and our steaming glasses of fresh green tea- it was delicious!

The view from the tea plantation.

A typical mountain view.

G & A admiring a myna bird. By the way, this was taken at a restaurant and the kids were pretty much standing in the kitchen (there was a dead chicken waiting to be plucked just off to the side of the picture).

The Lodge- the western coffee shop/restaurant where all the foreigners hang out. Owned by the British guy mentioned earlier.

Pretty little bridge in the bamboo forest

Video of headless snake - not for the faint of heart!

What's in a name?

2009-09-03T17:41:00.000-07:00

Chinese names don't really translate into English very well- the literal translation on many names is things like: Small Rain, Beautiful Pear, (our ayi's name is Small Red). So in response, many Chinese people will choose their own English name. This has lead to many humorous encounters for me over the past two years. Here are some of my favorites:

Echo

Koffe

Apple (not so strange after Gwenyth Paltrow made it famous)

Squall

Handsome

BoBo

Lucky

Rainbow (a man's name)

Boy

And my all time favorite: Rubber Pixie

But the beauty of choosing your English name is that if you don't like it, you just change it. One example is that a new engineer joined Sev's company and his name was Moses. But once he was hired, he got some feedback (from both Chinese and Americans) that maybe it wasn't the best name so the next day he came to work and announced his new name was Edward- and so it goes.

The Jersey Shore

2009-08-28T04:01:00.000-07:00

Well, we are back in the Shanghai for the start of year 3. Yep, our one year assignment has turned to three- who knew? Anyway, before I get back to writing about life in China, thought I'd write this blog about the biggest freak show on earth which is actually not in China, but instead in New Jersey. Specifically, at the Jersey shore on the boardwalk at Seaside Heights. A fascinating combination of normal people, derelicts, "Jersey girls", and oh so many of the fashion challenged. I really noticed on this last trip how truly weird and wonderful this place is. We've been visiting the boardwalk for 30 years so I guess I just took it as a normal thing while growing up but alas, I finally had to admit to myself that it's a strange place.

(Amusement park at Seaside Heights boardwalk)

(Guy on stilts- you can't make this stuff up people.)

To begin with, Jersey isn't noted for it's fashion and nowhere is it more apparent than on the boardwalk. You are guaranteed to see things you wish you hadn't and the sight of the seriously overweight woman in a skin tight leopard print minidress with size triple D boobs will give you nightmares for weeks. In the famous words of one of my favorites bosses from Target- "Just because you can doesn't mean you should".

(The latest fashion for the Italian princess- wings on the butt- if you farted, you'd fly away. )

Next, you can't help but gorge yourself on the greasiest, most heart clogging food on the planet- but it tastes SO GOOD. Inside out pizzas, philly cheesesteaks, deep fried clams, elephant ears, etc...it's like a heart attack on a plate and worth every bite.

(Waiting for our sundaes at he best ice cream parlor EVER- The Showplace.)

(My sundae- bigger than my head and yes, I ate the whole thing.)

And don't forget the aged amusement park rides where part of the fun is experiencing the fear of the roller coaster breaking down during your ride. And hitting the vomit comet right after a greasy dinner is a must. All this after you've just lost your last dollar playing carnie games that you have no chance of winning (I personally lost about $20 playing the claw machine for a stuffed toy that I couldn't bought for $5).

(G taking a ride on the 1918 carousel- an annual tradition for us.)

(Good thing A is not afraid of clowns!)

All of this set on the backdrop of the Atlantic ocean while the seagulls screech through the air- it's truly a thing of beauty. Seriously though, say what you want about Jersey but for my money, there is nowhere else I'd rather spend a summer than kicking it at the Jersey shore.

A view from my parent's backyard- the bay and bridge connecting to Long Beach Island.

Blue claw crabs caught off the back deck from the 'rents house. Cook up with a little Old Bay seasoning- delish!

Solar Eclipse

2009-07-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since my last post and the reason for that is because I have been flying solo with the kids in the USA while Sev has been hard at work in China. Which leaves me very little time for blogging since I am so exhausted at the end of the day (and I usually can't get the kiddos into bed before 9pm) that I go straight to bed. Anyway, I am a little sad that I missed a pretty cool natural phenomenon that occurred in China today- a complete solar eclipse. I've seen partial eclipses before but never a total eclipse. Sev was kind enough to snap these before and after pictures on his cell phone and email them to me (sorry, the photos are a bit grainy). Keep in mind that these photos were taken at approximately 9:30 IN THE MORNING.

The view from the office at 9:30 AM during the eclipse- complete darkness (except for the city lights of course)!

The conference room during the eclipse- note the dark windows.

Same conference room after the eclipse- approximately 10AM. Note the smog...but that's another story!

I will say that although it's been challenging to do the single parent thing this summer, I am thrilled to be back in the USA and enjoying the fresh air and cool temps in Minnesota! We are off to New Jersey at the end of the next week to visit the parents and then back to Shanghai. I'll do my best to keep up the blog a bit better once this vacation is over!

A new fruit

2009-07-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

Being in Asia gives you the opportunity to explore all different kinds of fruits and vegetables that we do not have access to in the USA. I haven't really come across anything that was totally unknown until my Chinese neighbors across the hall offered us a basket of yang mei. I don't even know the english translation for this fruit as I had never seen it before. It's best described as a cross between a raspberry and a mulberry- kind of. Each one is a little smaller than a golf ball. And let me tell you, it's darn good! It's only in season for about one month in June. The only problem is that it is VERY juicy and messy so after finding out the hard way by ruining one of Audrey's dresses with the juice, I decided it's best to strip the kids down to their underwear before eating!
This fruit definitely goes on my list for things that I will miss about China once we leave.

Yang mei

Grace after eating her fill. She thought the coolest part was that the juice looks like blood which provided quite a bit of entertainment around the house (while I chased after her shrieking "Don't get the juice on anything!"

My Chinese cooking class

2009-06-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

Now, for those of you who know me well, don't have a heart attack or anything but because of the sheer amount of free time I have here, I decided to sign up for the "Healthy Chinese Cooking" class offered through the community center. In general, I don't cook. And especially in China because first of all, we don't have an oven (it's pretty common here not to have an oven since the Chinese don't bake). And second of all, imported ingredients are expensive and hard to find and I can't read the labels on the local stuff to figure out what it is which really limits my ability to plan a dinner menu.

I think I've mentioned this before but real Chinese food is totally different from the stuff we can get in the States. For the most part, it's much less greasy and fatty and they use a lot of fresh veggies and spices. Some of things that I've learned to cook in my class include a fresh spicy shrimp salad with lemongrass, pork ribs steamed in lotus leaf, and steamed clams with ginger.

Below are some photos from class:

Dana, our excellent teacher!

Fresh ingredients- ready to go for class.

Spinach and pine nuts flavored with chinese cooking wine.

Live river clams ready for cooking.

The finished product- clams with ginger, chilies, and green onions- yummy!

Swine flu from a Chinese perspective...

2009-06-20T01:41:00.001-07:00

Let me tell you, China is having a field day with the swine flu pandemic. After the SARS epidemic which originated in Asia, they are thrilled to be dealing with a virus that didn't originate in this country! Now, it is a well known fact around town there that during SARS, there were several cases in the Shanghai; however, to this day the government denies that there were more than a handful of cases. Apparently, rumor has it that they were hiding the patients in an old government hospital. So, it is no surprise to anyone that the only confirmed cases of swine flu here in mainland China have ONLY infected foreigners or Chinese citizens who flew directly back to China from the US or Canada. I have yet to hear of a case where a chinese person infected another chinese person on the mainland.

Now, in China's defense of this claim, they have put some interesting precautions in place. For instance, if you enter any type of clinic or hospital, there is a masked nurse at the door to check your temperature. If you have a fever, you are directed out of the hospital and straight to a local "fever center" where you will be examined and tested for the swine flu. While I don't relish the fact of having to go to a government run fever center instead of my western style hospital, it does make sense to keep it under control and it's an easy way for the government to monitor the situation. Thumbs up for this one (although I pray the kids don't develop a fever)!

The next precaution that has been enacted is that all international flights coming into the country are boarded by men in hazmat suits upon landing. They then use a fever detecting ray gun and check everyone on board. Here's the bummer though- if you have a fever, you are automatically quarantined as are all the people sitting 5 rows ahead and behind you. Now, I am not clear on this but I've heard stories of the feverish person coming back with a negative swine flu test and yet they've kept the foreigners in quarantine for up to 5 days anyway. If the feverish person tests positive for swine flu, then everyone around is kept in quarantine up to 7 days. My issue with this methodology is that they don't account for all the people in the airport, the airplane bathrooms, and the flight attendants that came in contact with the sick person. And now the US State department is warning people that China seems to be randomly quarantining foreigners. I am already super nervous about our trip back to China after our summer vacation and just hoping that nobody around us is sick! Can you imagine what it's like to quarantine two kids under the age of 5?

Check out the picture Sev took on his cell phone camera on his way back from Taiwan:

By the way, we are heading to the US in early July so I am not sure how much more blogging I will get to before & during the trip. I'll try to send some updates but if I don't get to it then I promise to return after summer vacation! Thanks for reading!

Shanghai Headlines

2009-06-10T04:26:00.000-07:00

First off, I have to apologize for not being able to blog for awhile. The Chinese government has decided to block Blogger, so I have not been able to update for the past 2 weeks. In fact, I am only able to write this blog using anonymous surfing (don't ask- Sev's a techno geek).
Anyway, I know because I don't work, a lot of people think my life is stress free. True, I don't have work stress, but life in China is a stress all onto itself. As an example, I'll share some recent headlines from the local english language newspaper "Shanghai Daily". Keep in mind, that these three headlines are all from the same day.

1) Investigation of local produce finds up to 15 different types of pesticides- apparently, the local government went around to some local grocery stores and the wet market and tested several pieces of fruit and vegetables. On any given sample, there were up to 15 different pesticides on just one piece of produce, several of which are banned. Now you know if something is banned in China, it's gotta be REALLY bad stuff. I have since decided to try and buy only organic but over here, you can never really be sure if it's really organic or someone decided to slap an organic sticker on it because they know the foreigners like it!

2) Hand, foot, and mouth disease on the rise (again). I mentioned this in a previous post but the very common hand, foot, mouth disease has mutated in China and in some children, it develops into a fatal case of meningitis.

3) City investigation shows unacceptable levels of rat infestation in local grocery stores. The investigation focused on local grocery stores and found that the rat infestation was up to 10% in some stores (with the acceptable level at about 3%). This is wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin. First off, why is there any acceptable level of rats in a grocery store?
And you be wondering how they determine the level of infestation- by examining the amount of rat poop, nests, and teeth marks throughout the store. They even found droppings on the counters where bread is sold. Although my favorite Carrefour was not part of the investigation, several of my friends have personally seen rats in the store so I can guarantee you that they have at least a 10% infestation.

So yeah, I am sometimes a little stressed about living in China which has lead to an obsession with getting cancer from our vegetables, compulsive hand washing, and inspecting my groceries for teeth marks from rats. Of course, you could argue it's no worse than worrying about the things most Americans worrying about these days: swine flu, the government taking over the banks and the auto industry, and job loss. It's just a different kind of worry.

Proud to be an American!

2009-05-15T22:03:00.000-07:00

Well, it finally happened. After 12 years of living in the USA, my Polish husband has turned to the dark side and become a US citizen. Why, you may ask, did he wait so long? The story is sordid and long- but, hey, that's what a blog is for, right?

It all started back in December of 1995 when Sev arrived in the US for the first time. Citizens of Poland needed a visa to enter to the US back then and still do today (even though Poland is part of the European Union and most other EU countries do not need a visa to visit the US - argh).

Anyway, he came over on a fiancee visa- meaning we had 90 days to get married or he gets deported. So, we figured what the heck, and we tied the knot in March of 1996- on the 89th day of his visa validity! Sev was then granted permanent residency status- a green card. What this means is that he was entitled to all the same rights as a US citizen except the right to vote & serve on a jury. From his point of view, why take it any further? Who wants to do jury duty anyway? And so it went for the next 12 years and all was well until we moved to China. That's where the trouble began. You see, you cannot keep your green card and live outside of the US for more than 6 months a year. Beginning in 2007 when we moved to China, traveling to the US become a huge problem for Sev. Depending on the mood of the immigration officer, he was often sent to a special room for questioning since he had no visa and technically, his green card was invalid since he had been outside the US for more than 6 months. They always let him in but the stress and unpleasantness of the interrogations finally forced Sev to realize that it was time for the inevitable- apply for citizenship. My own personal reason for pushing Sev for his citizenship was that should we ever find ourselves in trouble overseas, I could go to the US embassy for help and evacuation if necessary, while he would have to go through the Polish embassy. And once you get kids involved, you can see how this can be sticky. I had visions of being stuck in some foreign country during a natural disaster and being helicoptered out as the kids and I waved to Sev through the windows...

So after a year long application process, full of typical government screw ups (lost fingerprints, moving his case to Indiana for no apparent reason, rescheduled interviews, etc) he was granted citizenship on April 8th!

No matter what it says on paper, Sev will always be Polish and proud of it. And so in his honor, I threw him a surprise party at Bubba's Texas BBQ here in Shanghai, complete with our international group of friends- most of whom wore red, white, and blue for the occasion (except our friends from Ireland who claimed they didn't own any red/white/blue clothing!). He was completely shocked and in the end, admitted he doesn't mind being an American after all :)

The cake- tacky, but perfectly suited to the occasion!

The group- the USA basketball outfit Sev was wearing was a gift which he immediately (after a few beers) changed into!

Ah yes, the deer head wall plaque- felt just like we were back in Minnesota!

The youngest American guest in his NY tee. You may have noted the absence of our own kids at the party. I made the last minute decision to leave them at home w/ the sitter so I could enjoy a few beers...does that make me a bad mom? Wait, don't answer that.

Shanghai's changing skyline

2009-05-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

At one point, nearly 1/2 of all the construction cranes in the entire world were in Shanghai. So as you can imagine, the skyline changes here pretty quickly. One day something is torn down, the next day something new goes up in it's place. Crazy- and sometimes frustrating when you get to a restaurant you were at the previous week and it's gone (this happens a lot)!

And in case you haven't heard, Shanghai is the host to the World Expo 2010. It's basically a world's fair and the city is really sprucing up for the event. It will last for a total of 7 months and they are expecting over 20 MILLION visitors. Unbelievable! And we will be lucky enough to still be here when it opens in May of 2010- though I am already dreading the crowds.

Just wanted to share a few photos of Shanghai's newest skyscraper- the World Financial Tower. It is the tallest building in the world by roof height, and the 2nd tallest by pinnacle height. Also, the world's highest hotel (a Hyatt) calls this building home. But the most interesting story about this building is about it's design. It's owned by a Japanese company and when the architects first presented the plans to Shanghai's government, there was quite an uproar because the design looked like a knife- stuck right in the heart of Shanghai. (And for those of you who know your history, Japaneses/Chinese relationships are not the greatest to begin with). The top of the tower was initially presented with a large circular cut out, which added fuel to the fire because the circle appears on the Japanese flag as the sun. After some lengthy redesigns, everyone agreed to the current designed which shows a square cut out in the building instead (personally, Sev and I call it the "bottle opener".)

A view from the Huang Pu river of the World Financial Center and the skyline on the west side of the river (Pudong).

World Financial Tower and in front of it, the Jin Mao tower (#5 tallest building on roof height and #7 on pinnacle height). Took this shot from the observation deck of the TV Pearl Tower.

A view of the east side of the river (Puxi). Junk boats cruising past the old European architecture of the Bund (in the background).

Nothing to do with new construction, but this is one of the few old historic cathedrals in China. This one is over 100 years old- you must show your passport to go in and have a look- Chinese are not permitted to enter.

Tongli

2009-04-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

We recently welcomed our friend Tom from Milwaukee (although we met him in Minnesota) for a visit. I love having friends and family visit because I get to see China all over again for the first time through their eyes. I have grown accustomed to so many really strange things here that I often forget how different it is from the US until I see our visitor's eyes bug out of their head upon encountering something that I consider normal!

For Tom's visit, we decided to venture out on a little day trip to the small water town of Tongli. There are lots of water towns around Shanghai (a nearby town was used in filming Mission Impossible 3). They are unique because the main part of the town is built up around creeks and small rivers that run through the center. The towns are crissed crossed by a series of bridges and much of the daily life centers around the water. People wash their clothes and veggies in the river, fish, and unfortunately dump some garbage and sewage in there as well. It's best described by the pictures below.

*Warning*- Tongli is also famous as being the home of the China Sex Museum (which we obviously couldn't pass up since we were there anyway). Regardless of the content of the museum, the grounds are beautiful as it used to be a private girls school- how ironic. Graphic pics below so if you are prudish, you may want to skip the last couple photos.

A typical Tongli canal view.

Tourist boats which take you around the town.

Tongli ladies doing the laundry.

The old men sitting around and watching the tourists walk by.

Spare roof tiles.

Another shot of the old streets.

Inside one of the historic courtyards of Tongli. How cool would it have been to live in a place like this (well, actually, it would have been down right cold- there's not much insulation)!

My friend Jodi checking out the Tongli towel head fashion. For some reason which we couldn't figure out, several of the older ladies were wearing hand towels on their heads...

Accidents happen. A 3-wheeled scooter took a curve a little too fast and nailed the large cement ball right in front of us. Good thing we weren't a few seconds earlier or this would have been us instead of the ball! Amazingly, no one got hurt!

Tom and I getting ready to check out the Sex Museum.

The beautiful gardens of the sex museum- most of the statues you see in the distance were X-rated (hee-hee).

The title of this piece was "A woman's dependence"...well, I don't know about that- should have been titled "A man's dependence!"

My favorite statue in the museum. Title "The only part of the body you can't chain down". Pretty much.

McDonalds!

2009-04-15T05:17:00.000-07:00

Lately I have noticed a plethora of American chain restaurants popping up around town. Here is a brief overview:
1)Baskin Robbins - pretty much exactly the same flavors as in the US, and about $3.50 for a single scoop- ouch.
2) KFC- The Colonel rules. THE MOST POPULAR place to eat in all of China. Pathetic. I've never actually tried it here but I guarantee it's chock full of trans fats.
3) Dunkin Donuts- The newest addition to the city and I must say, my personal favorite. After nearly two years of deprivation, a chocolate glazed never tasted so good. But, they have definitely "China-fied" it. You can choose several variations of green tea flavored donuts as well as pork floss and seaweed. Yuck.
4) Dairy Queen- good, same as back in the USA. Cheap and full of local milk products so probably contains melamine (see previous posts).
5) Pizza Hut and Papa Johns- Both have taken on a local flavor and are no where near as good as home- offers include tuna pizza. Between the two, I like PJ's for take out and PH for eat in (both offer very nice eat in options compared to the US).
6) Starbucks- Like the States, there is one on every corner. Very similar to the US in their offerings; however, all flavored drinks are much less sweet. Mega expensive so mostly full of foreigners and rich Chinese.
7) McDonalds- one word- DELIVERY. Just ordered 2 cheeseburgers and 2 sundaes which were delivered to our apartment within 15 minutes for a total of less than $5.00. Hmm, this could be dangerous.
So if any of you faithful readers actually make it over here and you are hankering for a taste of home- no worries, we got you covered!

Domestic air travel in China

2009-03-25T02:25:00.000-07:00

I know, I know- I've been slacking on the blog. Thanks for the reminder Grandma! Anyway, I've been meaning to blog about this for a long time- domestic air travel within China. It is yet another culturally eye opening experience for most Westerners. Everything starts off innocently enough. Very routine- get in line to check in, check your bags, go through security. But then the fun begins. It usually goes something like this: Boarding announcement is made and there is a mad rush to the boarding doors. Sometimes, on a good day, a line will form but inevitably, several people will pretend that there is no line and just cut in front of everyone else. At the gate, not one but two airline employees will check your boarding pass. Then you are ushered onto a waiting bus to go out to your plane. Again, the usual China "area cram" ensues with as many people as possible being loaded onto the bus. Bus drives to plane. Bus doors open and there is a literal stampede to get to the plane. Come on people- everyone has a seat assigned- no need to push! At this point, there is no chance of a line, just a scrum of people fighting to get up the steps onto the plane. The group is held up by not one but two airline employees who once AGAIN check your boarding pass. If you are keeping count- that's four people who have now checked your boarding pass (I am convinced this goes back to the communist principle that everyone needs a job...but I digress).
Ok, on the plane now. If you have an aisle seat, the person in the window seat will not ask you to get up when they get into the row, they will simply climb over you. I am not making this stuff up, I swear! From here, it's pretty much normal except that there is often someone who gets up to go to the bathroom as we are taxing down the runway for take off. Oh, and also normally someone who tries to sneak a cigarette during the flight. And then you have the people who let their kids play video games at full volume with no headphones. And the TV monitors that come down from the ceiling have NO volume control so unless you have your ipod, you are forced to listen to a bunch of very annoying Chinese programming blasting during the entire flight.
And let's not forget about the guy in the next row who keeps hocking spit balls into a plastic bag (better than on the floor, I guess).
Finally, we descend for landing. Once again, someone will get up to go to the bathroom just minutes before we land. Then, the second we hit the ground, several people will stand up and try to get their baggage down. And, last but not least, my ultimate pet peeve. Once we arrive at the gate and the plane stops, everyone will try to squeeze into the aisle and push their way off the plane. If there is nowhere to go, they will just push up against you with all their strength in hopes that somehow, that will get the line moving. I finally learned how to say "please stand a little further from me" which I think will be a very useful phrase for the next time I fly within China! Is it any wonder that Sev and I usually need a drink the minute we get off the plane?

The Chinese Countryside

2009-03-03T17:59:00.000-08:00

After living in China for a year and a half it dawned on me that I haven't really been outside of a major city here. So I talked my friend from Hong Kong into taking a little mini-vacation with me (minus the kids) to the town of Yangshuo in the south of China, along the Li River. We rented bikes for two days and peddled around the countryside. To be honest, I was expecting worse living conditions than what I saw. People's lives are simple- work the fields (mostly rice and peanuts), take care of the chickens and water buffalo, and take your scooter/bike wherever you need to go. Cars were few. Most homes have no running water (they use a well) but I did see plenty of electric poles running through so at least they have electricity. The majority of the homes are built by the owners themselves, made out of bricks. I think the pictures tell the best story of our trip so enjoy!

Men selling chickens in the market (they are inside the bamboo cages).

A grandpa uses his granddaughter to balance out his basket. He was selling yellow beans at the market.

Ladies sewing with the old fashioned pedal sewing machines.

Fuli Town is famous as the maker of paper fans. Here is a shot of a fan makers house.

I couldn't resist getting my fortune told by this little old guy. Several locals gathered around to hear my fortune as well!

Fiona and me on the Li River- we cruised around on a "bamboo raft" which actually turned out to be made of PVC piping!

Ok- I couldn't resist being a cheesy tourist and taking a picture with the Cormorants. These birds are used by the local fisherman to catch fish at night. There is a string tied around their necks to prevent them from swallowing the fish (although they are allowed to eat every 7th fish). A well trained bird is worth as much as $700!

A traditional fisherman on the Li River (his raft is real bamboo).

A shot of the cormorants fishing at night. The light attracts the fish and then the birds dive under the water and catch them.

Here the fisherman is extracting the fish from the birds mouth. For the pleasure of the tourists in this case!

A typical view of the rice fields and "karst peaks"- this area of China is famous for these beautiful peaks.

This lady on the moped was herding her buffalo down the street. I couldn't help but think "ancient China in a modern world".

On the other hand, here is a shot of a man with his cow along a tiny village street. I asked how much the water buffalo cost and was told about $600 for a grown cow, already trained. It takes one week to train them how to walk straight while plowing the fields. I did not see one tractor the entire time I was there.

A group of school girls in the village. They were thrilled when I showed them the picture on the digital camera!

A graveyard in the countryside. I asked our guide if there were designated areas for graveyards and she said no, you can bury your dead wherever you want. Interesting... and yet a little worrisome!

The kitchen in a typical village home. The lady we rented our bikes from let us in for a look around. No running water, no stove, no oven. I am still not really sure how she cooked her food.

And finally, no blog is complete without the scary food story. I thought this was a veterinarians office until I noticed the giant iron woks. Then the light bulb slowly came on and yes, it was a restaurant selling dog, cat, cow, and pig. Lovely.

Nose picking and other personal habits...

2009-02-15T01:58:00.001-08:00

So I have noticed that nose picking in public is definitely OK here. Men and women alike engage in this sport of digging for gold whenever the mood strikes them. The worst is when your taxi driver picks a "Shanghai pollution booger" (as I like to call the black ones) out of his nose and then hands you your change- ewww. You can observe this behavior pretty much anywhere here- on the street, in restaurants (yep, the servers do it too), elevators, etc. And since I am on the subject of personal habits, staring at people, picking your teeth, and shouting into your cell phone no matter where you are- all OK here. Oh, and I would be remiss to mention the Chinese habit of hitting the close door button thirty times the minute you enter the elevator (as if you were the only person in the world), regardless of anyone else trying to get on. Unfortunately, I kind of like this habit and have adapted it myself.

And I have one other funny story to tell- since I have discovered the joy of taking the bus here, I have almost become addicted- why pay $1.75 for a taxi when you can pay 30cents for the bus? But I did have my "I am a stupid foreigner" moment this week. I have always taken the bus in the same direction but as my confidence has grown, I thought I would try a new route. Mistake. I didn't know where the bus stopped so I watched as the stop I wanted came and went. And then, as the next stop approached (already way out of the way of where I wanted to go), I fought my way to the exit doors. In China, you exit from the middle of the bus and enter from the front. Well, by the time I got to the middle doors, they had shut. When I had previously taken the bus in Minneapolis, you could simply touch the handles on the middle doors and they would open but apparently not in China! So I desperately tried to push the doors open to no avail. I had to wait and get off at the following stop. I asked my ayi the next day how to get the doors to open. She replied that the driver opened them. "But what if you get to the door and it's already

shut?" "Well," she replied, "you have to shout 'Wait a minute, Wait a minute'!". Oh. Now I know. Next time, instead of looking like a clueless foreigner, I'll just look like a foreigner with bad Chinese as I shout out "Deng yixiar!" That's wait a minute in mandarin!

Singapore & Malaysia

2009-02-05T21:36:00.001-08:00

Since everything shuts down during Chinese New Year, and it's cold in Shanghai (well, not compared to Minnesota but 30 degrees here is considered the dead of winter) we decided to head for warmer weather- right around the equator.

First we hit Singapore for a brief stopover on our way to Malaysia. It's a beautiful country in the middle of the rain forest. The city is amazing- clean (no wonder - you can be caned for littering), orderly, and totally modern. The official languages are English, Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay. So, everyone speaks english which was a refreshing change. Other than the US, I have never been anywhere that was a diverse as Singapore. There are people from all descents which makes for some amazing food experiences. We were only able to spend one full day so we chose to hit the zoo (of course). It's a fantastic zoo with a lot of animals I've never seen or even heard of before: white tigers, Proboscis monkeys, malaysian tapirs, pygmy hippos, mandrills, and jaguars.

The kids loved it and a good time was had by all.

Here is a picture of a sign at the Singapore zoo near the mountain lion enclosure. Of course, it's only written in Chinese (even though every other sign at the zoo is posted in enlglish) and basically says don't feed the animals or get too close- you WILL get hurt (see previous post on Shanghai zoo for more info).

The next day we headed to Malaysia. This was my first time in a muslim country. In terms of religion, Malaysia is definitely not full of extremists. Although the muslim women did keep their heads covered (but not their faces), they can work and go about daily life unescorted. And, like Singapore, there seemed to be a lot more diversity than I had expected. Freedom of religion is granted even though it may not be encouraged. We saw mosques, along with hindu and buddist temples, and even some churches. After a connecting flight through Kuala Lumpur, we finally reached a small island off the coast of Malaysia, called Langkawi. Situated on the Andaman Sea, we could actually see one of Thailand's islands from our resort. Throughout our weeklong stay, the weather was 85 degrees and sunny. The beach was actually a bit disappointing- although the water was warm and extremely calm it wasn't clear and the sand was pebbly and full of small shells. But it was clean and practically deserted. The resort itself had 3 amazing pools which was where we spent most of our time. We were able to do a 1/2 day boat tour through the mangrove forest where we saw monkeys and eagles. We also saw quite a few large monitor lizards (about 3 ft long) around our resort which the kids loved and Sev and I did not! All in all, we had a great time although I would love to go and spend more time on mainland Malaysia next time.

The view from the beach. At low tide, a sandbar would appear and you could actually walk out to the rocks in the distance.

A view of our resort from the water.

Malaysian fisherman using the traditional net method to catch giant prawns on the Andaman Sea.

Some of the many monkeys that live on Langkawi.

A giant monitor lizard at our resort. About 3 feet long...but no worries- we were assured they only eat fish.

Grace posing with another monitor lizard. A favorite activity for the kids on vacation was checking if the lizard was "home" under the deck- about 50 times a day.

Year of the Ox

2009-02-05T21:25:00.000-08:00

Chinese New Year is finally over and we have officially entered the year of the Ox. Turns out that I am an Ox under the Chinese zodiac which means that since this is my year, I am supposed to wear red somewhere on my body at all times to ward off bad luck- and I thought a person was supposed to have good luck in their own year! Anyway, most people choose to wear red underwear in their year but after much debate with myself, I have decided to take my chances and forgo the red undies so we will see what happens...

Chinese New Year (CNY for short) is a HUGE deal here. All the migrant workers return home to their provinces to spend time with their families. I recently read that over 250 million people travel by car/bus and another 5 million by train. That's nearly 75% of the population of the USA to put it in perspective. Crazy. Although the holiday is technically 1 week long, it seems to stretch on for about a month. The kid's school has a big family event so I thought I'd share some pics of the girls in their traditional Chinese clothes (red is the color of luck and symbolizes wealth so you'll see a lot of red everywhere this time of year).

G & A in their traditional outfits.

The girls in A's class: Kitty (China), Aika (Japan), Clemintine (France) and little A.

Another tradition around CNY is the Lion Dance. There is usually a drummer and several cymbal players who accompany two men dressed in a Chinese lion costume. One guy is the head, the other is the tail. In the dance that we saw, the "lion" jumps up on pillars which are about 10 feet high with just enough room on the platform for your foot. They leap back and forth on the cylinders with one guy holding the other up on his shoulders- scary! But cool if you're just watching and not participating. The kids loved it of course!

G with some guy in a Chinese opera costume. No idea what the meaning of the costume it though..

The "Lion" perched on the low pillars.

An action shot of the lion leaping from one pillar to the next.

Here you can see the 2nd guy standing on the shoulders of the lower man. Now imagine jumping around on the pillars like that!

Fortune Kindergarten

2009-01-18T02:24:00.000-08:00

Just last month we had the pleasure of attending the kid's kindergarten Christmas concert. As I sat there in nervous anticipation of our own children's performance, I couldn't help but notice one of the reasons I am so glad we accepted the opportunity to live in Shanghai: an amazing expat community. And nowhere is there a better example than our kid's school, Fortune Kindergarten. Looking around the room I counted families from the following countries: China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Israel, France, Germany, USA, Canada, Senegal, Ireland, England, Czech Republic, Australia & India. I feel so lucky that we can give our kids a multicultural experience on a daily basis. They learn about other cultures from their classmates and teachers everyday. In fact, Grace was watching TV the other day and Dora the Explorer was on- in Filipino. After a few minutes, she asked me "Mom, what English are they speaking?" I told her Filipino, from the Philippines. "Oh, just like teacher Rose at school,
right?"

Another thing we love about Fortune Kindergarten is their approach to bilingual education. When searching for schools, I found that most international schools here teach only in English with a 30 minute Mandarin language lesson each day. I didn't feel like the kids would really learn the language with such little exposure. Fortune teaches one full day in English, and the next full day in Mandarin; however, both the English and the Chinese teacher are present in the classroom at all times. And when Grace finally spit out a full sentence in Mandarin today, I felt pretty good about our choice.

Of course, there are some drawbacks at the school but understand that these are issues in nearly all schools in China:

1) They like to keep the windows open even when it's 30degrees outside and there is no heat/ac in the hallways- just in the classrooms (and in the local schools, even the classrooms aren't heated). I think Grace froze her little butt off last year until I realized I needed to dress her in multiple layers!

2) No guidelines on peanuts, home backed snacks, or other big no-no's in the US. Again, doesn't bother me but I chuckled as I handed out snickers for their Halloween party thinking about how this would never fly in America.

3) Sometimes if I call the office in the mornings, nobody speaks English- Oh well, just gives me a chance to practice my chinese!

Anyway, overall it's a great little school and we plan on sending the kids there next year as well. Enjoy the pics from Fortune's Christmas Concert and Grace's 4th B.day celebration at school last week.

Audrey and her dance partner during the xmas concert.

Grace looking a little bored during the xmas concert.

Grace's Toy Story Cake (her latest obsession)

The Birthday girl blowing out her candle

The two pre-k classes looking at Grace and waiting patiently for a piece of cake (there are 15 kids per class).

The front of the kid's school

The Shanghai Zoo

2009-01-03T23:41:00.000-08:00

This weekend we made our 3rd trip to the Shanghai Zoo. It's a pretty good zoo- lots of animals and nice open green spaces. But, as with most things in China, there are some drawbacks. First off, this zoo would never cut it in the "sue happy" USA. Of course the enclosures for the dangerous animals are adequate but a lot of the other enclosures feature low walls and wide gates (which my weaselly 4 year old can easily slip through). I just kept wondering how many stupid people have stuck their hand into one of these enclosures and gotten bitten. Honestly, if you really wanted to walk right up to an elephant, you could. On the other hand, one cool thing about going to a zoo on the other side of the world is that you get to see some animals that most American zoos don't have- giant pandas, really cool vultures, asian tigers, sun bears, and red pandas. The funny thing is that some of our common animals in America are a novelty for the Chinese- as evidenced by the huge display of seagulls. Yep, the same old seagulls that crap all over the beach in New Jersey are one of the most popular displays in the Shanghai zoo.

The seagull enclosure.

There are some really weird things going on at this zoo as well. Namely, "Pet World". I must admit we skipped this exhibit on the first couple trips because we assumed it was a standard petting zoo. Not so. It's actually a display of dogs and cats. Yep, each breed has it's own cage- collies, beagles, poodles, huskies, afghans, etc. and a display sign attached explaining the breeds attributes. It's freaky.

The Collie display at the zoo. Weird.

Ok, the next bizarre thing we noticed is that they have an area where you can pay to have your picture taken with a stuffed zebra. Not the toy kind- a taxidermy stuffed zebra. Which is old and showing it's age. Yuck.

The "stuffed" zebra

But the thing that bothers us above all else at this zoo is the behavior of the Chinese visitors. It's always the same. There are signs all over the zoo "Don't feed the animals"; "Don't throw garbage into the enclosures". Common sense in the US, right? Not so in China! If I had a dollar for every time we have watched someone throw food into a cage, we'd be rich. Of course the primates are the favorite critters to feed but I've also seen people toss crackers to the foxes, bears, birds, pretty much no poor creature is exempt (except for the ones you can't get to like the pandas and lions). On top of that, we have watched people throw their garbage down into the enclosures as well. "Hmm, let's see how this sun bear will react if we throw our empty soda cup into his cage". Sev and I have made it our personal mission at the zoo to reprimand people when they do this but I'm pretty sure it's a lost cause. And it's hard to teach the kids to respect animals and the rules when every adult they see is behaving in the exact opposite way. Oh well, we will keep trying.

Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year - my resolution is to keep up the blog a little better this year! By the way, for some reason, I can now access the blog so I can see comments- and comments are welcome! Also, I added a voting button at the end of each blog so you can let me know if you liked it or not.

The Beauty of Mandarin

2008-12-06T22:10:00.000-08:00

I realized today that I've been studying Mandarin for a little over a year now. Hmm, I am much less further along than I thought I'd be at this point. But in my defense, it's not an easy language as it's based on tones. For example, the same word can have 4 different meanings based on the tone of your voice. But what I really wanted to share today is the interesting translations I've learned over the past year. As my language skills become better, I find that the literal translation of the words in Mandarin are very interesting, funny, and make total sense. So here is a list of my favorites (English word on the left, Mandarin word on the right):

Cash= present gold
Turkey= fire chicken
Ham= fire leg
Gym= healthy body room
Great Wall= Long City
America= Beautiful country
To boil (water)= open the water
Santa= Christmas Old Person
Computer= electric brain
Joke= laugh words
To become a priest= Leave your house forever
So-so= horse horse tiger tiger

I'll add some more as my language gets better. And for those who haven't heard, we have now extended for yet another year in China (back in summer of 2010) so I'll have plenty to time to improve my Mandarin over the next 1.5 years!

Japan

2008-11-25T18:38:00.000-08:00

Sorry gang, it's been nearly a month since my last post and I don't really have an excuse- I'm just lazy. Anyway, thought I would fill everyone in on our trip to Japan. We went over the Chinese holiday in the last week of September. I guess I was expecting more similarities to China but other than the fact that they also eat with chopsticks, it was an entirely different world. Civilized, clean, polite, modern, and yet ancient and traditional at the same time. Since the primary purpose of the trip was Disneyland (of course) we really only spent one day exploring Tokyo. We took the train/subway from our hotel near DL right into downtown Tokyo. Totally convenient and no need for a car rental- which was good because they drive on the opposite of the road from us westerners! We first explored a traditional park in the middle of the city. Lots of green spaces for the kids to run and for our nature starved children, it was perfect. We then took a tourist boat along the river that runs through the city to our next stop at a Shinto temple. It was definitely not as interesting as the Buddhist temples that we see in China- not as ornate but still worth seeing. Then we walked around a popular shopping area with traditional Japanese souvenirs. The coolest thing was seeing many of the local women dressed in their kimonos out for a stroll. Both young and old were dressed in traditional costumes (saw some men dressed in theirs as well) and they honestly were not doing it for the tourists, but for themselves. Finally, we were blessed with both the kids falling asleep on the walk so Sev and I found a very local restaurant down a back alley and enjoyed lunch. We made friends with some of the locals, shared some beers and some sign language since their english was not so good, and had a blast pointing to everyone else's dishes in an attempt to order- no english menu of course!

And the next 3 days after Tokyo were spent at Disneyland and Disney Sea. It rained a lot and it was really crowded but we still managed to enjoy it. The craziest thing was that 80% of the people at both parks were adults- who were there without children! And 99% were Japanese. We hardly saw any other westerners which really surprised us. By the way, the kids wore the same costumes for Halloween so we got a lot of use out of them. And thanks to mom for making Grace's Snow White dress! So here is a brief compare/contrast of Japan and China based on my limited experience in the land of the rising sun:

1) People line up for things in Japan/ Not in China

2) Cars stop when pedestrians cross the street/ Not in China

3) It was extremely clean for a big city/ Not in China

4) People stopped and took pics of the kids/ Same in China

5) Hardly anyone spoke English/ Same in China

6) Starbucks opens at 8am/ 6am in China (thank heaven)

7) Lots of scary stuff on the menu/ Same in China

8) Tokyo was ridiculously expensive/ Shanghai is relatively cheap

9) Japan continues to practice whaling (unfortunately)/ The Chinese continue to eat dogs (also unfortunate)

Overall, we really did enjoy Japan and would love to go back and explore the country outside of Tokyo. Enjoy the pictures!

A busy shopping area in old Tokyo

Ladies out for a stroll in their Kimonos

Making friends at a local restaraunt

Waiting for the monorail to go to DL

Snow White- meet Snow White

Tinkerbelle and Peter Pan (note the girls in the background snapping pics of Audrey)

Audrey's 2nd Birthday

2008-11-24T23:56:00.000-08:00

Our little baby turned 2 last month! And by the way, the terrible 2's have come on with a vengeance. You know it's bad when at the end of the day, I reflect on the fact that Audrey was more challenging than Grace! We celebrated with a joint birthday party with two other kids, Greta (also from Minnesota) and Oran (from Ireland). Since all three kids were turning 2 within 3 weeks of each other and we all have the same friends, we thought it would be best to just get it all over with in one shot. Bring on the Winnie the Pooh cake! Our friends have a great apartment with a rooftop balcony that overlooks the city so we were able to do an old fashion BBQ out on the deck. I'm also including some pics of a recent fieldtrip that I went on with Audrey and her class to pick "oranges" which turned out to be green. But they tasted pretty good anyway.

The Birthday Girl

The rooftop BBQ view (it's pretty funny because we don't even live in "downtown" Shanghai and yet our little suburb is more urban than Minneapolis/St Paul combined).

Audrey- looks like she's pretty excited for the cake (and that's my wine, not hers).

We didn't request the fruit garnish on the cake- just an added Chinese bonus!

Picking "oranges"

Audrey and her teacher enjoying her favorite lunch- noodles and eggs

Polish in Shanghai

2008-11-24T21:32:00.000-08:00

Ok, now I'm just a blogging fool! 3 posts in one day. Sev has very recently broken into the local Polish community in Shanghai. Yes, believe it or not, there are about 200 Poles living here- compare that to the estimated 20,000 Americans. But being just 1 of 200 is actually turning out to be a big advantage. For example, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, was recently in Shanghai and Sev managed to talk his way into a small meeting (about 30 people) with the guy. He actually got to meet him- this is the man who is responsible for negotiating with America on the new US missile defense system in Poland. Basically, it would be like me getting to met Obama. The following week, Sev & I were invited to an invitation only event at the Polish consulate to celebrate their independence day. It was a lovely cocktail party at the consulate which is in a beautiful old villa in an exclusive area of old Shanghai. For reference, the US consulate is located in a mall. Yes, a shopping mall. And believe me when I tell you there is no charm whatsoever. Anyway, upon entering the villa, you definitely feel like you have landed in Poland. The house is decorated with traditional Polish furniture and rugs- I seriously felt like I was at my mother-in-law's house. The party was fun- free flow booze and Polish vodka of course! They even had traditional Polish food but because it was made in Shanghai, it didn't taste quite right...oh well. Now once a month, all the Poles in Shanghai get together at an Irish bar (yes, Irish- there's no Polish bars here so it's the next best thing). And these are the nights that Sev gets home about 3am but hey, can you blame him? After all, it isn't often he gets to speak Polish & act like he's in Poland so when the opportunity arises...

Sev and the PM of Poland (the one with the brown hair and NO pin on the lapel is him- the guy with the pin in the background is secret service- cool).

What's a Polish party without the booze?

I just liked this picture of us...

I'm officially a soccer mom

2008-10-12T00:04:00.001-07:00

Now that Grace is over 3 1/2 yrs old, I thought she would be ready for soccer. So I found a local league for foreign kids and signed her up. Once a week we schlep ourselves out to the field for practice. The day usually goes something like this:

3:30- pick Grace up from school. G: "Are we going to soccer?" Me: "Yep" G: "I don't want to go"

Me: "Really? It will be fun." G: Silence

3:45- Change her clothes in the car on the way there, swearing under my breath as I try to

pull up her socks over her shin guards.

4:00- Me: "Do you have to go pee? Remember there is nowhere to go at the fields". G: "No".

4:15- Arrive at fields.

4:16- G: "I have to pee". Me: "Ok, fine." Tell the driver in my crappy chinese to go around the block to Starbucks b/c G has to pee. He laughs (he knows the routine too).

4:25- Back at the fields. G:"I really don't want to go to soccer. Don't make me go". Temper tantrum. Me:" You don't have to play, just sit there and watch. You're part of the team, they need you. Maybe you'll want to play in a few minutes". G:"Can I go home and watch Toy Story instead?" Me: "NO."

4:30- Practice starts. Grace is the only girl on the team but she's better than most of the boys (a little bragging- sorry).

4:40- Her attention is gone and she is playing tag with another boy instead of listening to coach.

4:50- Now she is dribbling the ball to the complete other side of the field instead of practicing shooting like she's supposed to be doing.

4:55- Grace makes a run through the entrance of the fields and is half way up the street before I catch her. I am making an ass of myself running after her. I yell at her, she cries. I am in a pissy mood, she is in a pissy mood.

5:00- Grace decides it's more fun to play with the cones. I don't even bother trying to stop her this time.

5:10- Scrimmage game with the other toddler team. Grace plays for the 1st minute then just sits down in the middle of the field and picks at the grass. Of course there is a 4 year old on Grace's team who played last year as well and he is a foot taller and so much better than everyone else that it's not fun for any of the kids. I'm disgusted. I think about complaining but decide I don't really want to be "that parent".

5:15-5:29- Sit on the sidelines with Grace on my lap and watch the game. Think to myself "Can't believe we spent over $100 to go through this every week."

5:30- Finally, an end to my misery. Game over.

Ah yes, these cones look interesting...wonder if anyone's watching me...

Now, if I line them up just so...

Almost done!

Finished! What a work of art. Huh? What soccer game?

I just voted- I'm sad to say

2008-10-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

Yet another interesting experience has been to live outside of the US during an election year. I am thrilled that I don't have to suffer through those awful bullsh*t TV commercials so that's been a plus. I have also been very surprised by how passionate so many Americans are about their candidate of choice. I broke down and joined facebook and happily got in touch with several people with whom I have not had contact with in over 10 years yet the first thing these people told me about themselves (or indicated on their facebook page) was their political preferences. Example: "I've been married for 10 years, 2 kids, live in Virgina, work as an accountant and if Obama doesn't win, I am moving to Canada". I couldn't believe that this person (one of many) actually considers their political preference so important that they needed to tell me about it after a 10 year lag in communication between us. Weird.
Ok, so I figured out how to register for my absentee ballot and just got it in the mail this week. It has to be back in Minnesota by election day which meant I needed to vote this week and mail it asap. I can truly say that I was undecided (gasp) so I made sure to watch the most recent presidential debate and check out both candidates websites before making my decision. I am actually totally irritated by the this entire election and these two SUCKY candidates. Yes folks, that's right- I think they are both lousy choices. I think they are so bad in fact that if the candidate I voted for doesn't win, I don't even care. Wake up and smell the coffee people- neither one of these guys is anything to be excited about. Maybe you're wondering who I voted for? Not gonna tell ya that.
Most of you are probably thinking "I don't care what Tonya thinks"- well then, stop reading my blog :)
Some upcoming posts to look for: Our trip to Japan (fun) and Audrey's 2nd birthday party (can't believe my baby is 2)!

ARGH! An "I hate China" Day

2008-09-22T00:48:00.000-07:00

Warning- ensuing rant to follow: I haven't had one of these days in awhile but today was definitely an "I hate China" day. I am sure most of you have heard about the milk scandal here- in a nutshell, some unscrupulous milk manufacturers decided that in order meet the required protein standards they would just add a poisonous chemical to their dairy products. It started with just baby formula (could you get any scummier? Messing with baby formula?) but now, as is usually the case with things like this in China, it has spread to regular fresh milk, yogurt, ice cream, etc. And the kicker is that the milk Audrey drinks (she is the only one of us who drinks the fresh whole milk since she is under 2) is OF COURSE on the list of tainted products. She's been drinking it for 6 months. My ayi, trying to ease my mind, was like "don't worry, it only had a little bit of melamine in it". Yeah, but the point is that is shouldn't have ANY chemicals in it. I am so frustrated! Today it's milk, tomorrow what? Meat, noodles, rice, etc. We already buy almost all of our veggies from an organic farm and today I ordered beef to be delivered from Australia. And let me tell you it costs an arm and leg to live on imported products here. But I think we are really going to cut back on our chicken and pork consumption as I've heard recent rumors that there are tons of added steroids and hormones. Anyway, the only reason the milk got tested was because a bunch of kids got kidney stones from drinking it; otherwise, we all would've just kept on buying it without even knowing. It just makes me question what other kind of crap it in our food here. Now, I know that not everything in the US is healthy or chemical free (remember the tomato recall this summer?)- but I'd like to think that on the whole, we don't have to worry about people adding crazy shit into our food to hit some sort of required nutrition standards- but ya never know.
Now on the whole, I would venture to say that in one way, China is a lot safer than the US- virtually no violent crime, no kidnappings, no shootings, no child molesting, etc. But on the other side of it you're chances of getting killed while crossing the street are much higher, you might die from poisonous chemicals in your food, and look out for that construction overhead that might fall on you as you pass by. In short, no safety standards whatsoever. So which is worse- worrying about your kids getting kidnapped if they are out of your sight or worrying about them getting some random parasite from drinking their bath water- you decide.
Anyway, we are off to Japan on Saturday and I am really excited to get out of here for a week and go somewhere that has milk we can drink :)

More pics from the weird and wonderful world of Shanghai

2008-09-16T17:46:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling a bit lazy this week and I don't really have much new to write about - except for the fact that I bit the bullet and took a public bus the other day. It was raining, I was tired, there were no taxis...so I figured what the hell? It wasn't as bad as I thought. The funniest thing was that the stops were announced in both english and chinese (a recording- believe me that the drivers don't speak english). I thought this was hilarious considering that I have never seen a foreigner ride the bus in China- I honestly think maybe I was the first one! But it only cost about 17 cents so I may do it more often.

Anyway, enjoy the pics (I threw in a couple recent ones of the kids at the end for good measure):

Migrant workers shaving and bathing out on the street at night. Since they live in the buildings they are constructing, they don't have anywhere else to clean up (they weren't happy we took this picture either).

For those of you who didn't believe me about the locals picking through raw chicken at Carrefour

with their bare hands...

A typical apartment building with laundry hung to dry- almost no one has a dryer here.

Audrey playing with Great Grandmom's handkerchief.

Grace flying a kite on the Jersey shore. If you could capture sheer joy on camera, I think it would look like this.

Our Olympic Experience

2008-08-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

The Olympics are over (sniff, sniff). Since this was the first time we have had the opportunity to watch the events from outside the US, it was really interesting to get a different perspective on everything. And of course, this being China, the Olympics were the topic of conversation all the time, everywhere we went. There were screens set up on the streets where people could watch the games and I even noticed that there were TV's on some local buses which were broadcasting it as well. The other day I got into a taxi and the driver was listening to a broadcast of swimming- play by play- or should I say stroke by stroke- of the events. I just couldn't imagine people in the US listening to swimming on the radio. My parents actually attended the opening ceremonies and a few of the events in Beijing. They couldn't get over the fact that every resident of Beijing was so excited and happy about the Olympics. From the street cleaners, taxi drivers, and sales clerks to the 100,000 volunteers- everyone had a smile on their face. And the most amazing story of all- my parents met a Chinese woman in Beijing who was 102 years old. She and her grandson had traveled 36 days (by bike) to get to Beijing for the Olympics. He rode the bike and she rode along in this makeshift wagon. You really can't make this stuff up folks!

I will tell you that in the past I had complained that American TV only focused on US athletes and only showed events that we did well in; however, I have to tell you that China was the same way. They didn't even show the final day of track and field (I have to assume that it was because there were no Chinese involved) yet 3 channels were broadcasting the bronze medal women's basketball game featuring China.
Sev and I were lucky enough to get tickets to both the women's semifinal soccer match (Brazil vs. Germany) and the men's bronze medal match (Brazil vs. Belgium). Even though the games we saw took place in Shanghai, it was still very cool to be at the Olympics. The security was crazy (armed guards everywhere, metal detectors, x-ray machines, etc). I had to laugh when I heard that before the Olympics, people were concerned about terrorism here in China. Give me a break- this is one country that no one is stupid enough to mess with and terrorism is the last thing we worry about here (you are a thousand times more likely to get accidentally spit on than attacked by someone).

A shot of me with BeiBei (one of the mascots)- cheesy but I couldn't resist!

The Shanghai Stadium Bronze medal game:

Ok, you have to look closely but note the armed security blocking the street (they are in the green uniforms):

A new meaning for "One World, One Dream":

Saving Face

2008-08-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

I thought I would give everyone a cultural lesson today about a subject which will cause any foreigner in China a lot aggravation. This is the concept of "saving face". Saving face can be defined as basically not telling the entire truth (or flat out lying) in order to save yourself the embarrassment of admitting that either 1) you don't know the answer or 2) you think someone won't like the answer. If you don't know the answer, it is very common place here among the natives to just make something up that is totally incorrect. And if you think someone won't like the answer, you can also make up something you think they will like. In general, this causes a lot of grief for the average foreigner. I really can't say whether the Chinese play this little game amongst themselves but I am pretty sure they do.
Here is an example of a recent experience in saving face. My friend and I recently went to lunch in a new restaurant. We ordered our food and drinks. We promptly got our drinks and fell into a deep conversation without realizing the time. By the time we checked our watches, it had been over 35 minutes since we had ordered (VERY long by Chinese standards). I asked where our lunch was. The waitress replied "It's coming- please wait a moment". Ok, 5 more minutes went by and no food. Finally my friend got up and asked again where our food was. The waitress came over and rambled something in Chinese about waiting a short while (again). We decided to wait another 5 minutes since getting up and moving to a new restaurant seemed like it would take more time than just waiting (or so we thought). At this point (yes, another 5 minutes later) we asked to speak to the manager who spoke a little english. "Oh, our gas is broken so the cook has not been able to start preparing your lunch". Huh? Did they think that in the "short while" we were waiting they were going to repair the gas and manage to cook up an entire lunch? No, they thought that if they came and told us right away that their gas was broken, we would have a bad impression about the restaurant so they decided to save face by not telling us the real story until we finally pitched a fit. This is a very typical experience in China. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten in a taxi and had the driver tell me he knew where the address was only to go around in circles because he didn't know and he didn't want to loose face by admitting it. So if any of you get the opportunity to visit China, beware the answer that just doesn't seem right - chances are it probably isn't.

The start to year #2

2008-08-08T17:37:00.000-07:00

Upon arrival to Shanghai, I looked out the window and thought "We are home". Weird. But strangely enough it does feel like to home to us now. Maybe because it's familiar now and we know what to expect for the most part. And since I often blog about negative things (mostly because it's more funny than the good stuff) I thought I'd note some recent positive developments here. First off, since we've been back, the skies have actually been blue and the air pollution has been a lot better than last year. And although still hot, it's much better than last year where we couldn't even go outside because the heat was unbearable. Next, it's pretty awesome to be in China right now during the Olympics. Everyone here is so proud of their country and the Olympics. I must admit that the opening ceremony (which we watched on live TV) was amazing! The streets were totally empty during the ceremony becasue everyone was inside watching - quite a feat in a city of 22 million! And Sev and I managed to score tickets to some of the Olympic soccer games here in Shanghai next week (the US teams are playing in a different city so we won't get to see them).
When I was back in the US this year, people kept asking me "So, do you like living in China?". At the end of day, I don't love it here but it is certainly livable and it's been an experience we will never forget. Having said that, and because it just wouldn't be like me to not have a typical China story, here's the latest reminder that we aren't in the US anymore. Our apartment complex has a fantastic pool and we have been taking the kids almost everyday for a swim. Yesterday, Sev and I noted quite a few Chinese babies (under 18 months old) without swim diapers on under their suits. Now, these parents may argue that their kids are potty trained but even I get the urge to go when I hit the water and you can't tell me that these babies are not putting the "p" in pool. I thought about saying something to the parents but in reality, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink and nothing I can say in my lousy chinese is going to make them put a diaper on their kid. And so it goes in China...

Jersey Baby, Jersey!

2008-06-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

After nearly a year in China, I have returned to the motherland for a 6 week respite from the Shanghai heat and pollution. I was worried about reverse culture shock and although I am seriously jetlagged (working off of about 3 hours of sleep in the past 24 hours) so far, so good.

But maybe that's because Jersey ain't so different from Shanghai in some aspects. Let's explore:

Fashion: Shanghai has pajama fashion; Jersey has really bad hair.

Culture: Shanghainese spit and pee everywhere; Jerseyites are rude, rude, rude- what are you looking at?

Driving: Shanghainese don't bother to look while merging; Jerseyites don't bother to look while merging

All in all, it's nice to be back home. Anyway, tune in to the blog in August for the start of Sadura's in Shanghai- year 2.
And thanks to everyone for all the positive comments on the blog- I really appreciate it!

Earthquake

2008-06-02T06:30:00.001-07:00

As most of you know, we were not in the country at the time of the devastating earthquake that hit Sichuan, China. Thank you for all of the concerned emails we recieved from our friends. Although some people in tall buildings here in Shanghai felt a slight tremor, the epicenter was quite far from Shanghai. As of today, the death count is up around 80,000 people with millions (yes, about 5 million) people homeless. That is like the equivalent of the entire population of Minnesota being left homeless. The government response here has been tremendous and in a country where donating to charity is a new concept, the entire population has responded by giving what they can. (By the way, Sev's company is matching all employee donations plus some). If anyone out there would like to donate, the best way is to give to the international Red Cross at http://www.ifrc.org/
As of today (June 2nd) the Red Cross is still asking for donations to help the people of Sichuan and you can read about the 3 year recovery plan on their website. Anyway, I know gas prices suck and food prices are going up and all that junk but even $10 goes a long way here in China!

KTV

2008-06-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Back in Shanghai! Our vacation was great- almost too good. It really makes it hard to come back to China after spending time with our families. But we are only back for three weeks and then I am going back to the States for 6 weeks with the kids. Look out Jersey, here we come!

This past weekend, we decided to do the stereotypical asian thing and hit a karaoke club. There are two types of "KTV" (short for karaoke TV) in China. The kind with the "happy ending" (think gentleman's club with karaoke) and the family friendly kind. Obviously we hit the family friendly version. It was such a surreal and hilarious experience that I knew right away this was a blog in the making. To begin with, we waited 30 minutes to catch a cab there and after being approached by several men on motorcycles offering us rides- for a fee of course- we finally decided to take a "black cab". Basically, this is an illegal taxi. It's a random guy driving around in his personal car and trying to pick up people who are annoyed by waiting by the legal taxi. The difference is that you get to negotiate your price and as we had already had a few beers, this was looking like a good option! Long story short, we made it to the KTV in one piece even though we paid double a legal cab fee but at $5, still a deal!

On to the KTV...As we entered the lobby, our group of ten white people stood out like a sore thumb. The place was a mob scene- so this is where everyone goes on a Friday night! The lobby was all marble with fountains and a huge spiral staircase leading up three floors. It was nicer and larger than many hotels I've been in. Anyway, we were lead to the third floor and our private room. Each floor had at least 30 rooms and is laid out like a hotel with a buffet restaraunt on each floor. The hallways were also marble with a server assigned to every two rooms. The staff is running up and down the hallway with earpieces in their ears and everything. This is hard core stuff people. They take their karaoke seriously.

Our comfortable room included leather couches, a granite top bar, 3 TV screens, a computer to control our song selections, and a separate elevated stage area- and microphones of course! The staff also provides tambourines and maracas free of charge-cool. Full bar menu and munchies can be delivered to your room with a push of a button. Needless to say, as karaoke is not inbreed into our western culture, we consumed quite a bit of alcohol prior to arriving and we pretty much kept our server on speed dial throughout the night.

I have to tell you, this was one of the most fun nights we've had here in China. The song choices in english were almost entirely from the 1980's & 90's and each song had an accompanying "video" that played with it. The videos were actually the funniest part. Most consisted of a Chinese guy in sunglasses lip syncing along but occasionally a really random video would appear. For example, during "We are the World" there were shots of kids at a petting zoo and a girl milking a cow. "We are the Champions" featured a group of girls white water rafting. During many of the love songs, there were videos of a couple frolicking at the beach with really bad 80's hair. Our playlist included such classics as:

We built this city on Rock and Roll

Wake me up before you go go

Oops, I did it again

I'm Too Sexy

I want your sex

Like a Virgin

YMCA

These Boots are Made for Walking (Nancy Sinatra version)

And many more wonderful hits that I thankfully couldn't remember the next day. After such a fantastic night, we all couldn't help but ponder aloud why this doesn't fly in America? Who knows but this just may be the next big business idea...hmmm.

Anyway, if you plan on coming to visit us in the next year, you'd better get your singing voice tuned up 'cuz the KTV is on the agenda from here on out!

Enjoying a solo- not sure if you can see the embossed lizard wall paper in the background.

Yeah, I was feeling it- or maybe it was just the beer singing...

Some of the gang on the leather couches- note the tambourine & maracas on the table

"Like a Virgin"- can't believe I am posting this incriminating photo.

A much needed break!

2008-05-09T04:26:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update to let everyone know that we are heading off to Poland for a week to visit with Sev's family- they have never met Audrey and only saw Grace once when she was 3 months old! After Poland, we will take a short flight to Florence, Italy where we will rendezvous with my family for a week. We plan to eat and drink our way through Tuscany.
Needless to say, if you haven't heard about the "children's virus" sweeping through China, we are anxious to get out of here for awhile. Although not normally life threatening, a version of this virus has already killed 30 kids and the first case in Shanghai was just reported this week. At Grace's school, every child has to show their hands, get a fever check, and a mouth inspection before entering the classroom. The symptoms are similar to hand, foot, and mouth with blisters on hands and inside mouth but this version can develop into meningitis. Anyway, we picked a good time for vacation...

More random stuff from around town

2008-05-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

I usually try to have a theme to each entry but I have some interesitng pictures from around town (and of the kids) that I wanted to share. And for those of you who haven't heard, we have signed on for another year in Shanghai which means we will be heading back to the US for good in summer of 2009. What that means to all you faithful readers out there is that you will get another year of my blog (lucky you) and you still have time to come visit us here in China! So far only my parents have made the trek so come on, what are you waiting for? Don't you want to see split pants up close and personal?

Anyway, enjoy the pictures:

Hey, not sure what to do with your Easter basket after the holiday? Just turn it into a hard hat!

A lovely shot of a lugar on our car windshield. Courtesy of a bus driver who didn't look (or care) before he spit. Our driver wanted to go after him but the street was too narrow to turn around- thankfully!

Some interesting menu translations- still not sure what this one is but I am positive it isn't camel.

How about baby's dish of iron plate?

Audrey likes to sit (but not go) on her potty.

Hmm, let me check-yep, still nothing.

Grace on a field trip to the fire station- she got to try on a uniform.

Grace and some classmates trying out the fire hose.

Pregnant in Shanghai

2008-04-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

Ha-ha! Bet you all opened this one up thinking I would have some big announcement. Nope, we are not pregnant, trying, or even thinking about another one so put your mind at ease. But, a lot of my friends here are pregnant (both Chinese and Western) and it has really brought to light some interesting cultural differences I'd like to share.

Let's start with what you can eat in drink while pregnant. In the US, we know to stay away from certain cheeses and seafood. Well, in China they say to stay away from watermelon (but nobody could tell me why) and do not drink anything cold.

I know the ladies out there may be wondering about maternity fashion in China. It's ugly, I gotta tell you. Picture 1970's tent tops and really unflattering overalls. The Chinese think it's bad for the baby if you wear tight clothes around your belly. But the best part is that most of the maternity tops here contain a special shield that supposedly protects the mom to be from radiation. Radiation caused by cell phones, computers, and fax machines. In fact, my Chinese friends were in shock that I sat in front of a computer for the entire 9 months of both of my pregnancies without protecting myself from the radiation! "And nothing is wrong with your kids?" they ask? "It's debatable but in general, no- they are fine" I respond. I find it funny that they are so concerned with protecting themselves against radiation yet they are breathing in poisonous air and showering in chlorine saturated water everyday.

Want to find out what you are having? Unless you hold a foreign passport, too bad for you. They will not tell the mother the sex of her unborn child here. Since they can only have one kid, too many ladies opt out if it's a girl- know what I mean? Nice.

Ok, so you make it through your 9 months, give birth, and now what? In the US, you are in and out of the hospital in 2 days and back on your feet asap. Here, you are in the hospital for a week with a routine birth and even longer with a c-section. Next, the new mom is not supposed to get out of bed for 30 days after giving birth! But wait- there's more. The Chinese also believe that a woman should not shower for 30 days after birth- eww! They think the water is dirty so you can get infected (probably true, now that I think about it).

That's what I've learned so far but as my friends get closer to their due dates, I am sure I will have more to share.

Carrefour sucks.

2008-04-10T21:43:00.000-07:00

A lot of people wonder what I do all day since I am not officially working at the moment. As you may imagine, managing daily life here takes up a lot of time and one of the biggest challenges of my week is grocery shopping. Unfortunately, the choices are limited to: 1) local Chinese grocery store- um, no. Can't read any of the labels and have no idea what 90% of the stuff in the store is. 2) High end western style grocery store- ok, if you want to pay over $10 for a box of cheerios, $8 for a box of frozen waffles, etc (and I am not even exaggerating a little bit on these prices). 3) Carrefour- a place that sells reasonably priced western items as well as chinese items with translations on the shelf labels. Sounds like a winner- right? WRONG. This place makes Wal-mart look good.

So, let me give you a play by play of a typical trip to Carrefour (or crapfour as Sev refers to it).

First off, I wander in and grab myself a cart all the while trying not to think about how many kids in split pants sat in the cart before I got it. Now I am ready to thread my way through the aisles. I stop for a second to grab something off the shelf when "wham" someone slams into my cart and shoves it half way down the aisle. They don't bother to apologize or even look up because this is totally normal behaviour. It's kind of like playing bumper cars except with a shopping cart (after several months in China, I now do the same). Ok, now I need to figure out where the bread crumbs are at. I ask an employee in chinese where I can find them. She grunts back an answer I don't understand and gestures toward another aisle. I peruse the area to which she directed me for at least 5 minutes but no bread crumbs- or maybe there were bread crumbs but I couldn't read the label- this happens to me a lot. I give up on the bread crumbs.

I am now ready to proceed to the dreaded meat section. There are always crowds around the meat counter and the normal pushing and shoving is happening. I take a deep breath and plunge in. I come out with a couple packages of pork chops. I also note that there are open bins of frozen animal parts everywhere and people are digging through them with their bare hands. Then putting their hands back on their carts- mental note to sanitize myself as soon as I leave. Quick pass through the seafood area- not even sure what most of the stuff is but they have turtle on special today.
Open bin of pig's feet- yummy.

Turtle- it's still alive in the bag.

Almost ready to check out- walk past several merchandisers with microphones who accost every customer by tying to get them to sample their product. They never bother with me since I am a foreigner- thank goodness for that. Cringe as I approach the check lanes- every single lane is at least 5 people deep. See one with four people and literally run to get in line. Just barely beat out a local who had the same idea- ha. Stand in line for no less than 20 minutes as the cashiers here are in no hurry whatsoever. Get bumped in the butt by the person's cart behind me- twice. Give them the stink eye. Finally unload my stuff onto the conveyor. Now, I have to decide if I want to pay with cash or card. Both are problematic. If I pay with cash, the cashier will spend five minutes checking my money for fake bills. If I pay with card, she will have to leave her station and take my card to some other lane to run it. I don't know why but this happens all the time so I've given trying to figure out which lane actually has the credit card machine.

Finally finished! Realize I've already been in the store for well over an hour. Head to the parking lot and call my driver. Load up the car and then sit and wait another 10 minutes to get out of the parking lot since some yahoo has decided it's a good idea to drive the wrong way through the parking garage. Listen to all the other drivers honking incessantly as though any of us could go anywhere. Curse Carrefour and call Sev to bitch about how much I hate this store. And I have to do this twice a week. Argh!

Satellites, St. Patty's Day, and other random stuff

2008-03-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've slacked off a little on the blog so this entry will be some random updates from the last couple weeks here.

First off, we have some Irish friends who informed us about Irish week here in Shanghai. Apparently the mayor of Shanghai used to be the Chinese ambassador to Ireland (or something along those lines) so there is a lot of goodwill toward the Irish in this city. We were very excited to go see the St. Patty's day parade last week which turned out to be the shortest parade I've ever seen but it was still fun. The weirdest part was seeing a bunch of Chinese people dressed in green with Irish flags painted on their faces- but hey, everyone is Irish on St. Patricks day right?

Some Irish College Alums from China enjoying the parade.

Audrey and Sev checking out the St. Patty's day dragon- just after I took this photo we were mobbed by photographers shooting pics of Audrey- ARGH!

Probably the most interesting part of my week was dealing with the "satellite issue". It is a well known fact that satellite dishes are illegal in China but this law is commonly ignored. So, as usual, when the notices started to appear in our building that we had to take down our satellite, we ignored it (as did everyone else in our complex). The next notice said if we didn't remove them by mid-March, they (the government) would take them down for us. At this point we decided we could live without TV for a couple days so we took ours down the day before the deadline. Good thing too. The next morning I watched two men literally rappel down the side of each 30 story building and rip out everyone's dish. One of our friends had chosen not to heed the warning and was among the causalities. She promptly dragged her 4 kids to the management office and tried to explain that she only wanted the dish for the cartoons. And here is where it really gets good- the apartment management told her that they video tapped the removal of the satellites so that they could show the government that they had been taken down; however, she was welcome to come back in two days and get her dish back and reinstall it at her leisure. Fine. A week goes by and she keeps asking for it back- they continue to tell her to just another day. Finally, they give her an address and tell her she can go pick it up. Turns out the address is the police station and when you try to pick up your dish, you pay a hefty fine. And this my friends is what it's like to live in China.

Workers taking everyone's satellite. They use the same technique (and lack of safety equipment) to clean the windows here too!

Finally, just wanted to leave you with a little snapshot of Harry Connick Jr in Shanghai. Sev and I recently celebrated our 12 year wedding anniversary (I know, I can't believe it either) by going to his concert. It was fantastic- and the funniest thing was that 90% of the audience was caucasian.

Comforting thoughts

2008-03-02T17:21:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't exactly say that living in China is fraught with danger but I would say that in general it's a lot more scary than living in the USA. I've mentioned in previous posts the challenges of crossing the streets, the awful air & water pollution, and in general the complete lack of safety awareness here. So imagine my chagrin when I checked my emails and saw the following warning from the US Consulate to all expats living in China (I have inserted my own thoughts and comments in bold):

Health professionals are concerned that the continued spread of a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus among animals (mainly poultry) in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe (I am not sure why they think North & South America are immune to this...) has the potential to significantly threaten human health. If highly pathogenic avian influenza, such as the H5N1 subtype, mutates and spreads easily from one person to another, influenza could break out globally, and lead to a pandemic. Of course, Shanghai would be the epicenter since there are so many frigging people here, they sell and kill live poultry on the street corners and have no hygiene standards whatsoever.

Private American citizens should be aware that it may not be possible to travel during an outbreak. Governments may close borders suddenly and without advance warning; commercial air, land and sea carriers could curtail or cancel service; and restricting travel may be the best way to reduce the risk of exposure to the virus. Like hell- we'd make live the Von Trapp family and get outta dodge anyway possible. These developments could impede a return to the United States or travel to another country or region. Therefore, Americans who are overseas during a pandemic may need to remain where they are until conditions improve, a situation which could last several months. Lord help me if I was ever stuck here indefinitely.
Private American Citizens Living and/or Working Overseas: Consider local conditions (hmm, not good considering everyone spits and spreads their germs everywhere), and evaluate your ability to maintain adequate supplies of food, water, and medication (damn, this means I need a stock up trip to Carrefour- a place so nasty that it makes Wal-mart look good) should a pandemic result in borders closing or disruptions in international travel. Decide on your optimal location in a pandemic and plan accordingly (I'd have to say my optimal location would be anywhere but here). Ask your doctor in advance about obtaining appropriate medication for treatment if you become ill, keeping in mind it could take many months to develop and produce sufficient quantities of a vaccine during a pandemic (So basically, we are screwed). Remember that U.S. embassies, consulates and military facilities lack the legal authority, capability, and resources to dispense medications, vaccines or medical care to private American citizens overseas (Of course- somebody might try to sue them so they figure they will just let their citizens fend for themselves- nice). If you are a private American citizen (e.g. living, working, touring, studying overseas) you will need to rely on local health care providers (uh-oh)and locally-available medications since U.S. government facilities will not be able to provide medications or treat you (in other words, we will just evacuate our embassy personnel and let you rot where you are).
Plan to Remain in Country: If the WHO declares a pandemic, Americans who are overseas should be prepared to remain in country for an extended period (no, no no- say it isn't true!). You should avoid non-essential travel beyond your home and workplace (are you kidding me? As if we would even bother going to work) and you should limit activities that could expose you to others who may be ill (in other words, become a total shut-in). Based on varying conditions abroad, Americans should prepare contingency plans and emergency supplies (non-perishable food, potable water or water-purification supplies, medication, etc.) for the possibility of remaining in country for at least two and up to twelve weeks (I highly doubt if there were a pandemic that they would have it under control in a matter or weeks- they just didn't want to freak anyone out more than necessary). Visit www.pandemicflu.gov to see examples of comprehensive planning checklists (I've already book marked this as a "favorite" website).
What About During a Pandemic? During a pandemic, people should practice social distancing measures such as teleworking, limiting face-to-face meetings, avoiding crowds, and maintaining a distance of six (6) feet or more from other people (absolutely impossible in this city- the average space distance among people here is 1 foot- this is scientific fact, not just my opinion).

So after getting the above email, I had a 5 minute panic attack, considered phoning Sev's company and asking to come home, googled avian flu for 30 minutes, and promptly started making my survival supply list. But here is my survival secret- if I worried about everything here, I'd already have had a nervous breakdown and be checked into the loony bin. So in the end, like I do with everything I worry about here, I just blew it off and decided it would be a funny blog post to share with my faithful readers. Enjoy.

Lost in translation

2008-02-26T16:52:00.001-08:00

I'm working on ideas for future blog posts but in the meantime, thought everyone would enjoy some funny photos we took around town.

I took this one while sitting in traffic- talk about a translation problem!

If you need a bamboo chair, this street vendor has you covered. I see him all over town hauling his wares on the back of this rickshaw.

We often visit Buddhist temples to see the beautiful statues and architecture (plus we think Grace was a Buddhist in a past life as she is obsessed with going to temples). Anyway, Sev caught this worshipper dialing straight to Buddah on her cell phone. Nice, eh?

A worker taking up the last inch of space in the back of this truck- hopefully he isn't going far or I imagine he'll have quite the leg cramp when he gets out.

The latest in Shanghainese hair fashion. Sev is thinking of updating to this look for his summer cut.

The land down under

2008-02-19T17:27:00.000-08:00

Xin Nian Hao! That's Happy New Year in Mandarin. I'll spare everyone the drama of the actual flight to Australia- let's just say that after a 3 day delay due to snow in Shanghai we finally made it to Sydney. While it wasn't the sunny beach vacation we had hoped for (it rained nearly everyday) it was still a great trip.

Day 1: Arrive in Sydney; check into hotel; go for a walk to Darling Harbor. 5 minutes into the walk get stopped by a gaggle of Chinese tourists who ask to take pictures of Audrey. Sigh. We just can't seem to escape. Darling Harbor is a tourist trap with expensive seafood restaraunts, the Aquarium, and a lovely park/playground area and the kids loved it.

Day 2: Take train to main ferry wharf. Catch our first glimpse of the Opera House & Sydney harbor bridge as we take the ferry for a short ride to the Taronga zoo. Spend the day at the zoo dodging the rain. Cringe as we watch two Chinese tourists jump the low barrier and actually walk through the kangaroo enclosure. We are not surprised. Marvel at the views these lucky animals have as the zoo is built into a hill which overlooks Sydney.

View of opera house from the ferry

Grace thinking she is being really naughty by running outside and sticking her butt out in the rain.

Audrey snoozing under her lovely poncho.

Day 3: Finding Nemo. Hit the Sydney aquarium. It's pretty nice but the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago is better.

Day 4: More rain. Go to Olympic Park and spend the day splashing around the indoor leisure pool where the actual 2000 Olympics were held. That night, watch the Chinese New Year block party from our window. Laugh about the fact that we are probably getting more Chinese culture this week in Sydney than we would have back in Shanghai!

Day 5: Opera house & Botanical gardens. I make a scene on the stairs of the opera house by shouting at two Chinese tourists who insist on touching Audrey and taking pictures with her without asking (those of you who know me well won't have trouble picturing this scenario). I truely don't understand their obsession with taking pictures of caucasion kids. Watch the giant bats roosting in the trees of the gardens. Eat dinner at a Tony Soprano place with only 6 things on the menu, cash only, and byo drinks (it was excellent).

Giant bats sleeping in the trees of the botanical gardens.

Audrey out for a stroll in the gardens (yes, she is finally walking).

Day 6 & 7: Head into the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney. Hike, take a ride on historic railroad, eat a lot of anything that isn't Chinese food.

A view of the "3 Sisters" in the Blue Mountains

Day 8: Back to Sydney. More rain but go to see one of the beaches anyway. Surf is really rough but it's still fun to play in the sand.

Grace literally climbing the walls...

Day 9: Hit the Australia Museum & another zoo right in the middle of the city. Head to airport for the red eye flight back. Good thing because Sydney is right up there with New York and London in terms of cost of living and we are pretty much out of money!

Cuddly Koala at Sydney Wildlife World.

All in all, we had a great trip although I can't really say that I feel like I've seen Australia since we mostly stuck to the city. Kind of like tourists who only go to New York City and then claim to have been to the USA. But a week of fresh air and tap water you can drink should be good enough to hold us over until we get back to the US this summer.

Snow in Shanghai

2008-01-28T19:24:00.000-08:00

Imagine it snowed in Miami and you can pretty much get the picture of what this week has been like in Shanghai. It's the most snow they have had in the past 17 years. The good part about it is that most of the people here don't seem to mind as snow is a novelty for them. Snowmen have suddenly sprouted up all around the city and snowball fights abound. Everyone is whipping out their cell phones to snap pictures of the winter wonderland. Sev took Grace outside to play and while she making snow angels, several of the workers gathered around to watch- they had never seen a snow angel before! The bad part is that there are no snow plows here and shovels are apparently hard to come by. Most people are using their straw brooms to clear the snow. In our apartment complex they sent out an army of workers to clear the streets (I literally saw a group of 20 people sweeping the snow away). And most people don't have boots so they simply tie old plastic bags around their feet. Also, everyone uses their umbrellas to keep themselves dry which gives all of us Minnesotans here chuckle. Many schools were cancelled although (thankfully) Grace's was not. Now based on my above description you may think that we got over a foot or more. No, we got about an inch. Unfortunately for the good people of Shanghai, it's been enough to shut down highways and as Chinese New Year is next week, half the town is trying to travel to their home provinces. The lines at the train station ticket offices have been stretching around the block for over a week now.

Speaking of Chinese New Year, we have elected to get out of Dodge (as we have been told that the fireworks go off morning, noon, and night for a week straight) so this will be my last post for the next two weeks. We are headed off to sunny Sydney, Australia on Saturday. So best wishes to everyone in the Year of the Rat!

A street cleaner in the traditional blue worker uniform clears the street with a broom.

Twenty workers and guards clear the streets in our apartment complex while a resident looks on (you know he is thinking- "ha, suckers- glad I don't have to do that!")

Smiling faces as the ladies shovel and throw down some salt.

A Traditional Chinese Wedding

2008-01-20T20:07:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in the last post that we were fortunate enough to be able to attend our friend Melissa's wedding in Hong Kong. This was the first traditional Chinese wedding we had been to and I was really excited to see how it differed from our western weddings. The day starts for the bride very early and begins with the traditional red Chinese gown. Melissa's gown was all hand embroidered and she looked absolutely gorgeous. The groom comes to her family home in the morning (since Melissa lives in Shanghai, this was done at the hotel room) where he is greeted by the bridesmaids who basically tease him for at least 30 minutes before letting him in the door. Then there is all kinds of exchanges between the brides family and the groom. There are traditional foods to be eaten and of course a traditional tea ceremony. I was able to come up to the room and see the last part of the ceremony (I missed the first part because of the Disneyland hangover- we all over slept)! Throughout the day, the bride is given jewelry from her parents and relatives (look closely at the pics to see the gold bracelets). The morning portion of the ceremony takes about 2 hours. Then everyone packs up and moves to the grooms house. Not sure what goes on there though. At about 6:00pm the actual ceremony takes place. The guests arrive and are assigned a table but there is no gift table and I didn't see anywhere to deposit a red envelope (traditional way to give money) although I am sure that each guest did bring an envelope for them. The bride wears a traditional western wedding gown, her dad walks her in and the bride and groom get up on the stage and do the ring exchange. In Hong Kong, this is presided over by a lawyer (and the ceremony was in english but I think that was only b/c it took place in Hong Kong; otherwise, I am assuming it would have been in the local language). Then there are loads of family pictures to be taken. In the meantime, the guests were free to mingle and play majong- they even had a whole separate room set up with majong tables!

Then the meal began. We were seated with the only other two Caucasians in the room- go figure.

It was a 12 course meal served by an army of waiters who would march in exactly at the same time each time a new course was served. No worries if your table was in the back as we all got our food at the same time. During this time the bride had her first dress change. She had a separate changing room adjacent to the ballroom specifically for this purpose. Also, the mother of the bride changed her dress as well. This went on throughout the night- all together, Melissa had at least 6 dress changes! It was really fun to see what she would wear next.

There was no dancing, DJ, or band like we have in the US although there was an MC who made all the announcements. Also, there was one game that we called "Embarrass the foreigners". Sev and the two other Caucasian guys at our table had to get up on the stage one at a time. They had to put on headphones and listen to a Chinese pop song and then sing it back to the audience. The first audience member to guess the song won a prize. It was pretty funny and somehow I manage to escape without participating.

The other fun thing that I definitely think we should incorporate into weddings in the US came when it was time to toss the bouquet. Instead of throwing it, all the single gals came up on stage and took a red ribbon in their hand. The ribbons were all wrapped around the bouquet which was held by the bride. On the count of 3, everyone pulled on their ribbon but only one was actually tied to the bouquet. I thought this was a great way to keep everyone safe and avoid the inevitable desperate pushing and shoving that goes on the US!

Anyway, the last course was served around 11:30pm and by that time, we were ready to call it a night. All in all, a very fun evening and interesting evening.

The bride in her traditional gown- note the bling at her wrist and neck.

Part of the tea ceremony where Melissa is recieving gifts from her sisters.

The western wedding gown (Melissa's knickname is Bebe in case you are wondering what's up with the sign in the background).

The third dress change.

The 4th dress change.

Sev making an ass of himself- all in good fun though!
The poster child for "What not to wear to a wedding"- pretty self explanatory.

Hong Kong (or why I love Disneyland)

2008-01-15T20:52:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks for all of us. My mom was able to extend her trip and stay until Jan 14th. First of all, Grace turned 3 on January 3rd. No party this year- we brought a Dora cake (of course) to school, threw some party hats on the kids, and sang Happy Birthday in Chinese and English. Of course we had the celebratory dinner at Hooters per Grace's request. And the pacifier fairy came and took away her pacifier on the night of her birthday but left a Dora toy instead. It's been a rough couple weeks since then but I guess that's to be expected when you quit an addiction.

We were also lucky enough to be invited to a friend's traditional Chinese wedding in Hong Kong but I am going to do a separate post about the actual ceremony. We were in HK for 4 days and had a great time. It is MUCH more westernized than Shanghai due to the British influences of course. All the cabbies spoke English- what a refreshing change. Since we were there we decided to bite the bullet and take the kids to HK Disneyland. What an awesome day it turned out to be! I never thought I would be raving about a daytrip to Disney but here goes. In typical Disney style, everything was done exactly right. We took the metro train from our hotel and as we switched onto the last train to take us to Disneyland, a beautiful new train pulled up with Mickey Mouse shaped windows, plush blue velvet seats, and bronze statues inside the train of all the characters. And of course I can't forget the classical Disney songs being piped throughout the station.

Thankfully this is the smallest of all the Disney parks with only 3 main sections which was perfect for us. And since we went on a weekday there were no crowds. We started in Fantasyland and literally rode the carousel and the Winnie the Pooh ride at least 6 times each. Not to mention several trips to take photos with the various characters around the park. The most fun happened when Grace threw a fit getting off the carousel (big shock, I know) but upon exiting we were chosen as the "Magical Moment" family for the day :)

So Grace and Audrey got to take a private walk with Cinderella and ride the carousel with her.

We also hit tomorrowland and adventureland but there are really only about 4 little rides in each section. We also watched the Main Street parade and Grace was so overwhelmed that she started crying when it was over. Even so, we were at the park for over 7 hours! And we are definitely going to hit it again next year. It was also Sev's first trip to Disneyland and he was so smitten he wants to check out the one in Tokyo as well!

Oh yeah, one last thing- no split pants allowed so we weren't worried about bare butt being on the rides prior to us.

The train to Disneyland- Audrey "picked" a good seat

Grace running to greet Mickey

Cinderella and Grace taking a walk together

Audrey getting ready to go on the Pooh ride- again.

Audrey on the carousel

Who can escape Disneyland without this classic family photo?

Grace and her Dora cake

Christmas in China

2008-01-01T01:36:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! A lot of people have emailed me wondering what it is like to be in China for Christmas. Actually, it really wasn't as wierd as I thought it would be. First of all, about 3 weeks before Christmas, almost every public place (restaraunt, shops, hotels, etc) had put up some type of picture or cheesy replica of Santa. Granted, many of the Santa art had funny pictures of ducks and cartoon stars along with it but I give them credit for trying. And I was really surprised by the number of xmas trees everywhere. The people themselves don't celebrate xmas in their own homes but they like the lights and decorations along the street. All religious meaning has been removed from the decorations but that is to be expected here. And of course there were no mall Santas, no Christmas carols on the radio, no mad dash to the shops.

Thankfully, my parents had made the long trip to Shanghai to celebrate the holidays with us this year. They really helped to stave off the homesick feelings I am sure we would have had if we had been here alone. And we decided since it wasn't too Christmas-y here in China anyway, we would fly to a tropical destination to celebrate xmas. We chose an island owned by China called Hainan-just off the coast of Vietnam and Malaysia. The island is famous for hosting the Miss Universe pagent every year. My dad's brother who happens to be working in Hong Kong, joined us with his wife and daughter which made it really feel like a family vacation.

Anyway, I went in to it with low expectations as living here for the past 5 months has taught me to do. But we were pleasantly surprised upon arrival. The weather was perfect- about 80 and sunny everyday. The beaches were pristine- no rocks, no shells, no trash. The water was blue and warm. We stayed at the Marriott and really never ventured off the resort because it was so awesome! We couldn't help laughing everytime we wandered through the open air lobby and gazed upon the palm trees while "White Christmas" was playing in the background. Probably the most humorous moment occured on Christmas day when we went out for dinner at a Vietnamese restaraunt and a Philipinno cover band belted out "jingle bells" with an accent. I would absolutely say that Hainan island was better than most places in the Carribean that I've visited but I wouldn't say that anyone needs to make a special trip to visit the island- if you're in China and you have some extra time, it makes for a nice long weekend.

Grace with the worst Santa I've ever seen- but hey, you take what you can get!

Grace on a horse ride along the shore

Audrey and daddy out for a swim

A view of the pool at our hotel

The open air lobby of our hotel

The view from the lobby & our balcony

Split Pants

2007-12-30T15:50:00.001-08:00

So sorry for the long delay since my last entry! I had really hoped to get this post up before Christmas- sort of a special gift to everyone but now you can consider this my New Year's greeting to all.

Without a doubt the biggest cultural difference I noticed upon coming to China is their use of "split pants" on their kids. I don't know the official name but this is what I call them as it literally fits the bill. From the front, they look like any other pants but the back is split all the way up the back seam of the butt so that the child's little rear end is on full display. Why? I asked this question many times until I finally found someone to explain it to me.

The Chinese believe that you can start potty training your child from about 4 months old. Crazy to us Americans but they swear by it here. They believe that every kid will start to give subtle clues when they need to go to the bathroom as early as 4 to 6 months. Also, by not using diapers they completely avoid nasty diaper rashes and it is better for the environment of course. But in my opinion, you have a host of other problems instead. For example, hygienically speaking, I think it's disgusting. Although some parents will throw on a diaper if they take their kid to the store, I have seen more than my fair share of bare butts on shopping carts. And as every parent knows, your kid WILL have accidents while potty training but as you can imagine, if your kid is in split pants the accidents happen in the middle of the sidewalk or worse yet, on the floor of the mall (yes, I have witnessed this). Sev and I have a running joke when we see poop on the sidewalk- is it human or animal? It's a toss up.

I have mentioned the chronic problem of public urination here but my latest theory is that it stems from split pants. As soon as a child indicates they need to go, their mother's take them to the nearest bush and lift them up to assume the position. The position consists of the mom holding the child with the kids back against her chest and then putting her arms behind the kids knees and lifting the child's knees to it's chest. This then splays out the kids genitals so they can whizz without getting anything on themselves. A lovely view for all to see. And if their are no bushes around, they will use whatever is available. I have seen mom's letting their kids pee in garbage cans and once, in a plastic bag at the indoor playground (even though their was a toilet just one floor up).

So that is the story of split pants in a nutshell. It was a tough decision but we have decided to stick with diapers for Audrey- at least for now! Sorry the below pics aren't better but it's tough to get a clear shot without looking like a pedophile.

Backless shorts- a new fashion trend?

Split pants in the mall- shortly after I took this pic, the kid peed on the floor and the parents just left it there and walked away.

A youngster displaying the full moon.

Cock fight

2007-12-13T01:15:00.000-08:00

Get your mind out of the gutter kids; it's not what you think. While flipping through channels on our illegal satellite (it's broadcast from the Philippines) we stumbled upon cock fighting. On one of the sports channels. At first, we were intrigued. What's the big deal and why is it illegal in the U.S.? Well, after 3 minutes of watching, we found out why. It's a fight to the death. And, to make it really interesting, the bird owners fasten a curved blade onto one of the cock's legs so that when they go at each other they are obviously inflicting serious damage each time. It's a violent and bloody "sport". Even Sev agreed that it was disgusting. And apparently a big business in the Philippines as there are several people in the audience and they can bet on the cock of their choice. Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox but I thought you would enjoy reading about the cultural differences of TV over here in Asia!
P.S.- Here is a teaser for the next blog entry: Split pants...I promise to blog about this before Christmas so check back soon.

Cluck, cluck.

2007-12-09T17:03:00.000-08:00

Every morning on the way to take Grace to school I see the chicken lady. Actually, she is more like the poultry lady since she also sells ducks. Live poultry- sold off the back of her bike. The ducks have their feet bound so they can't wander away and are displayed on the sidewalk. The chickens are crammed into cages one on top of the other. This scene in itself is enough to disturb me. I eat chicken and of course I know they are all alive at one point and then slaughtered. It's just that I don't really want to see my dinner walking around before I eat it.

But the real kicker came just the other day when we got stuck in traffic (big shock, I know) right in front of the chicken lady. A customer walked up and chose a chicken. I then watched in horror as the chicken was slaughtered with a dirty knife over a styrofoam box (to catch the blood) and then plucked. All this right on the street corner. I am just guessing that it probably isn't too sanitary. And you too can get your very own freshly slaughtered chicken for about $3.50- what a bargain.

Chickens & pigeons for sale off the back of the bike; ducks waiting to be served for dinner

Things that STILL surprise me...

2007-11-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, we have already been here 4 months. Time flies when your having fun. And although I have gotten used to many things here, I still have days that surprise me. I'll share some examples (and these all took place just this week). First of all, I went to an Indiana University alumni meeting the other night and I decided to brave the subway by myself. Things started off just fine- I bought my ticket, got a seat, and settled in for the 20 minute ride. About two stops later, the train started to get pretty full- it was rush hour so this is to be expected. At the third stop the doors opened and several people literally sprinted onto the train and started elbowing each other out of the way as they rushed for the last remaining seat. The victorious passenger claimed his seat with a smirk while I stared in disbelief. I had just witnessed the adult version of musical chairs- I felt like I was watching a group of second graders. By the time we got to my stop and I stood up to try to push my way to the door, I could barely breathe because were so many people crushed against me. I now understand how people can get trampled in a crowd because had I fallen down, there was no way I would have been able to stand up again.
Ok, enough about the subway. Shock number two came this week when I went in for an appointment with my TCM (traditional chinese medicine) doctor for my back -I have a new doc now who is much better but that's another story. My appointment was at 1:30 and I arrived about 1:15pm. I knew I had to pay before the appointment but when I attempted to hand over my money at the registration desk, the nurse told me I was not allowed to pay because it was too early. I patiently tried to explain that yes, I knew my appointment was at 1:30 but I would like to pay now and wait until 1:30 to see the doctor. "No, it is too early- you must wait until 1:30 to pay". Four months ago I would have pitched a fit but now I know better. I threw my hands up in the air and sat down to wait. At exactly 1:30 the nurse came over to me and told me that I could now pay. Great. And of course as I stood at the cashier's desk to pay, at least 3 people tried to cut in front of me. Argh! I'll never get used to that cultural difference here.
And speaking of cultural differences I still cannot get over the spitting thing. I've mentioned it before in a previous post but it never ceases to amaze me. I was at the grocery store today and while I was checking out another customer walked past me and spat on the floor. In the grocery store. I proceeded to give him my patented "death look" to which he simply responded to by smiling back at me and nodding his head. He had no idea why I had given him the evil eye. That's when I had my "A-Ha" moment- China may be modernizing at the speed of light but some things will never change- like spitting. Oh well! If you can't beat 'em...well, you know the rest.

Beijing

2007-11-19T19:12:00.000-08:00

To tell you the truth, before this opportunity came up for us I really never had a burning desire to see China. But now that we are here, I want to see as much as possible and first on the agenda was Beijing. We went for a long weekend since the flight is only 2 hours from Shanghai. Although we didn't get to see as much as we wanted with the kids in tow, it was still a great trip and we were in awe of the sights. They are working hard to get everything cleaned up for the Olympics but they have a long way to go. For example, we landed at the airport and instead of getting a jetway, we had to board a bus to get to the terminal. Fine. But it was cold outside and we were at the back of the plane so by the time we got off the one bus they had waiting was packed to the gills. I mean it was like a clown car- you literally could not squeeze one more person on there and there was no way we were going to try it with the kids. As the bus pulled away, I asked the flight attendant how long before the next bus would be there - 10 minutes. This may not seem like a long time to wait but standing on a runway in 40 degree weather with a strong wind and two little kids will make it seem like an eternity. The classic part of the whole situation is that there was another bus sitting right there with a driver in it but they wouldn't let us on- not even to wait out of the cold. Typical. I was just picturing the plane loads of people from all over the world landing there for the Olympics and standing outside in 100 degree heat waiting for buses. Yet another reason we have decided we don't want to be anywhere near Beijing next summer.

Anyway, overall it was a fun trip- it seems a little crazy that we can hop on a plane for a weekend trip and walk the Great Wall of China! Enjoy the pictures.

Sev at the Temple of Heaven.

Inside the Forbidden City (home of China's Emporers).

The Great Wall- we got there early so for a change, there were very few tourists.

Sev and Grace in front of the entrance to the Forbidden City and a lovely portrait of Mao.

Hooters vs. Bubbas (a.k.a. Hooters part 2)

2007-11-19T18:26:00.000-08:00

I had such an overwhelming response on the last Hooters blog I thought I would just add a few last comments. Based on the many email requests I got for photos (granted, most of the requests were from the same person- you know who you are) I am also adding not only photos but a video! Yahoo!

I also had to mention a place we found last week called "Bubba's Texas Style BBQ". Based on previous experiences with Western food in Shanghai, I was a bit nervous to try it. Especially based on the outside appearance- it's a little scary. But once inside, we were magically transported to a little dive bar reminiscent to those visited in our youth. Big 10 football flags decorated the walls along with old Texas license plates and some good old country music. But the best part was the FOOD. It was seriously one of the best BBQ's I've ever had (as evidenced by the 4 pounds of meat we ate among 5 people- and one of the five is a vegetarian)!

Ribs that melt in your mouth, a pile of pulled pork worth writing home about (umm, I guess I am writing home about it), and of course some great micro brew beers imported straight from the US. We were in heaven- check out the photos and believe me, this place will be on the agenda if any of you actually get yourselves over here for a visit!

Now the question is- which is better, Bubba's or Hooters??? I guess we'll just have to keep going back to both until we decide.

Grace and her favorite waitess at Hooters (that's Sev's beer in the pic, not Grace's).

Audrey peruses the menu- will it be the spicy chicken or the wings?

Bubba's exterior

Our friends about to dig into the meat feast.

Four pounds of meat later- we were all paying for it the next day!

My top 10 list

2007-11-08T05:46:00.000-08:00

Today I was feeling a little homesick so I decided to make my top 10 list of the things I miss about living in the USA. Of course my family and friends are the thing I miss the most but this list focuses on the things that may surprise you.
#10- Shopping. I was never a huge shopper but now that it is such a pain in the neck to do any kind of shopping (grocery included) I find that I really miss it! My number one complaint is that nothing here is made to fit western sizes so doing any type of clothes shopping for anyone over a size 4 is virtually impossible. Sev just keeps reminding me of all the money I'm saving by not being able to buy new clothes...
#9- Voicemail. I have no idea why but there is no voicemail here for cell phones and most home/office phones. This leads to people calling and letting the phone ring incessantly in the hopes that someone will pick up.
#8- Hollywood. Both movies and gossip. Ok, so it was a guilty pleasure to follow along with the Brittany Spears saga but to say that I am now out of the loop is an understatement.
#7- Noise restrictions. There is a bar across the street from us where they like to set off fireworks (the kind so big they'd be illegal in every state in the US) pretty often and usually after 9pm. I'd love to call someone and complain but let's face it- I can't since I don't speak Chinese and I've lived here long enough to know if won't do any good anyway.
#6- Non-smoking restaurants. Self explanatory.
#5- Road rules. As in there are none here. This morning traffic was backed up as usual and several cars took it upon themselves to cross the double yellow line into oncoming traffic and make themselves a new lane which of course only served to back up traffic in the opposite direction as well. Have I mentioned how much I hate the traffic here???
#4- Toilet paper in public bathrooms. Sure, you'll come across a bathroom that has run out in the the US but here, it's a pleasant surprise if you can find T.P. in the bathroom. Not only that but the plumbing sucks so most places provide a garbage pail in every stall for your used T.P. so that it doesn't clog the toilet. You can imagine the smell in the summer heat- yum.
#3- Good pizza. There is Pizza Hut and Papa John's here but they have "China-fied" it. That is, tailored the taste to suit the masses here and it is not so good (i.e. tuna fish is a popular topping here). We've yet to find a really good pizza although it has now become a personal quest of mine.
#2- TIVO! And along with it, all the great shows that I am missing like Heroes, The Office, Ugly Betty, and Grey's Anatomy. Not to mention Sunday football- GO PACK GO!!! Figures that the Packers are having one of their best seasons ever and we can't watch a single game. ARGH.
#1- Fresh Air. What I wouldn't give for a good long whiff of Minnesota air. Yeah the pollution here is not as bad as I thought it would be (sometimes, we can actually see the moon and stars) but it sure isn't good.

Well, there's my list in a nutshell. And just for fun, I thought I would try a new feature of adding a video. Please email me and let me know if it works. It has nothing to do with my top 10 list but I know everyone will get a kick out it.
Found this for sale at a recent trip to the market. Yes, it's meant to be eaten...

I just got cupped

2007-11-05T01:05:00.000-08:00

I am trying to live by a new philosophy :"When in China, do like the Chinese". But sometimes I do something and afterwards I think it probably wasn't such a good idea. I'll give you an example. Last week my back was really bothering me. It was so bad that if I bent the wrong way I would literally cry out in pain. One of my Chinese friends, Jason, swears by this traditional Chinese medicine doctor so upon hearing of my predicament, he talked me into going with him to see her. He warned me that she is currently living with her elderly father so their place isn't so nice and she is retired so she works out of her dad's apartment. Ok, I thought- what a great opportunity to see how the locals really live.

Most people would have turned and ran at the doorway. We entered in through a rusty old gate and then went up two flights of narrow concrete slab stairs. Upon entering the apartment we found ourselves standing in a very small kitchen. The lone bathroom was adjacent to the kitchen. To the right was a small bedroom (maybe 8ft x 8ft) which was also doubling as the "treatment room". To the left was a second bedroom- maybe 9ft X9 ft. The walls were in dire need of paint, there was no washing machine (I am assuming they did their laundry by hand which is pretty common here), and I imagine the place got quite a draft in the winter.
A man was standing outside the apartment shouting something over and over in Chinese which Jason translated as "Who has knives and scissors they need to have sharpened?" Damn, I had left my scissors at home.
Anyway, on to the appointment. We gave the doctor no prior information about my condition before the appointment. The doctor looked at my tongue and then felt my pulse. She proceed to correctly diagnose that I had both lower back pain and neck pain, that I got headaches and once in a while I got dizzy when I stood up. Spot on. Freaky. She said I had back pain because I didn't rest for one month after I had my kids (the Chinese believe that you should basically lay in bed and eat for one month after you have a kid). True, true. She said she would do both acupuncture and "cupping".
There are two types of cupping- one involves being bled and one does not. I said under no uncertain circumstances was I doing anything that involved bleeding since she doesn't wear gloves and even an untrained eye could see that it wasn't the most sanitary place. Fine, she said but it wouldn't work as well. I'll take my chances I said. I laid down and she did a very intense massage on my back which was pretty painful but bearable. Then she did the acupuncture. I have had acupuncture a few times in the US and it never hurt. This time however, was another story. (Note that the needles were new and out of a package so no worries for all you fellow germ freaks out there). She put the needles right into my lower back and I think she must have hit my sciatic nerve because a wicked pain shot down my leg all the way to my toes. She claimed that was a good thing and it meant my body was releasing the back pain. Whatever. Then she proceeded to cup me. This entailed placing glass cups (kind of looked like a beaker from science class) all over my back and then sucking my skin up into the cup. It didn't hurt but the effect is like getting a giant hickey.

She charged me $30 for an hour and a half of treatment- pretty cheap. At the end of the day, my back did start to feel better the next day but it may have cleared up on its own anyway. We'll never know. Would I go back there? Probably not but it was definitely an experience to remember.

A hickey explosion on my back after traditional Chinese medicine treatment.

Halloween- Chinese style.

2007-11-05T00:23:00.000-08:00

Halloween is a purely American holiday as far as I can tell. Nobody else celebrates it the way we do. I had resigned myself to skipping the festivities this year, figuring the kids were too young to know the difference anyway. But one day I noticed a flyer had been posted by our apartment management that there would be a Halloween celebration on Tuesday, October 30th. Why not actually on Halloween day you may ask? I don't know but you take what you can get around here.

First, I had to sign up to hand out candy since most Chinese don't get it and don't want a bunch of kids ringing their doorbell. I was given a sticker to put on our mailbox to indicate that we were participating. So far, so good. I bought my candy (the good stuff- bite sized snickers) and Sev manned the door while I took the kids to the festival. It started out with a great puppet show which was really good but over an hour long. Imagine telling a bunch of kids that they get to go around collecting candy but not until after the HOUR long puppet show. The plan was to break the kids up into groups of 10 so that they could be accompanied around by someone from the apartment management (since our key cards only work at our own buildings there is no way to get into the other towers). But in typical Chinese fashion, they didn't split up the kids prior to the event and everyone wanted to be in the first group so it basically ended up being a totally unorganized roving gang of hundreds of kids. Imagine trying to cram all these kids and parents on the elevators to get them up to the participating apartments- not good. Not to mention that nobody had any idea how many kids to expect and so most people ran out of candy shortly after the event started.

Since this was the first time many Chinese parents and kids had done Halloween, they didn't really get the full concept. For example, many of the kids came without a bag to put their candy in. And they didn't know how to say "trick or treat" so they would just ring the bell and stick out their hand. It was pretty funny. It was also the first time many of the Chinese residents had handed out candy. Remember when you would go trick or treating and the old people would give out the gross stuff that was always the last thing left at the bottom of your bag after you ate all the good stuff? Well, that was pretty much what everyone was giving out here (i.e. coffee flavored hard candy). Thank goodness Grace was satisfied just hitting 3 apartments and Audrey had signed out half way through the puppet show.

Perhaps next year (if we are still here) I will volunteer to organize the event and give them a taste of what an American Halloween should really look like- but then again, maybe I'll just sit back and let the events unfold in typical Chinese fashion- it certainly makes for a more entertaining experience!

MMM- Shrimp flavored candy. One of the many treats Grace got from her Chinese neighbors.

We dressed the kids as the month of March- in like a lion and out like a lamb.

Grace and her friend Sara from Italy.

Our little lamb (thanks to my mom for making this costume for Grace a couple years ago!).

Shanghai Fashion

2007-10-25T19:54:00.001-07:00

Considering that Shanghai is one of the largest and wealthiest cities in China, it makes sense that many people here are quite fashionable in their choice of clothing. Especially the under 40 crowd. But I have noticed a disturbing trend that seems to be getting worse now that the weather is cooler. Sev and I call it the "Pajama Fashion". People of all ages go about their daily business in head to toe woven PJ's. Plaids, Disney prints, florals, whatever- anything goes as long as you match your top and bottom. I was cracking up the first time I saw someone doing their food shopping in the local mega mart in their jammies. I am still not sure if they just roll out of bed and go about their business or if they actually choose to put on a new outfit when they get up in the morning. They bike around town in these outfits as well. Men and women- the pajama fashion does not discriminate.

The other scary fashion that we are thankfully seeing less of now that the weather is cooler is the men in half shirts. Many of the Shanghainese men will roll up their t-shirts to chest level when it is hot out to help themselves cool off. Yuck. I really don't want to see a bunch of Chinese guys running around town doing their best impression of Daisy Duke (unless of course they've got a 6 pack of abs to go along with it but alas, I have yet to see any male eye candy wandering the streets with their shirts rolled up).

Pajama fashion in a local vegetable market (note the wedgie pick to go along with it)

I'm too sexy for my shirt. EWWW.

Bicycle culture

2007-10-20T17:49:00.000-07:00

One of the first things that comes to mind for most people when they think of China is bicycles. And it's true- nearly every person here owns a bike and for many people, it is the only mode of transportation that they can afford. We have seen some crazy things being carried around town on the back of people's bicycles including a full sized couch, refrigerator, & several mattresses piled high.
For many people their bike is like their home office. The recycling here is done by people who ride around on their bikes with a bell or a megaphone collecting cardboard and bottles for recycling (they pay a nominal fee for what they collect and then they turn around an sell it to a recycling center). Many entrepreneurs peddle their wares (no pun intended) off the back of their bikes. If you can haul it, you can sell it. Again, I've seen things for sale ranging from live chickens, rabbits, ducks, and turtles, to fresh fruit, to socks & slippers, to hair accessories- kind of like a traveling "Clair's Boutique". And of course everything is negotiable. Even the mail carriers do most of their deliveries on their bikes.
My favorite thing of all is the bike where the garbage is piled so high on the back that you wonder how they can even peddle- I am not exaggerating when I tell you I've seen things piled up 8 to 10 feet tall.
And I can't blog about bikes without mentioned scooters- the second most preferred mode of transport here. Helmets are optional. The first thing that strikes you is the crazy outfits they wear in the summer including gloves and capes to protect from the sun and huge welding shields instead of sun glasses. The second crazy thing is that they pile on as many people as possible- our record spotting so far is two adults, two kids, and a dog all on one scooter. It is common place here to see children on scooters with no helmet and I've seen quite a few mom's cradling their newborns while they balance precariously on the back of their husband's scooter. At first I was shocked- don't they know how dangerous that is? But Sev pointed out that if you had to go somewhere and you couldn't afford a taxi, you'd do it too. Good point.

A good example of "bike wear" in the summer.

The recycling bike

The sock seller bike

The bike nap.

Traffic.

2007-10-16T03:12:00.000-07:00

I know that I have mentioned the awful traffic here in Shanghai in my previous blogs but it is difficult to impress on anyone who hasn't been here how truly terrible it really is. If a trip by car should take you 20 minutes, you have assume it will be 45 minutes to be on the safe side. And if it's raining- forget about it. On top of that, fender benders happen constantly- on a recent trip we saw 6 accidents in a 2 hour span. And yes, there are a lot of cars on the road but the driving skills just aren't up to western standards. Here are some examples:

- If you are waiting at a red light to turn left, and it turns green you just go. Yes, you turn in front of on coming traffic that is going straight. And as many cars as possible will turn until finally the cars going straight block their way.

- If you are getting off at an exit and it is backed up, you simply get out of the line and drive to the front of the line and try to cut in. Fine if it was just one car doing this but several cars try to do it at once so that the one lane exit actually becomes 4 or 5 lanes of cars trying to get over which of course leads to backups on the highway and more traffic jams.

- It is not uncommon to see cars backing up on the exit ramps of the highway because they realized they took a wrong turn- scary.

- It is OK to make a u-turn anywhere, anytime and most drivers don't bother to look around to see if other cars are going to stop for them- they just assume you will.

- If you are making a right turn into traffic, you just go. You don't stop and wait for an opening.

In general, people just drive however they want to and they act like they are the only ones on the road.

Plus, it isn't just car traffic - it's people traffic. We recently went for a day trip to Hangzhou which is a lake town about 2 hours drive from Shanghai (of course, it took us 4 hours to get there). Anyway, we made the mistake of going during a holiday here which I am sure contributed the crowds but take a look at the picture below to get an idea of what I mean when

I say crowded.

Wall to wall people in Hangzhou.

Rush hour traffic in Shanghai. We finally decided to get out of the car and take the metro after sitting in this for 20 minutes and moving about 100 yards.

Happy Birthday Audrey!

2007-10-11T18:56:00.000-07:00

Time really does seem to fly by- it seems like it was only yesterday that Audrey was born! Considering that she is the second kid and we have about half the pictures and videos of her than we have of Grace at the same age, we decided that we would actually have a little party for her. In the Chinese culture, the first birthday is a big deal so we tried to incorporate a few traditional Chinese customs into the celebration.

First of all, the baby must wear red as this is the color of luck. Next, it is traditional to celebrate with a dinner for family and friends and one of the things I love about restaurants in China is the "private room". Many mid & upper end places offer a private room you can reserve. All have a round table (another tradition- no square tables so that everyone can see each other) and most have a giant lazy susan in the middle so you can easily share your dishes. The best part is that dinner with Grace becomes much easier when we can shut the door and let her run around the room or plop her in front of her DVD player (I am not proud of it but yes, we have become THOSE parents who let their kid watch the DVD in a restaurant- as long as it keeps her quite and sitting in one place).

Our Chinese friends brought Audrey some traditional gifts including a red pocket (basically a red envelope with money in it), a little silver bracelet, and a red necklace with a tiny gold charm on it. And being that we are in China, I thought it would be fun to commemorate with a custom made panda bear cake (see pics).

Even though it was a motley crew of guests- Sev's boss from the US, our friends who live here but are from Minnesota and a couple of their friends who had just flown in the day before, and our Chinese friends- a good time was had by all. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

The 3D Panda Cake & Audrey in her traditional red silk dress.

Audrey showing off her first piece of jewlery. Audrey & Grace take a spin on the lazy susan.

Audrey and Mommy. It's my party and I'll cry if I want to (Audrey and her Ayi).

Who's up for Hooters?

2007-09-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned the great array of food choices here in Shanghai (both good and bad) but despite all the great local cuisine sometimes I just crave a good, old fashioned, heart clogging meal involving lots of red meat and deep fried food. Just the other day Sev asked me where we should go to eat and I promptly replied "You know, I am just DYING to go to Hooters". What? Did that actually just come out of my mouth? Sev just laughed and replied that he had been waiting years to hear me say that. Sad but true- the best burger I have found here in China so far is at Hooters. And it is actually a very fun, family place to go here. Sev really enjoys it because with our two kids, all the waitresses congregate at our table to coo over the girls. And of course they bend over while entertaining the children which affords Sev a great view of their push up bras (Chinese ladies tend to be a little flatter chested than us busty American gals). Anyway, everyone leaves happy- Grace gets a balloon, Audrey gets passed around the restaurant to all the servers, I get my burger, and Sev gets...well, you know... an eye full ;)
So, here's to Hooters- may this bastion of American culture live long and prosper here in Shanghai.

Chinese Security

2007-09-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

I must preface this blog by telling everyone that Shanghai is extremely safe for a big city. Crime is very low and limited to minor things like pick pocketing. As you can imagine, the penalty for committing crimes in China is pretty rough. I noticed that there is a lot of security around most buildings which I find funny considering how safe it is here. Our apartment complex has several security guards posted at the entrances plus a wall around the entire complex with electric fencing at the top and electronic monitoring. But today's blog is about the less expensive way to protect yourself. Follow instructions below for your very own Chinese security system:

1) Gather up some glass bottles and jars- any type will do.

2) Smash them up so you have some nice big shards (discard any pieces that are too small).

3) Mix up some cement and apply to the top of the wall you want to protect.

4) While cement is still wet, stand the individual glass shards straight up in the cement.

5) Let cement dry.

You now have your own security system- who needs barbed wire? Plus, what a great way to go green and recycle all those glass bottles.

See pictures below for clarification if the instructions were too difficult.

The dreaded "Body Check"

2007-09-16T22:02:00.000-07:00

Today was one of our "Why did we move here again?" days. Getting a 1 year work visa for Sev and accompanying family has been no easy process. Part of the visa application involves a required "body check" for both Sev and me. And oh what fun it was. Our appointment (and I use that term loosely) was 10am; however, upon arrival we found out that the appointment time was the time at which we would be granted a number in order to wait for the exam- not the time at which the exam would commence. We were number 90 and they were serving number 50. Oh, and we weren't allowed to eat or drink anything prior to the exam so I was already crabby going into it. Finally, our numbers were called. Sequence of events is listed below:
Room #1: Height/weight. "Take off all clothes to your waist. No bra." Nurse hands us a robe and shows us to the changing room. By the way, I've lost 6 lbs since I've been here so at least something good has come out of living here.
*Note that in between each room, you have to sit in the hallway with a bunch of other foreigners in their robes- everyone looking anxious and wondering what's next.
Room #2: Blood draw. Four other patients in the room at the same time while you are being stabbed in the arm. Awkward.
Room #3: Ultrasound of the chest. "Lay down. Open robe". Freezing cold gel. I'm not happy.
Room #4: Xray of the chest. I am sure they are using 10 times the amount of radiation necessary.
Room #5: ECG. "Lay down. Open robe". Nurse hooks up a bunch of wires to my arms, legs, and chest. Coincidentally, my stress level is up at this point and I am sure it showed up on my test results.
Room #6: Eye check. Self explanatory.
Room #7: Blood pressure; stethoscope; "Lay down. Open robe"; general health questions- at least the nurse speaks english.
Room #8: Thank you for coming. You now have to pay $100 USD per person to get your results. I think the bill at the end was the most violating part of the exam!
Ultimately, a very well organized process even though you go through feeling like a heard of cattle. At least we don't have to do it again until next year!

Home at last!

2007-09-08T20:56:00.000-07:00

And, we're back. Sorry for the one week delay but we were busy moving to our new place. We've lived in our new apartment for about 5 days now and amazingly, there have been no problems- imagine that. And, we have discovered that you really can cook a meal in China without the window open and not die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Amazing. Our apartment is 3 bedrooms plus a study/office, two bathrooms, dining room, living room, and a pretty good sized kitchen. It's 180 sq meters (1900 sq feet). I know I mentioned this in my last post, but the complex is a kid's paradise. There is a sand beach the size of 2 tennis courts, 3 huge outdoor playgrounds (which are actually not covered in rust and sharp edges like most playgrounds I have encountered here), and a large indoor playground with a ball pit- think MacDonald's playland. Plus, I'd guess that about 20% of the residents are western so people don't stare at our kids here because they are used to seeing caucasions. Anyway, attached are a few new pictures from our new place. The best part is that the management speaks english and all the signs are in english and mandarin. It's like living in a nice hotel.

The other funny thing about living abroad is that the translations into english are often very incorrect and usually humorous. I saw a t-shirt the other day that said "A shoe saved my life". Attached are a couple of photos from two shops right outside our complex that will help illustrate my point.

The view of our complex courtyard from our balcony (7th floor). Our kitchen.

Our living room & dining room.

The outdoor pool at our apartment.

Funny sign for a restaurant. Somehow, I doubt they paid the licensing fees to use Jerry's picture.

At first, I wasn't sure if this was an "adult toy" store, a baby boutique, pet shop, or office supply store (or a combination of all 4). Turns out it is a pet groomer. Who would have thought?

Homeless (sort of).

2007-09-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

No Chinese culture lesson today kids. Just an update that we moved out of our apartment today and we are now in temporary housing in a furnished apartment. We signed a lease at a new place but we can't move in until Wednesday so we are crammed in here with all our crap until then. Sev and I couldn't believe how much stuff we actually had until we had to pack it all up. Meanwhile, the landlord of our old apartment is an evil lady who won't give us back our 2 month security deposit even though we could have died from the gas leak. Whatever. On a positive note, our new place is bigger and nicer than the old one and in a very kid friendly complex with both indoor & outdoor pools and indoor & outdoor playgrounds. If you want the new address, just email me and let me know. You can email me directly from the blog (I think you just click on my profile and my email address is there). Also, Grace is starting her bilingual school on Monday and I will start my mandarin lessons on Monday as well. Audrey will probably speak mandarin before english since her nanny only speaks to her in chinese & Sev is picking up quite a bit at work. We are hoping our whole family will be speaking Chinese by next summer!

Rules of the road (or lack thereof).

2007-08-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest cultural shocks I had here was the traffic. Not only is it like LA times ten with the amount of traffic jams but people drive like absolute maniacs. The other day, our driver was turning left and we were in some bad traffic. He promptly hopped over into the lane going straight, jetted to the front of the left turn lane (past about 50 cars) and cut over in the middle of the intersection so that we were the first in line to make a left. And no one batted an eye.

Even scarier than riding in a car here is being a pedestrian - a.k.a. speed bump. Remember the Atari game in the 1980's called "Frogger"? Well, trying to cross the street here is like being the frog. All intersections have a pedestrian walk symbol but it does not mean it is safe to cross the street, only that it is safer than usual. For example, you get the walk symbol and step off the curb. Your first obstacle is the bikes and scooters which blatantly disregard all traffic laws and pedestrians. If you make it past the scooter lane alive, you then have to watch out for cars making a right hand turn because they have the right of way over people. By this time, you are in the middle of the intersection when the cars on the opposite side of the street get the green light to make a left- and then you just run for your life. See? Frogger.

My latest strategy is to wait until a crowd of locals has gathered on the curb. Then I nestle myself in the middle of the group and wait for them to go. I figure that way, if we get hit, I am at least a little insulated in the middle of the pack. Anyway, it's worked so far. And Sev is living in his fantasy world that he is going to get a drivers license here. For now, I let him dream.

By the way, Sev and I went out for an awesome steak dinner for his birthday so I am attaching some photos of the view from our table.

A typical "merge" on the highway.

A view of the TV tower (it's pink and lit up with multicolors at night).

Part of the skyline & the Huangpu river

Because Americans cook differently...

2007-08-26T20:38:00.000-07:00

Just a short update today since I will be busy looking for a new apartment. Yes, the carbon monoxide problem is back although it only happens if we use our stove. In other words, as long as we don't want to eat any hot food everything is honky dory. When we contacted our landlord about this problem yet again, she actually told our friend (and I quote): "The reason they have a carbon monoxide issue is because Americans cook differently than the Chinese. They don't use the exhaust fan." Considering that a) we always use the fan so we won't die from the fumes and b) our Chinese housekeeper cooks 90% of our meals- with the fan on of course- we didn't think that our landlords excuse for the problem was very good. At the end of the day, after multiple "maintenance" people have tromped in and out of our apartment and we have had 10 different opinions and reasons for the problem (yet no one seems to be able to fix it) we have finally decided to throw in the towel on this place. So look for photos of the new place soon.

Boy or girl?

2007-08-23T04:29:00.000-07:00

It never ceases to amaze me that Chinese people are always asking if Grace is a girl. She has long hair and is normally in a dress yet we are constantly asked this question. Of course, they also ask about Audrey but you could understand the confusion (sort of) with a baby. In order to shed some light on this, you have to understand China's one child policy. Basically, since 1979 there has been a law that limits couples to one child in order to help slow the population growth. If you have more than one, bad things happen (large fines among other things). And in the Chinese culture, boys are expected to take care of their parents in old age and therefore, almost everyone here desires to have a son. So, when people see us with both of our children (already a novelty that we have two) they are always keen on whether they are boys or girls. We happily tell them that yes, indeed we do have two girls. Our response is always met with either a disapproving grunt or absolute silence which always makes us smile in amusement.

Anyway- check out below picture. It has nothing to do with boy vs. girl but I just liked it.

A young boy studying at his desk while the laundry is drying.

Picture this.

2007-08-21T00:16:00.000-07:00

It takes forever to upload pics for the blog so here are a few fun ones we took around town:

Audrey eating (note the glob in her hair)

Construction workers hanging out in their boxers near our apartment.

A very cute area of Shanghai called Qiabo (this is where I took the duckhead pics). Notice the color of the very "clean" water here.

A bridge in Qiabo (this is what I thought China would look like before I got here).

A statue of a boy peeing - this was part of a larger budda statue but I thought this was more interesting than the rest.

Here kid, have a cigarette.

2007-08-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

I had been warned before coming here that the Chinese love kids and because of that, they tend to lavish attention on children (especially western children) to the point of becoming slightly annoying. It's true. We are constantly stopped on the street by people who want to look at our kids. They often touch them too (which drives me crazy since I am a border line germ freak). At lunch yesterday, Audrey was fussy so one of the hostesses took her out of her stroller and just walked around the restaurant with her so we could finish eating. Normally I would have been freaked out about this but I knew from other westerners that this is common behavior and they are just trying to be nice. We even had someone ask if they could take pictures with Grace. She of course takes this in stride and often points out to us that people are staring her (unfortunately, she likes the attention). But I had to draw the line the other day when we were strolling through a garden and one of the gardeners was smiling at Grace and trying to talk to her. He then proceeded to pull out a pack of cigarettes and hand one to her. Cultural difference.

A lot of you have emailed me with requests for more pics so I am adding a bunch below. Most are from our outing to a very nice garden near here (think Central Park in NYC).

Open area in Zhong Shan park. Guy doing some kind of yo-yo thing at the park.

Grace with a dragon. Crowds ogling Audrey.

Grace and her classmates on field trip. Audrey playing peek-a-boo with the curtain.

What you get for your money.

2007-08-14T05:56:00.000-07:00

Living in the big city isn't cheap no matter where you are but I wanted to share some of the ridiculous prices we have come across here. Some things are outrageously cheap and others are off the scale expensive. So, here goes: I had an amazing 1 hour foot massage (complete with hot soak in some unidentifiable liquid) for about $8. Later that day, I bought a carton of Florida's Natural OJ without looking at the price and later realized it was actually the same price as my foot massage- $8. A box of Cheerios from the US- about $7. And this is for the small box. They have a Chinese version of Cheerios but considering that Audrey kept choking on them, I figured we'd better pony up for the American kind. 20 pieces of fresh, good quality sushi for Sev- yes, he actually ate that in one sitting- $8. A frozen pizza- $8. 1/4 pound of good cheese- you guessed it, $8. A one hour taxi ride about $7. A pair of silk slippers $3. A hand painted Chinese scroll $7. A newly released DVD (i.e. Evan Almighty) $2.50 and a bootleg version of Transformers shot by a guy sitting in the theater with a handycam runs about 75cents (so I've heard). Anyway, hope that gives everyone an idea of the cost of living here which on the whole is not cheap if you want a western lifestyle. But you can't beat it if you want to get massages, cheesy Chinese souvenirs, and DVD's!

2007-08-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

I realized that I never really updated everyone on the apartment situation. Bottom line- the gas leak is fixed and we decided to just stay where we are. I'll spare everyone the drama that it took to get it fixed. Anyway, I also realized that I have posted a lot of negative things about living here so I thought I would use this post to highlight some of the positives. For one thing, Shanghai is a very international city. There was a huge french & european influence in the city before WW2 which has carried over to the architecture & restaraunt scene today. You can get any type of food you want here (included Mexican, I was surprised to find out). There are a lot of 5 star restaraunts too. We finally went out for the first time last Friday (without kids) and met up with another Minnesota couple. They introduced us to 2 couples from Ireland and we all went to a Belgian beer tasting at an Irish bar. Why is it that no matter where you go in the world, they have a good Irish bar? Anyway, for awhile I actually forgot I was in China because there were so many "westerners" as we caucasians are called here.
Another good thing about Shanghai is that since it is growing so fast, there is definitely an air of excitement and optimism here. It is a vibrant place and there is always something going on and something fun to do (if you can stand the crowds). That's it for today but as I get out and about more, I am sure I will have more fun stories for everyone.

Etiquette rules

2007-08-07T23:24:00.000-07:00

As you may imagine, there are many things that are culturally different here than in the US. Here are my top 3:
1) No lines. Nobody here lines up for anything. It is a free for all everytime you need to get in line. Sometimes, there is a line but if you leave just the slightest space between you and the next person, someone will suddenly wiggle in front of you. Personal space rules don't apply. Most of the time, it is just a chaotic group of people huddled together in front of a counter trying to get served next (i.e. today I had to return something and was cut in front of 3 times before I elbowed my own self to the front and shoved the receipt in the clerk's face). I guess in a country of nearly 2 billion, you just have to shove your way in or you'll never get served.
2) Spitting. As in hocking luggers everywhere and anytime. The more phlegm the better. And I mean on the sidewalks too. More than once I have been walking down the street and heard the tell tale sound of someone about to spit when suddenly from a bicyclist riding past me a huge ball of mucus comes flying towards me and narrowly misses my leg.
3) Public urination. Apparently OK around here. As I was out for a walk this morning, a taxi driver pulled up just ahead of me, leaped out of the car, and proceeded to take a whiz on the sidewalk right in front of me.
It is for reasons #2 & #3 above that all people in China take their shoes off when entering some one's home.

What's for dinner...

2007-08-07T04:25:00.000-07:00

Thought I would post today about the wonderful array of food available here in Shanghai. Some of my choice favorites include:

1. Duck heads- see pic

2. Duck innards- see pic

3. Duck feet- see pic of Sev eating one

4. Fish heads

5. Floss - a sweet pastry with a "pork floss" coating. Not sure what that is exactly and I am not brave enough to find out.

6. Jelly fish (served raw) - I actually tried this and it kind of crunchy like a raw vegetable

I went to the Chinese market with my housekeeper (Ayi) which was similar to the farmers market in Minneapolis. All was going fine until we wandered down the live poultry aisle where I freaked out and ran away screaming "bird flu, bird flu!!" I also had to clarify to our Ayi NOT to buy any unrefrigerated chicken and beef from the market and only buy our meat at the western grocery stores. Speaking of grocery stores, we found one today that sells a ton of stuff from the US- at 3 times the price. But at least we know it's there if we want it. By the way, I cannot see the blog once I post it so I can't read any comments- please email me directly if you want to chat.

Haircut anyone?

2007-08-01T23:51:00.000-07:00

First off, thank goodness for satellite since I heard about the bridge collapse in Minneapolis first thing this morning. I was glued to CNN all day.

Thought I would post some fun pics of the neighborhood near our apartment. Since there is so much construction, the migrant workers from outside the city come and stay in makeshift buildings right on the construction site. Many are constructed from plywood and feature 4 bunk beds, no AC, no bathroom, etc. So after the days work is done, the men all congregate outside on the corner where the merchants come to them! One night on our walk we saw the traveling barber and she just set up her chair in the middle of the sidewalk (see pic). Check out of the photo of the "squat pot" taken in the ladies room. Most toilets are like the USA but once in awhile if your lucky, you'll stumble across one of these. Really challenges your leg muscles and your aim. What the photo doesn't capture is all the pee on the floor for those who missed.

Also posting our outdoor washing machine- which leaks all over our balcony so good thing it's outside! And a belated flight picture of Grace with her monkey- who we named George.

I had my first really exasperating day this week when I took Grace to get her kindergarten exam for pre-school. I had to go to the women's and children's hospital. First off , there were women having babies on their same floor where we got our exam and at the end of the hall was a glass paneled room full of small tubs. The new parents would bring their hours old baby to the room where the nurses would put an inter tube around their neck and float the baby (alone) in the tub. Crazy but really cute. Anyway, nobody spoke english so communicating to the doctors during the exam was tough. First we went into one exam room where a lady checked Grace's ears. Then we were shown back to the waiting room. When we were called again, we were shown back to the same room, same doctor where she did the next part of the exam. Then we went back to the waiting room, got called into a different room where the weighed/measured her. Then another room where they listened to her heart. Not sure why this couldn't have done all in one room. Finally we were sent back to the first floor where they did a finger stick and told me Grace had to pee in a cup for a urine sample. I tried to explain that she isn't potty trained so how am I supposed to get her to pee in a cup? After 30 minutes of discussion/charades, the resolution was that she HAD to give a sample but I could go home and get it in my own cup and bring it back the next day. Great- could be my urine for all they know! More to come on this.k.

2007-07-27T03:11:00.000-07:00

Well, we have almost made it through our first week! The biggest adjustment has been getting used to the weather- it is like being in a sauna all the time. Once you get used to the fact that you will sweat like a pig everytime you walk out the door, it really isn't that bad! I have resorted to charades and pictionary to get things done but the good news is that we hired an Ayi this week (chinese for auntie). She is a housekeeper/cook/nanny. She will work Monday - Saturday 8-5pm at a salary of $240 per month. I felt really guilty and tried to only have her work M-F but she insisted. I think she thought I would pay her less if she didn't work on Saturday even though I would have paid her the same. I am so excited b/c she will do our laundry & grocery shopping too.
I must stress the fact that I said "almost" made it through the first week because last night was the biggest drama of all. The carbon monoxide issue has become a huge problem. We have had the gas company here 3 times to fix it which obviously hasn't worked. Finally, our detector had really high levels last night so we left the apartment and in the meantime, accidentally locked ourselves out. So, imagine us trying to communicate to the security guards that we were locked out, needed a ladder to get back in, and in the meantime our apartment was full of carbon monoxide. Plus, it was 100 degrees outside and the kids were literally dripping w/ sweat. We called the two chinese friends we have that speak english and they both left their dinner plans and came right over. The whole thing escalated into the fire department, the police, the security guards, the landlord, the gas company, and our friends in a huge shouting match. When we got back inside, their were 20 people gathered into our tiny kitchen arguing about the gas leak. And picture throwing Grace into the mix on top of everything else! Bottom line- there is a leaky pipe and they need to tear down our kitchen wall to fix it so we have decided to break our lease and look for a new apartment next week. We are disappointed because we really did like our location. Oh well! Life in China... more to come!

Up and running!

2007-07-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

Here it is- the first blog entry from Shanghai. This will be quite an accomplishment since the internet page display from my side is in Chinese! I thought I would have a big dramatic story about the 14 hour flight but actually the kids were awesome (yes, even Grace). The biggest drama of the trip was trying to manage 5 suitcases, 2 carseats, and a huge stroller between my mom and myself. This is day 2 for us so I don't really have a lot to report yet. The apartment is fine but although it is brand new it was obviously built in a hurry (as most apartments are around here). Some fun things we have dealt with already- the stove is not hooked up, the fuses kept blowing when we would turn on the AC, and the scariest thing- our carbon monoxide detector continues to register between 30 & 70 which is not good. 70 is the mark where the alarm goes off so it is pretty obvious that something isn't hooked up correctly. More to come (if we don't die in the middle of the night of course).

Our neighborhood is pretty nice and we are within walking distance to the Carrefour which is like Walmart. The worst part is that Shanghai is one of the most polluted cities in the world so the walk isn't always pleasant- i.e. dust and debris flying around in the air. And for those of you that I have told about split pants- at Carrefour last night I actually saw a baby sitting in the cart in split pants with no diaper! So basically bare butt on the cart. Gotta love it! But I promise to do an entire post about the split pants in the near future. Enjoy the pics of our apartment.

Blog Test

2007-06-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

Ok- here is the first trial entry of the Shanghai blog. Just to get everyone up on the latest, Sev's office had a contruction delay so our date was pushed out to July 1st. Since it is super humid over in Shanghai this time of year, we decided that Sev will go over ahead of me to get the apartment set up (scary- can hardly wait to see what type of decor I will arrive to!). And I will go to my parents summer home in Jersey until July 20th. I've been busy the past month getting everything ready and saying good bye to all our buddies in Minnesota. Anyway, look for the next post sometime after the July 22nd when I will have loads of stories about the much anticipated flight to China with 2 kids. And not to worry, we bribed my mom to go with me on the trip over so I won't have to manage the rug rats on my own :) PS- I am posting some recent pics of the kids for those of you who haven't seen them in awhile.