dispatches from China

$10 Cheerios

2009-01-21T17:19:00.000-08:00

I confess that my first reaction to Eric announcing a sudden business trip back to the U.S. wasn't one of dismay or even sadness, but rather one of speculation. Hmmm. What can he bring back?

We're having an interesting time with Lincoln and solid foods. The import grocery store I frequent has a rather erratic inventory. I have seen an Australian brand of baby cereal and the standard Gerber brand as well. Then suddenly, poof, no more baby cereal. At least none in a language I understood. The pictures on the front of the boxes suggested that the contents contain corn, perhaps honey, and sometimes an odd blend of fruit or vegetables. The latest item to grace the baby food shelves is some exotic Japanese vegetable powders that cost nearly $8 for a small box. I have no idea what that is all about. We have a 'fun' time visiting as many store branches as we can just to find a few familiar food items. Frustratingly, though it all the same store, each branch can carry a different variety of items. One store may have the cereal you want, but no milk. Another store has plenty of milk, but no pickles or cereal...and on it goes. You really have to think and decide how much you want a particular item.

I'm always on the lookout for less expensive alternatives. Dry cereal from Thailand, Korea, or even Italy, is considerably cheaper than the cereal from the U.S. Unfortunately, the cereal I want is plain-Jane Cheerios for Lincoln. Which is only available from the U.S. For $10 for a small box. Oh well. Since Lincoln currently eats about 3 Cheerios a day, a single box should last quite a long time.

He's still working on the hand-to-mouth coordination. He usually manages to pick one up, but then will try to stick it in his mouth with his thumb even though the Cheerio is in his palm. Mugsy is enjoying himself, eating bits of dropped food.

Here he is, intently chasing a Cheerio around on his tray. Mugsy is lurking in the background, waiting for the 'plink' that indicates a dropped Cheerio. As Lincoln is nearly 8 months (! How did we get here so quickly?), I'm going to try some lentils soon. He doesn't seem as interested in the baby mush I feed him and really would rather try what I'm eating, whether that's coffee or yogurt or toast.

Merry Christmas!!

2009-01-04T04:32:00.000-08:00

First Time with Cereal!

2008-11-25T17:20:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been feeling really guilty. Every time I'd eat a meal, Lincoln would watch my every move, tracking the spoon's path from my bowl to my mouth. He's been ready to eat solids for a while now; I've just been a bit lazy on the follow up. I bought some of the standard first baby food, rice cereal, and decided to give it a try this morning. I don't think the cereal was very fresh since it smelled a bit stale. I'm not sure if that's the normal smell or what, so I thought I'd try a bit and see if preparing it would make any difference.

Such anticipation! We've had the booster seat for while now. I've mostly been using it in the kitchen to keep Lincoln occupied and close at hand when I need to prepare a meal or whatnot.

That happy face quickly changed to one of puzzlement and dismay.

Poor baby! He's probably thinking 'Now I know what that pocket is for!'

I'm not sure if the reaction here is just typical for first time with cereal or if I need to look for new cereal. I'm going to bring the bag to baby group this morning and ask some of the other mothers if the cereal smells normal to them. Since I'm buying imported baby cereal, the cereal may have been sitting somewhere, perhaps not temperature-controlled, that may have affected the quality. Don't know. After such a traumatic morning, Lincoln is napping. I'm going to get ready for baby group. I'm still in wonderment that a small child can require so much gear and so much preparation, even for such a short, simple outing.

Lincoln's New Favorite Toy

2008-11-17T02:34:00.000-08:00

There is no shortage of children's toys. None whatsoever. Recently, the lowly stick was inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame. Amazing. Here I've been trying to navigate my way through a bewildering assortment of toys, not helped in the least bit by hyperaggressive Chinese sales people. I had one woman follow me through the toy section, banging on toy drums, pushing all the buttons on every toy that made any noise, setting off a little remote control dog, shaking rattles in my (and Lincoln's) face, all in an attempt to coerce me to buy something. I did. Though nothing with batteries, nor anything as simple as a stick. I try to buy toys in moderation and to choose them with care. Which toys will be best for developing hand-eye coordination? Will spark his creativity? Teach him to problem-solve? What seems to engage him? I love Lamaze toys and I think Lincoln does too. They have these special features that are supposed to be good for the baby's overall development and are really darn cute to boot. But all that special research into what features would engage the baby the most seems to have gone to waste since his latest favorite toy happens to be a lowly tissue box.

He loves it. He bypasses the rattles that will teach him hand-eye coordination, the high-contrast black-and-white toy, the special teethers, all in favor of this simple box. He would not leave it alone while I changed his diapers. He would twist his little body to bat at the tissue box. I finally handed it to him to get him to hold still for just a minute while I snapped his shirt. It's love at first sight. Boy meets box. Box eludes boy. Mommy separates boy and box. Boy and box meet. Boy falls in love. Boy lives happily ever after with box (until he gums it into an unrecognizable mess). The end. Who doesn't enjoy a good love story?

Busy Year

2008-11-06T03:48:00.000-08:00

I just wiki-ed 2008 just to see what else has been happening in 2008 besides the birth of a fantastic baby boy. It seems that this has been such an eventful year. Perhaps it's because I'm living in China and I am seeing the world from a different perspective. Obviously, living in China makes me hyper aware of issues in Asia; things I'd likely overlook if I were back home. Food safety problems in China, protests in Bangkok, military junta taking over Burma...the list goes on. Oh, apparently it's also the Year of Sanitation. Very important.

America looks different from over here, especially when seeing it through the eyes of expats from so many different countries as well as that from the local citizens. Yesterday, I watched the presidential election unfold with dozens of other people, Americans and Chinese. The American Women's Club and the American Chamber of Commerce hosted an election party at one of the hotels here. Essentially, it was a bunch of people watching CNN and eating together. It started at 8am local time and was scheduled until 1pm. I went with Lincoln around 10:30 / 11:00. The results came in earlier than expected:

It's Barack Obama. I confess that I was not at all surprised. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I was expecting Obama to win back in the primaries.

Here president-elect Obama and his opponent John McCain make a special appearance.

A Few Firsts

2008-11-03T17:11:00.000-08:00

November already. It's hard to believe that it's really November. Fall is really my favorite time of year. The heat of summer is past and the chill of winter not yet here. There's a slight nip in the air that feels so refreshing. Wherever you walk, you can smell a hint of smoke in the air. In New Mexico, this meant wood fires and roasted chiles; here that means the sweet potato vendors are out. The sweet potato people have half of a rusty metal drum welded to a cart. The top has a square cut out and the inside is then filled with wood (I assume). Scrubbed sweet potatoes and corn in the husk are placed among the embers and left to roast. The sweet potato vendors usually come out around noon to peddle their wares. They arrange cooked potatoes and corn on top of the barrel and wait for customers. You simply point to which potato you want and they will bag it and weigh it for you. An average sized potato costs about 2-3 RMB (30-40 cents); a big one about 4 RMB. I love them. I take mine home and scoop out the soft flesh. It doesn't need butter or any adornment, really. Many people immediately break open the potato and eat the insides right there standing on the sidewalk. They're so good I wish I could feed some to Lincoln.

He's almost ready for solids. Almost. I just bought him a booster chair with a tray in preparation for the big day when he starts solids. I expect it to be within the next few weeks.

Here he is giving it a trial run. I can't believe he is already 5 months old. Time really gets away from you.

Lincoln also enjoyed his first Halloween. Another mother here was giving away a few baby costumes and I managed to get the pumpkin. It's sized for 3-6 months and Lincoln just fit into the suit.

Here he is with his friend Mila. We didn't do anything special for Halloween other than dress Lincoln in a pumpkin suit and go to baby yoga. We did go out for lunch with Eric. At Hooters. The Hooters girls serenaded little baby pumpkin with 'I'm a Little Teapot', which was a bit surreal. I suppose it never occurred to me that would be a song they'd know or know to sing to children. Perhaps that's in the Hooters employees guide. Who knows.

Now we're preparing for first election, first Thanksgiving, and first Christmas. We'll be joining a bunch of other Americans (mostly women) to watch the election results unfold tomorrow morning. Thanksgiving will be spent with a group of friends at a hotel buffet. One of my girlfriend's husband works as a chef at the hotel so it'll be some good food. I can't wait for the fixings and the pie. Christmas will hopefully be in Malaysia, someplace warm and beachy. Can't wait.

A Mouse a Day

2008-10-13T15:56:00.000-07:00

Lincoln had his 4-month well-baby visit about 2 weeks ago. He had a couple of shots and is doing quite well overall. Last week, I brought him in for another vaccination (All his vaccinations are imported so I had to decide early on which vaccines I wanted to give him and then place an order for them. They are stored at the clinic as are the vaccines for all the children treated there. This particular vaccine didn't get ordered with the rest so I had to place a special order for it.). So, he is all caught up for now with his immunizations. Yesterday morning, I noticed that he had a bit of blood from one of his inoculation sites so I brought him in yet again. Just to be sure. The doctor checked it out and pronounced everything as being tip top and just fine. While we were there, the nurses weighed him. Over the course of those two weeks, Lincoln gained about 350g or about 25g a day. Just to put it really concrete terms, I did a google search of what is equivalent to 25g. A mouse.

It turns out that the average size mouse is about 20-25g. So Lincoln is gaining a mouse a day. He weighs about 308-385 mice now. Think about that this winter when there are little visitors in your bread drawer.

What's New, What's Next and Who's Your Daddy

2008-09-29T01:40:00.000-07:00

We just had our 4-month well baby doctor's visit. Lincoln now weighs 7.34 kg (about 17 lb) and is about 65 cm (about 26 inches). He went from being in the 25th percentile for height and weight to being in the 75th percentile for both. I thought I had seen a visible, relatively sudden, change in the size of his head and I suppose I was right. He also got a couple of booster shots, which he took rather well. For those who had guessed that Lincoln is teething, you were right. The doctor peered into his mouth and pointed out that the bottom teeth are starting to erupt. It explains his sudden need to gnaw on my chin.

As Lincoln has gotten older, he has outgrown his sling and I now carry him in a Baby Bjorn. The Bjorn also affords him a view of the outside world, which he seems to enjoy. Since he is able to look out at the world, the world can now look back at him. People like to look at him and ask the usual questions, 'Boy or girl?' and 'How old is he?' Lately, I also get asked 'Ta de baba shi shei de ma?' (Who's his father?)

Here's a picture of Lincoln and Diana:

You can see that Lincoln doesn't look like a Chinese baby, despite his mother looking vaguely Chinese. I've been asked odd questions back in the U.S. but I don't think I'd get asked that question. The women who ask the baby-daddy question usually answer it themselves -- 'Yi ge waiguoren' (a foreigner) while nodding knowingly at me. The conversation usually ends with my being told I have a beautiful baby. I couldn't agree more.

It's Curtains for Sleep

2008-09-19T04:23:00.000-07:00

Our curtains are not really all that exciting. Cream/tan color, light pattern woven throughout. So boring and nondescript, I don't have an actual picture of them, just incidental ones where they appear in the background. All the rooms have the same curtains. There is something about the curtains in Lincoln's room that entrances him. There are times when I am rocking him to sleep and, instead of laying his head on my shoulder and closing his eyes, he leans back to gaze at the curtains. His eyes open wide and he is alert watching them and even smiling and cooing at them. I've looked over my shoulder and I can't quite fathom what is so interesting or whether there is something else there. Maybe it's that they move slightly when the back of the rocking chair hits them. Sometimes they are so fascinating, Lincoln forgets about sleep. It's up to me, that rain cloud, to remind him that it's sleepy time.

It's things like the curtains and, lately, his sudden dislike for the Barefoot Portraits Studio where I have baby group and baby yoga, that make me wonder exactly what is going on inside his little head. We're going to try going to baby yoga again and if the place again provokes such a strong reaction, we'll have to forgo it.

Lately, Lincoln has been losing his baby hair. There was quite a lot on his bed sheet this morning. When he's a bit tired, Lincoln has developed the habit of sucking on his left thumb while he grabs his hair with his right hand. Perhaps that is part of the problem, though it's overall hair loss and not one particular spot. I'm going to get him a lovey (and a backup lovey) like his cousin Wes has his sleep monkey. I know that he likes having a blanket next to his face when he's falling asleep and likely would keep it in the crib if I let him. He must get that from his father. When we were first married, Eric would uproot all the blankets on the bed and wrap them around his head.

I've just put Lincoln to bed and kissed his plump little face good-night. He is in such good health. I can't imagine being one of the Chinese parents who have to stand in line at the hospital and wait to have their baby tested for kidney stones and other ailments due to the recent discovery of contaminated baby formula.

Lincoln's New Face

2008-09-15T03:47:00.000-07:00

It seems that once we got to month 3, Lincoln changed a lot. Lately, everything must go into his mouth. When I hold him in order to get him to take a nap, his mouth is wide open and my face, especially my chin, is soon covered in baby slobber. He is learning to blow raspberries and can grab things with a greater degree of accuracy, which he can then stuff into his mouth. It seems that every week he discovers a new way to contort his face. For a while he would purse his lips to make 'ooh' sounds. Then he figured out that he could keep him mouth closed and make 'mmm' sounds while compressing his lips. This is his latest face.

He's also discovering volume. He's really a delight.

3 weeks vs. 3 months

2008-09-01T00:48:00.000-07:00

So much change in such a short time. These 2 outfits are the same, but different patterns. Looks like I forgot to inflate my infant in the first picture.

Perils of an Undiapered Baby Boy

2008-08-25T19:49:00.000-07:00

I had a fabulous night's sleep. Especially as compared to the previous night where Lincoln woke up at a quarter to 3, a quarter past 3, 4, 5, 6...and then proceeded to not nap during the day. Last night, he went to bed at 7:30, I fed him at 10:40 and didn't hear from him until 4. He woke up this morning at around 6:30 and babbled to himself for about 15 minutes when he sounded the cry that he was ready to get up. Eric picked him up and we spent a bit of time together on the sofa. I mentioned he was wet and Eric kindly volunteered to change him. Shortly thereafter, I heard a panicked shriek from Eric and a consequent frightened wail from a startled baby. There is something about exposure to the air that compels a baby boy to void his bladder as forcefully as is possible. Eric got to experience this joy firsthand. Just wait until he gets hit by the projectile poo. Needless to say I had a good laugh, especially when I found Eric had laid the fresh diaper down backwards.

Home Again

2008-08-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

We've been back in Shanghai for about a day. We're catching up on our sleep and I'm sorting through our luggage. It looks like a typhoon ran through the apartment.

I had been stressed about our home trip for a while. I wasn't sure how Lincoln would travel or how his internal clock would readjust with jetlag. I've been on flights before where when I see parents with small children boarding, I roll my eyes and grit my teeth. A 3-hour flight is bearable at best, but with squalling children, I'd rather poke my eye out with a dull stick. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, how would my 2 1/2-month old infant travel on a 14-hour flight? I avoided eye contact with the other passengers, most of whom I'm sure were scrabbling desperately in their pockets for an extra Valium or Ambien or both. So far, he has amazed me. I tried to nurse him during take-off and landing or at least to wedge a finger in his mouth to suck. He remained good-natured throughout, though he didn't really take to his bassinet.

Here he is lying in the bassinet. You can see he's trying to figure out where the heck he is. He'd sleep fitfully for about 15-20 minutes and then wake up. He slept best in my arms (of course) and we'd catch a few hours of sleep together. Despite the fact that it was just Lincoln and myself on the return flight to Shanghai, the trip back was just as uneventful.

I feel like I left Shanghai with one baby and returned with another one. It seems that he has grown. There is a bald line around his head where it seems that his head outgrew his hair. He is more talkative and engaging. He seems to notice his surroundings more and interacts more with his environment.

I think he misses his Grandma a bit. I think the sudden loss of adoring masses has left him a bit bewildered.

I returned to a hot and humid city (90's) and a needy cat. Mugsy is all purrs now that I'm back. He has been making every attempt to get into my lap, even when it's occupied by a nursing baby. I think that he'd lie on top of the baby if he could get away with it. It's now nearly 10:30 at night. Lincoln didn't sleep much last night and has been sleeping on and off during the day. I've been catching naps when I can. He's been sleeping now since about 8. I hope we can get back into our routine with little fuss.

Hannah Montana

2008-07-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

I have a secret, one that I'm a bit embarrassed to divulge: I'm hooked on 'Hannah Montana'. I've got the theme song stuck in my head. It's been there for the past week. When you don't have satellite TV (should think about getting that fixed), your viewing options include CCTV 1-infinity, International Channel Shanghai, and that is pretty much it. CCTV 9 and ICS are the only channels with shows in English. Other channels may have western movies and programs, but dubbed into Chinese, most memorably, 'Growing Pains'.

One thing that I really love about 'Hannah Montana' is the hostess who introduces the show as a way of learning English and western culture. She highlights certain phrases like 'selling out', 'cheerleading', and 'sick as a dog'. It's interesting to think how this show may color a Chinese person's idea of America.

Life with Baby

2008-07-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

I have been really fortunate here with the friends I've found. The core group first met through the American Women's Club and one of the women suggested we refer to ourselves as the 'Mei Meis', which is Chinese for 'little (younger) sister'. Lincoln is the first, and currently, only Mei Mei baby. The next little one is due in November and I can't wait to meet him.

It's sometimes difficult being the only person in a group with a child and it's then that I'm happy to have found another great group of women who have babies Lincoln's age. The core group met through a prenatal class and we have accumulated more women as time goes on. We try to meet at least once per month at someone's place. The latest was just last week. We put our babies together on the floor. One baby was still asleep in his car seat and wasn't in the group picture. Of course it would be my baby with the frown.

I don't know why, but Lincoln's frown-face makes me laugh. He has a way of pulling his entire face into a spectacular frown and for some reason, I find it to be cute. I can't help myself.

From left to right we have Felix (b. April 25), Kaia (b. May 6), Lincoln (b. May 31), and Mila (b. May 27). Not pictured is William (b. June 20), who's asleep in his car seat. Little Lia (b. June 20) and her mom couldn't come to this mom's group. We're all first-time moms and it's good to have people to commiserate about things like breast feeding and sleep issues. And since we're all new moms, we can talk nonstop about our babies with each other and not worry about inflicting too much baby bother as can happen when talking to people without kids.

I was amazed at how fat Felix had gotten since I last saw him. Lincoln, too, has changed quite a bit. I was looking through my pictures and he was so scrawny with skinny little bird legs when he was first born. He's put on about a kilogram since then and now weighs 4.55 kg (about 10 lb). I can certainly feel the extra weight when I carry him around, especially when he's in his sling. I remember (and it hasn't been that long ago -- he's only 2 months old) when the baby sling swallowed him up. I'd put a blanket in the bottom to keep from losing him. Now, he really fills it up and his head is actually starting to poke out now. He likes to sit up in the sling like a kangaroo and look around, though I still need to support his head. I'm borrowing a Baby Bjorn from a friend and he isn't as happy when all he can look at is me. I think we'll both enjoy it when his neck is stronger and I can put him face-forward.

Rain is in the forecast. If it doesn't rain, we may go out and buy a few things for Lincoln's wardrobe and perhaps another nursing top for me. I managed to accidentally dye a bunch of things pink when I put a pink item in with some whites. It was mostly baby towels. Thankfully I didn't have any of Eric's dress shirts in the wash.

Again, it's nearly 7. I've been up since 5. 5 is my magic number. It's when I can be assured that the baby is asleep and I can have a decent shower without interruptions. I can eat my bowl of oatmeal hot and with both hands. I can sit with my laptop and blog and read the news. Surprising what becomes luxuries once you have a baby.

Nearly 8 Weeks

2008-07-18T15:58:00.000-07:00

The baby is nearly 8 weeks old now. I can't believe how quickly the time has passed. Quite honestly, the first 4 weeks are a blur. I don't remember much during that time except that this new creature seemed to be constantly hungry and never slept. This second 4 weeks has been a revelation. Breast feeding has finally gotten easier. The baby takes actual naps and sleeps for much of the night. When he's awake, he's alert and interactive. He's starting to 'talk' and is better able to focus on objects and faces. I'm reading the 'Baby Book' by Dr. Sears and am avidly charting Lincoln's progress with the month milestones described in the book.

Right now, he's been awake in his crib for over half an hour. I can hear him sucking loudly on his fist, likely clenching the blanket while doing so. It was a mysterious noise at first, one I thought could possibly be the cat. It's 7:00, time for our day to begin.

Calm Before the Storm

2008-07-06T15:57:00.000-07:00

It's nearly 7 am, about when Lincoln wakes up. I'm enjoying a few minutes of quiet. It's interesting how certain commonplace things can become such a luxury for a new parent. Time alone, a hot cup of tea, a meal eaten with both hands. We have passed the 1 month mark and now are near the half-point of month 2.

I once asked a friend if she ever missed her daughter's baby days. She replied no, that each progressive stage just got better and more enjoyable. It made sense but I never really understood it until now. It just keeps getting better. He's changed so much in this short time. He is able to stay awake longer and is much more aware of his surroundings. I put him on his playmat and he likes to look around, coo, and kick.

It's fun to watch him grow. His neck is stronger and his head doesn't flop as much as it once did. He's able to hold his head up a bit when on his tummy and he's learning to smile.

We have Lincoln on a routine now, so our days now have a structure. The early days were a bit difficult adjusting to each other and getting acquainted. Especially challenging was learning to breastfeed. Natural it may be, but it certainly isn't necessarily intuitive. I fed Lincoln on demand the first month because I was so anxious about him gaining weight. Now that the scale has told me that he is gaining fine, I feel more relaxed about letting him go 3 hours between feedings.

I think my moment of quiet is coming to a close. I can hear snuffling from the next room. And so another day begins.

3 Weeks!

2008-06-23T21:33:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. Lincoln is making faces here. I set him in his basket and tried to snap a few photos for his passport. In theory, easy-peasy. Set baby in a basket with white sheets and wait for him to open his eyes. In reality, a bit of a challenge. Who knew babies were so wiggly.

Lincoln is 3 weeks old, nearly 1 month old. I can't believe how quickly the time went. I marvel at how much life has changed in such a short time. Not only do I now have the joy that is a new baby, but I also have the joy of having my ankles back. No more compression socks! My fingers don't look like sausages and I saw my feet without a mirror. I just need my waist back and a night of uninterrupted sleep for life to be complete.

We have Lincoln's 1-month check-up coming soon and then we'll see how weight he's gained and how many centimeters he's grown. As far as I can see, Lincoln is growing lengthwise more than widthwise.

His umbilical cord fell off yesterday and I swear I saw a ghost of a real smile today.

A Moment of Peace

2008-06-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

It's been about a week and half since we became parents. Right now, I am savoring a moment of quiet when the baby is settled and I can enjoy a hot cup of tea while it is still hot. I'm not deluding myself; the baby is likely to wake at any moment. In fact, I'm surprised that he sleeps at all since the sound of car horns and construction noise is unceasing. Really, he is a good baby overall. He feeds about every 2 hours, though he'll sleep 3-4 (even once 5!) hours after his last nightly feeding at around 11p. He is fairly easy to settle when he cries. Generally he cries because of he is hungry or he is wet. Once those issues are addressed, he quiets down quickly.

In this week and a half, Lincoln was born, went home and met the cat, had a 2-day follow up doctor's visit (heel stick for PKU test -- parents should never watch their children have blood drawn), and went to the U.S. consulate to start the paperwork for his Consulate Report of Birth Abroad and his passport. I took a picture of Lincoln in his moses basket, which has white sheets. Like most passport pictures, this one wasn't very flattering. It made him look odd with a big moon face. The person at the consulate said that his papers should be ready in about a week.

It's strange to think how new this person is; that 2 weeks ago, he was still in my belly; that a year ago, he was only a distant thought. Now I wonder what he will be like in 2 weeks, when he is 1 month old; what he will be like in a year.

Right now, I am looking forward to his first smile and first laugh. He has such a serious demeanor that I have a hard time imagining what that smile would look like. The other day he pulled a spectacular frown on ayi when she was gently teasing him.

Mugsy isn't quite sure what to think of this little squalling bundle. If I sit in the big leather chair with the baby, Mugs is sure to sit on what remains of my lap. Lincoln still isn't aware of kitty. It'll be interesting when he starts to notice.

Beijing 2008 Olympics Torch Run

2008-05-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

I got up early this morning to watch the Olympic torch run through Shanghai. Part of the torch run route was through Xintiandi and People's Square. One of my girl friends lives in the Xintiandi part of the city and her apartment management was keeping her updated on the torch route. The torch was originally supposed to come to Shanghai on the 20th, but was delayed for a 3-day period of mourning for the earthquake victims.

I got a text message saying the torch was coming at around 8 am, so I managed to get myself up and dressed and in Xintiandi by 7:30. Eric opted to stay in bed. I figured that since the torch was so close to me that I should make the effort to go see it. Streets were barricaded and lined with police officers. The pedestrian area of Xintiandi was cordoned off and the Starbucks on the corner had bike locks on the doors.

There was a general sense of excitement and anticipation with people lining the streets waving Olympic flags.

We found a spot to stand and wait for the torch to pass through. From what we had been told, the torch and torch bearer would be driven to one end of the street. They would get out, light the torch, and run down the street. We saw sponsorship vehicles for Samsung, Coca-cola, and Lenovo; buses of seemingly important people; emergency vehicles; and motorcycles. We continued to wait until the crowds started to disperse and the police started to take down the rope barricades. We were left baffled and hugely disappointed.

I got up early for this? It seemed that the people most disappointed were foreigners. I've heard similar stories of disappointment from people waiting at different locations in Shanghai. No one could tell us exactly what happened or when and where we could actually see the torch.

There does seem to be one person who managed to see the torch and has photographic evidence (link goes to Shanghai dear Edward's flickr photo stream). I'm glad someone got to see the torch.

Baby Gift

2008-05-08T19:55:00.000-07:00

We've been very fortunate to have such a great support network of friends here in Shanghai. We've become good friends with one of Eric's officemates, Penny. She brought us to her hometown and introduced us to her family, a really wonderful group of people. Her sister and nephew have visited us in Shanghai before. Penny's sister gave us a baby quilt and recently, her cousin sent us a hand-knitted jumper for the baby.

Her cousin has a 6-year-old daughter who is absolutely adorable. When we were visiting them, she showed us a video of Le Le when she was 4 on a Chinese children's program. She sang a song and did a little dance. I don't think I managed to write a post about that (along with a lot of other things). Here's a picture of the two of them.

Here Le Le is taking individually wrapped flowers from her mother to hand to all family members. Le Le picked out the buttons on the jumper. Right now the jumper is folded in the baby's dresser. I know I will dress him in it at least once for pictures, but this is something that I will certainly set aside for a keepsake.

The Last Few Weeks

2008-05-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

Finally, it's May. We're in the home stretch here. I've lately been promoted to weekly doctor's visits. Eric was at the last one and we saw the baby on the ultrasound. The technician did some measurements to estimate the size of the baby. I'll get blood drawn at the next doctor's visit.

Most of my girl friends are pretty open about discussing personal issues -- in-depth discussions about medical maladies, relationships, and so on. Pregnancy brings this general female camaraderie to a whole new level. I find myself discussing the state of my cervix and its anatomical neighbors with not just my girl friends, but also with women I have just met (I'm also blogging about it -- never thought I'd be doing that). And no one bats an eye.

I've joined a Bumps and Babes group here that meets a couple times a month. These meetings usually have a speaker or a topic for the women there to discuss. We've had a breast-feeding consultant, a chiropractor specializing in pregnant women as well as children, a small business owner along with other people. I've been fortunate enough to have found other women who are due around the same time as myself. Some of us have formed a smaller group where we can commiserate about our respective pregnancies and, hopefully, will have little buddies for our babies as they arrive. We've had our first birth. Kristy delivered a boy via c-section on 25 April. Kari is currently overdue. Cara may go into early labor. And I'm just waiting until the end of May.

I had my morning workout today tugging on my compression socks. The pair I'm wearing today are thigh highs and are tighter than my knee-high compression socks. Imagine me sitting on the bed in my underwear huffing and puffing as I try to work the stockings over my feet. It's already a challenge to reach my feet. After several breaks, a lot of cursing, and about 15 minutes later, I have successfully got the stockings in place. Now I'm sitting here in pajama shorts (nice and stretchy), a t-shirt and my stockings. I can assure you that I look ridiculous. I'm going to dig out my muu-muus later on.

We just got a portable stereo with an iPod dock, something I've wanted to get for a while. Someone was telling me that newborns have initial sleep difficulties because their new environment is so quiet. They have gotten so used to the sounds of mom's heartbeat and digestion as well as other background noises that absolute quiet is unnerving. I'm not going to play sounds of digestion but some music would be nice. I've been sitting here all morning listening to music. The sound is much better than the laptop speakers. It's sunny and beautiful outside, but I'm having difficulty motivating myself into some decent pants to go for a walk outside. Maybe I'll have more energy after lunch. What I really want is a good chocolate milkshake. I've found exactly 1 place that serves a decent one like you'd get at Steak n Shake. I might have to flag down a cab and get one.

Approaching Maximum Density

2008-04-13T01:03:00.000-07:00

Here's a shirt I got at my last doctor's visit:

Hee hee! Notice how the shirt is straining over my massive 8-month belly. Not pictured are my lovely swollen feet encased in orthopedic compression stockings. I'm quite the picture.

Let's see, I believe I have about 6-7 weeks left until baby arrives. So happy he's coming before summer!

Going on Month 8

2008-04-03T05:42:00.000-07:00

I'm going into month 8 here and I'm ready to have this baby now. Thankfully, my feet don't hurt anymore and I have some energy back. Eric laughs because he can hear me huffing and puffing through the door when I'm trying to get up from my chair to let him into the apartment.
I've joined a group for expecting moms and moms who've recently given birth. There's a few of us who are due around the same time and we're making plans to get together and commiserate about sore feet and expanding body parts.

I had the most wonderful surprise today. I logged onto my blog page and surprisingly, it's not blocked anymore. We'll see how long that lasts. These things are never predictable.

I've neglected this blog for a long time and there's much I need to catch up on. For now, I'm going to post this brief entry and call it an early night.

Happy Lunar New Year!

2008-02-11T06:50:00.000-08:00

During Chinese New Year, the city of Shanghai empties as people leave the city to spend the holiday with their families. The result is an oddly empty city. Here we were walking around Xujiahui at around midnight on Chinese New Year. Fireworks were literally exploding all around us. There isn't a single fireworks show like what we have on the Fourth of July; rather, individuals, or individual businesses, buy fireworks and simply light them on the sidewalk. Walking out onto the street, you almost feel like you're experiencing a war zone. The sound of all those fireworks exploding makes normal conversation impossible. We were at some friends' apartment recently. Their apartment is located on the east side of the river on the 31st floor. We can actually see the river and part of the west side skyline from their balcony. Fireworks were going off all evening, but started to get really intense around midnight. It was really cool to watch the entire city exploding with fireworks. Still pictures don't do the sight as much justice as a video, which Eric is editing now.

Chinese New Year actually is observed over the course of 15 days, with each day having a special significance and with special rituals that are traditionally observed as well as special foods that are eaten. On New Year's Eve, you are supposed to to open windows and doors to let good luck in. On New Year's day, you are not supposed to clean as that will sweep away your good luck. And on it goes. I'll share more as I figure this out.

Huang Shan

2007-11-04T03:44:00.000-08:00

Huang Shan literally means 'Yellow Mountain'. It is located in Anhui province and is about a 1 1/2 hour flight from Shanghai. We took this trip at the end of October with the Shanghai Expat Association. Our group was small, 8 people total including us. As part of the itinerary, we visited 2 historic villages, one of which is Hongcun. Hongcun was one location used for the 2000 movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

A large pond sits in front of the walled village. There is a stone walkway and bridge leading to the front gate. Inside, the village is comprised of stone buildings separated by narrow alleyways. Yellow Mountain is a popular tourist destination for both Chinese and other nationals. Along with our group were several other groups, usually consisting of at least a dozen people per group. The groups usually had a leader carrying a pennant and guiding the group with a small microphone and a portable amplifier. The group members typically wore either matching hats or matching T-shirts. The alleyways were lined with shops selling all sorts of souvenirs.

This shop was selling scarves and had apparently hung out a duck along with the merchandise.

We also toured an ink factory where we saw a demonstration of how traditional Chinese ink sticks were made. The ink was made from soot collected from burning a certain kind of oil. Bowls set over the fire collected the resulting soot. The soot was then processed into ink. In the factory, a woman was hand-carving a mold for the ink sticks. A man would take lumps of ink and pound them with a wooden mallet. He would then pull off balls of ink, weigh them, and then place the balls into a rectangular mold and press it into place with the lid. The ink in the molds would then be set aside to air-dry. Once dry, the ink sticks would be knocked out of the molds and sold. The person using the ink would usually have a flat, shallow dish -- oftentimes carved from a special stone -- with a bit of water. The ink stick would be moistened and then the ink slowly drawn in circles around the dish to dissolve the ink. This process of dissolving the ink was considered meditative and important for collecting one's thoughts about the calligraphy or sketches one was about to do.

The next day we drove to the base of Yellow Mountain and took a cable car to the top. At the base of the mountain were feathery bamboo forests. At the top, were weathered pine trees. We checked into one of the hotels on top of the mountain and hiked around the trails. A typical Chinese landscape ink painting oftentimes depicts tall, dramatically spiky mountains. You don't really understand or appreciate those paintings until you see Yellow Mountain. The mountains are granite. Geological processes have transformed them into striking pillars. Many of the peaks have oddly vivid, interesting names, like "Beginning to Believe Peak" (a monk had heard about the famed beauty of Yellow Mountain and only when he saw it for himself did he 'begin to believe'), ''Eighteen Arhats Facing the South Sea'',"Immortal Sunning His Boot'', ''Squirrel Skipping to Celestial Capital'', ''Golden Cock Crowing Towards the Heavenly Gate", '' Monkey Gazing at the Sea'', and the list goes on. There are over 70 peaks contained in this region.

This particular peak is "Monkey Looking at the Sea". On the top of the peak is a rock that resembles the back of a monkey as it is looking out.

People snap locks onto the chain barriers, many of which are engraved with names or initials and a date.

The locks represent everlasting love. Once locked, the key is tossed into the gorge (though I'm not sure if keys are even sold with these locks since they are sold to be fastened onto the chain).

We walked to a part of the park called the Grand Canyon, named after the American Grand Canyon (really, this is what our Chinese guide told us). This part of the park had no crowds -- even here, in the great outdoors, we ran into several tour groups like the ones we met at Hongcun -- and we enjoyed having a bit of peace to ourselves. The park had a nice series of trails and stairways with railings cast to resemble tree bark.

This is one of the stairways build along the side of the mountain.

The following morning, we woke at 4:15 to watch the sun rise. When the weather cooperates, the sunrise is supposed to be spectacular. We wore warm coats provided by the hotel and joined many, many other people to find a lookout point to watch the sunrise. Even at that hour, we heard tour leaders guiding their groups with the microphones -- not something I cherish listening to at 5AM. We found a good spot to wait and were shortly joined by about 40 other people, none of which were the least bit quiet. One man starting crowing.

Here is a pre-dawn picture of the mountains. The weather was not cooperative and it was grey and overcast. The sunset was weak. I think I should have stayed in bed. The entire thing would have been improved by a set of noise-cancelling headphones and a thermos of hot chocolate.

Later that day, we went to Emerald Valley, another location for the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The water was an amazing turquoise from natural copper deposits.

While there, Eric was 'attacked' by a praying mantis. Ask him how loudly he was shrieking for me to 'get it off!'

It felt so good to get out Shanghai and

October Holiday

2007-09-30T19:20:00.000-07:00

Time moves in a strange arc. On one hand I can't believe that it is October already. Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner. At the same time, when I am asked how long I've lived here in Shanghai, I have to think hard and am amazed to say that it has only been 6 months. It feels like I have been here so much longer than that.

This week is October Holiday for China. October 1 is National Day here; it's the day the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. Many offices here are closed for the week, though this does not necessarily mean vacation for expats. Being an expat means that you work on the schedule of your home office, no matter where that may be, as well as the local schedule in Shanghai. As for us, we're staying put. We have a trip planned on the 19th to Yellow Mountain, which is supposed to be one of China's most beautiful mountains (though I think the appellation is applied to everything).

This past Saturday, we had Eric's officemates over for a barbecue. I made chicken and beef kebabs to grill. I also bought Johnsonville brats, potato chips (Lays!), Doritos, hummus and pita bread. I made a cold couscous salad with white beans and shredded carrot. I had a puzzling time trying to explain what couscous, hummus, and pita bread were to some of the Chinese people. I can't tell you how good a grilled brat is. I never thought that I'd have such nostalgia for Doritos; I rarely bought them back in the U.S.

Now I'm contemplating the enormous fruit basket that Eric's officemates brought as a gift for the barbecue. I don't know how I'll manage to eat all that fruit. I'll probably have some people over to eat fruit and drink beer and wine, since I am left with ample amounts of all 3 since the barbecue.

Eric is doing a bit of work from home, but still is quite relaxed. We are having a nice, leisurely day here at home -- breakfast of scrambled eggs, gym, leftovers, reading quietly.

The Orphanage

2007-09-07T06:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I volunteered at an orphanage with a friend, Lee. Lee had a girl friend who had been volunteering at this orphanage for the past year. She and another woman go to the orphanage every Thursday for 2 hours. There, they play and interact with a group of 2-year-old children. Though this is something I wanted to do, I had my reservations. I suppose I was wondering about the conditions at the orphanage and I was wondering about the children there. I really didn't know what to expect. There are no pictures per the orphanage director's request.

The orphanage we went to (I don't know how many such facilities are in Shanghai) was on the outer edge of the city, near the Hong Qiao Airport. The building was large and looked like an ordinary school. The grounds and the building were well-maintained and clean. When I say the place looked like a school, I mean literally that. There were various hallways lined with classrooms set with windows both looking into the hall as well as outside. Instead of desks, classrooms would have metal cribs set in 5-6 groups of 8. Each crib had identical bedding but with a different stuffed animal set in each. There were little child-sized chairs lining one of the walls. In one hallway, I saw at least 4 rooms set up in this way. One of the other women said that there were infants on another floor. According to them, the orphanage housed up to 1000 children. The building was empty at the time as the older children are bussed out to school during the day.

We went to a classroom set up as the playroom; the two regular volunteers automatically knowing the routine. The playroom had a single crib filled with toys. There were low shelves lining one wall, mostly empty except for a few toys and books. Mats lined the floor in one corner of the room. Near the door sat one of the ayis (Ayi is a general term used for women who act as maids and nannies.) reading to a group of children sitting on the floor. When we entered the room, some of the children, recognizing the regular volunteers, raised up their arms to be picked up. Who could resist?

The two regular volunteer women, Ann and Tracy, took some children outside in a couple of different double-occupancy strollers. Lee and I moved to the corner and sat down amidst some of the other children. I soon had 3 children in my lap. Though these children were in the 2-year age range, none of the children looked like an average American 2-year old child. These children were smaller, probably due in part to the average Chinese person being smaller than than the average American and also due to their circumstance. Many of the children seemed to have developmental disabilities and many were deaf. The children were much more subdued than other children of this age I have seen. They were not rambunctious, but rather were content to sit in your lap and be cuddled. Lee and I took a group of children outside where they could enjoy some fresh air and sunshine.

At the end our time there, we brought all the children back inside. It was time for their evening meal. That was probably a good time to leave as the children would hopefully too be preoccupied eating to notice we were leaving.

I plan to go back. Though I can't help but wish that there were more child development programs in place, especially one that taught sign language, I got the sense that the women there caring for the children were doing the best they could given what resources they had. This was my first time; I don't know much about the orphanage itself or the women who work there. I don't know enough Chinese to know exactly what was going on or what the ayis' opinion was of these foreign volunteers. I suppose the biggest question I have is what kind of future these children can expect. Tracy and Ann mentioned that they know of a few children there who have been adopted. China is not yet very accommodating for the handicapped. One of the children there is very bright though he is deaf. His deafness will most definitely be considered a liability when considered for adoption. Maybe it's a selfish thought, but I hope that my presence can be of some benefit.

Kitchen Sink

2007-09-03T07:57:00.000-07:00

As Eric and I were walking through the metro, we were talking about how we had seen people bring just about everything on the metro, except the proverbial kitchen sink. And then we saw one.

Well maybe not exactly a kitchen sink, but a sink nonetheless.

Changing Seasons

2007-09-03T07:38:00.000-07:00

Time goes by so quickly. It's hard to believe that it's September already and we'll be marking our 6-month anniversary here in Shanghai. We've had a hot, hot summer. August was the worst of it with temperatures in the high 30Cs (nearly 100F) accompanied by the soupiest humidity I've ever had to endure. I couldn't walk far without being soaked with sweat. Thankfully, the heat has lately broken and today, despite the drizzle, was pleasantly cool.

Recently, we went skiing again with Penny. This time, we were accompanied by 7 members of her family, including 4 children. We weren't paying close attention when we on the metro and forgot to get off at our correct stop. It was literally the end of the line, so we had to wait a moment before the train started up again.

The only person on the train was a woman sweeping the cars. The train started up again to resume the opposite route back. We got off the train this time and took a taxi to the indoor ski place. The place as busy; full of people. For most of the people in our party, this was the first time they had been on skis.

Here is Penny and her family. The children are 13, 10, 10, and 6. Dang Dang has been to Shanghai before. He and Eric have a shared interest in G.I. Joes. You can't see it here, but Dang Dang is playing with a toy grappling line that came with the G.I. Joe action figure Eric brought him from the U.S. We were all surprised that he managed to hold onto the thing throughout the skiing excursion.

We parted ways after skiing with plans to meet up again later that night. We walked along the river on the Pudong side so we could see the bright lights of the Bund. The children were quite tired by that time as were the adults.

Happy Birthday to Me

2007-08-12T05:27:00.000-07:00

It's my first birthday in China.

Here's me with my birthday cake. I have found a great group of friends here in Shanghai. Here they surprised me with a birthday cake complete with candles (though there wasn't room enough for all the candles that would equal my age) and a gift. We went out later that evening to a couple of different places on the Bund, one of which had a balcony with an amazing night time view of the Bund and the river.

Hope you enjoy the view.

Shanghai Shikumen

2007-07-24T04:25:00.000-07:00

Late in June, I went on a tour sponsored by the Shanghai American Women's Club. The tour was led by a Shanghai native, a freelance photographer named Gangfeng Wang. Gangfeng Wang grew up in one of the many lane houses you see all over the city. These lane houses and alley ways are slowly being destroyed to make way for new high-rise developments. These places are often referred to as shikumen ("stone gate"). Residences are connected by alleyways with the entrance to each alley framed by a stone gate or archway.

Here you see the stone gateway that remains while the houses beyond have been reduced to rubble. Soon, the stone gateway will also be gone.

As Gangfeng Wang is familiar with these houses and with the people that there, we were able to see some of the houses within these shikumen.

In front of this soon-to-be-demolished shikumen house is a pile of scrap, all of it for sale. As wood seems to be scarce, the boards likely will go quickly. Also for sale are sheets of metal and plastic and makeshift ladders. Further in the alleyway are the remains of buildings with heaps of unsorted and broken brick waiting to be cleared and hauled away. The brick is unsalable and impossible to be reused for building, so they are free for the taking. A few American ladies tucked bricks into their purses as souvenirs.

Here also is a building built completely of doors, with a stack of spare doors to the side. The Chinese are creative like that.

Many of these lane houses are in desperate need of repair and are oftentimes quite crowded. And not all have indoor toilets. Here you see a picturesque pot in front of this person's house.

It's a chamber pot. Many people have pots like these. You will often see people carrying them in the morning, bringing them to the nearest public toilet or sewer to be emptied.

Here you see the contrast of the old shikumen lane houses in the foreground with the modern highrises in the back. Outdoor sinks like this one are not uncommon sights.

The shikumen we saw that afternoon had all been condemned and would be demolished by the fall. In its place would rise new apartment buildings and shopping centers. Many of us foreigners heave a sad sigh at the loss of these buildings. We are entranced by the history and charm of these places in contrast to the seeming soullessness of yet more concrete and steel high-rises. It's easy to be sentimental when you are not the the one who has to live within the reality of these crumbling old lane houses. Gangfeng says that the demolition of these places is a win-win-win situation in that the people living in these places get monetary compensation and the opportunity to live in a newer, more modern place, the developers will make buckets of money on the new developments, and the government will get their share of the profits while simultaneously improving the city scape. He also stated that the only people really mourning the loss of these lane houses are tourists. All true.

Not many people have the wherewithal to renovate these old houses, though there are lane houses in varying degrees of repair or disrepair available for rent and for sale throughout the city. Xintiandi is a trendy hotspot filled with boutiques and cafes. The place is modelled after these old shikumen and is designed to capture that feeling of old Shanghai. There are rumors that another similar development is in the works in another part of Shanghai.

I hesitated about what to blog about in regards to these shikumen. On one hand you cannot ignore the conditions found in these places. Narrow, rickety stairs; dim hallways; crowded rooms and buildings. Many of us foreigners live in relative luxury here and we tend to forget that back in our home countries, we also have our poor who live in conditions just as deplorable or even worse. I think we tend to notice the poor more here in China because that is what we expect from a so-called developing nation. I've been here only 4 months. In that brief time, I've realized that there really is no single explanation of what China, or Shanghai to be specific, is. Shanghai has its poor and its wealthy; its 5-star restaurants and its hole-in-the-wall restaurants; its shopping malls and its street vendors. I suppose not much different than back home in the U.S.

Leisure

2007-07-18T19:02:00.000-07:00

Living in China, we are experiencing a different quality of life than what we had back in the U.S. Labor is cheap (the USD:CNY exchange rate also helps) here so it isn't unusual for expats to have personal drivers, maids, and custom-tailored clothing. And most of us are living well within our means.

Eric had a couple of suits tailored earlier this spring and was thrilled with the results. I was happy that his shirts actually fit him. It's hard to find things to properly fit a tall, skinny man. We went back there recently to have him fitted for a couple of summer suits.

I have never in my life seen Eric so excited about clothes shopping. We have some friends (a married couple) who have had clothes tailored at another shop by the fabric market and we are planning to go clothes shopping with them soon. I can't believe I just wrote that we are going on a couples outing clothes shopping and that Eric is not only willing, but excited, to go. The husband has also had shoes made and managed to buy about 30 ties for 10 kuai each (that's about 1USD per tie).

Later that Saturday, I went on a midnight bicycle ride with the Expat Professional Womens group. There was a group of 20 people, some with their own bikes with the rest of us with rentals. It had been some months since I had last been on a bicycle and I was a bit unsure and wobbly at first. Having short legs also does not help. Shanghai never truly sleeps. The traffic diminishes but there are still many people out and about.

The guides led us to Old Town and through dark and narrow alley ways. Mind you it is the middle of the night and not only do we have to contend with no street lights in some of these alley ways, we also have to navigate through narrow passageways clogged with rubbish, bicycles, mopeds, and furniture. I nearly hit a wall trying to negotiate a tight corner. We rode past startled Shanghainese people, some finishing laundry, others enjoying a late night meals, still others managing their still-open businesses, and one man emptying his bladder. Our passage evoked laughter and one person commented in Chinese about how the 'laowai' (foreigners) certainly enjoy riding their bicycles. We rode on to the river and boarded a ferry to take us across to Pudong, where we continued to ride for about an hour before heading back to the ferry. We stopped by the Pudong river walkway and was surprised to see it flooded. Eric and I had been there the previous Saturday and the river was nowhere near the flood point.

That's all water covering the bottom step there. The water is somewhere between ankle- and knee-deep. When we rode back to the ferry to take us back to the Puxi side of the river, we found that the ferry was inoperable for a couple of hours due to the high river levels. It was about 1A at that point and we were stranded in Pudong with 20 bicycles. The metro was closed by then and it was too dangerous to attempt riding back on any of the roads due to homicidal car traffic. A couple in the ride group lived in Pudong and we stored all the bicycles in the parking garage of their apartment complex until they could be picked up the following morning. Those of who lived in Puxi pooled to take taxis back home. I hope to take Eric on the next bicycle ride.

Sunday we went to an indoor downhill snow skiing site with Penny. The place is located in the south part of Shanghai. We took the metro to the last stop south and then a short taxi ride to the skiing center. Admission includes equipment rental (coat, snow pants, gloves, boots, skis / snowboard). Eric and I took some of our own cold weather clothing like hats and gloves and socks. We made sure we had socks for Penny as she got a bad blister from ice skating without socks.

The ski site is all indoors and consists of three tiers. There isn't a proper ski lift as we Americans would recognize. Rather, there is a moving walkway to the first tier, much like those you see in airports.

There is another lift to the second and third tier but most people choose to stay on the first. The place was pretty busy and if you're new to skiing or getting yourself reacquainted, the crowds can be daunting. The slope isn't particularly steep but we enjoyed ourselves.

I wore my raccoon hat. I put it on and walked through the busy Grand Gateway mall and the subway with it on. Since the ambient temperature was in the 90's, I took it off during the remainder of the metro ride. I wore it on the ski slopes. Needless to say, it drew a lot of stares.

There I am with Penny.

So much activity over this past weekend has given me the excuse of being lax in my exercise regime. I'm planning on joining a yoga class but can't find one that meets in the mornings. Next week I'm starting Chinese lessons and hopefully I can better understand all the questions I'm asked on a daily basis.

Flower, Bird, Fish, and Insect Market

2007-07-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

I have been remiss updating this blog. There's a lot I want to write about. I'm going to start with yesterday and work my way back until I'm caught up. I'm a bit sleepy right now as I answered a telemarketing call at 3:45A. The man on the other end was calling on behalf of the Wall Street Journal and was entirely too cheerful. I informed him that we were in China and that it was the middle of the night. He sounded quite excited at that and asked me what we were doing in China. I replied that we were sleeping. That's what we're doing in China.

Yesterday I visited the Flower, Bird, Fish, and Insect Market. It's an covered market selling, not surprisingly, flowers, birds, fish, and insects. Walking through places like the Dong Tai Lu Antiques market (which, incidentally, is across the street from this place), you see many booths that have cricket cages strung from the ceiling amidst strings of beads and other merchandise for sale.

When I first heard the crickets chirping, I had no idea where the sound was coming from. Upon closer inspection, I saw the tiny cages and the creatures within. I suppose the cages aren't that tiny as the crickets are easily as long as my middle finger and perhaps as thick as my thumb. The Flower, Bird, Fish, and Insect Market is a place where you can buy these singing crickets as well as other pets and pet supplies. The building is fairly nondescript from the exterior and I had passed it before on the other side of the street without giving it a second thought. I had read about the place and decided to put a little effort into finding it. Once you're inside the door, you immediately know you're in the right place. The cacophony of hundreds of crickets chirping is almost deafening.

There are tables full of glass display cases of live crickets, crickets in cages, and all sorts of cricket paraphernalia.

Strung from the pipes crisscrossing overhead are wicker cages of crickets strung together into a sort of garland. From what I can determine, the cages appear to be woven around the crickets and food pushed in through the holes.

Walking further through the market you see other animals available for sale: goldfish, puppies, kittens, rabbits, song birds, ducklings, turtles. I even saw a cage with a couple of chipmunks in it. Alongside the pets, animal food of all kinds, including tubs of writhing grubs, is for sale as are food dishes, collars, and other accessories.

Supposedly, this place also hosts cricket fights. I have no idea when these occur or what it must be like to sic 2 crickets on each other.

Also seen:
A mynah bird croaking 'Ni hao! Ni hao!' (Hello! Hello!)

A refrigerator on a bike. Truly anything and everything can be and is hauled by bicycle.

A man using a chopstick to pin a snake in a cage and then using a scissors to cut its jugular. I presume it was destined for the cooking pot.

Women rolling out dumpling wrappers on a metal table out on the sidewalk.

A street-side fish display. I've never seen so much seafood variety. Another street over seemed to consist solely of crayfish vendors.

Life here isn't contained inside buildings but spills out to encompass the sidewalks and streets. I suppose it's especially true in the summer when temperatures soar inside.

Summer in the City

2007-07-12T01:23:00.000-07:00

We've had a rainy past month, which I hear is typical for Shanghai. I've heard said that Shanghai, being on the same latitude, has the same climate as Atlanta. Sweating profusely while walking around Shanghai, I couldn't recall it being this hot and sticky in Atlanta. Then I realized that I hadn't walked around outside this much back in Georgia. I would go from my air-conditioned house to my air-conditioned car, and drive myself in relative comfort to an air-conditioned office or store.

Now, I walk everywhere. I've gotten in the habit of wearing my backpack when I leave the house. In it, I keep an umbrella to protect me from both rain and sun, a Lonely Planet Guide to Shanghai (the map inside has saved me on more than one occasion), and a plastic handle designed to hook onto a plastic shopping bag so the plastic handles don't dig into your hands.

We sold our house; the closing was on June 30. I don't need to say what a relief it is to have that done.

Hair Cut

2007-06-18T05:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't had my hair cut since January. It's been way past due for a trim. I really don't like getting my hair cut, unless it's my sister with the scissors. I am typically impulsive with hair cuts and simply walk into a place and plop myself down to get it done. Today was no different.

I was in Yu Yuan looking for mahjong racks. I bought mahjong tiles there the other day, but couldn't find any racks. Yu Yuan has a bazaar around it with tons of stalls selling all sorts of stuff. It's really touristy, but I bought the tiles there as I wanted ones with numbers printed on them. I had been in a stall in a non-tourist area selling mahjong tables (they actually mix the tiles!) and sacks of tiles. None of the tiles had numbers printed on them; only the Chinese characters. I had a bit more time to wander today than I did before, so I was going to see if there was another stall selling the racks. If we were playing in true Chinese fashion, we would eschew them, but the racks makes play easier. I walked around and through the bazaar with no success and was ready to go home. I left the bazaar and started walking down the road and ended up on a side street and then a lane. One of the shops in the lane was a hair salon. I was trying to decipher a sign with prices hung on the outside of the store when one of the employees invited me inside. Wei shenme bu ne? Why not?

I sat down in a chair and had my hair washed. A young man pumped one hand full of shampoo and then started sudsing the crown of my head using the other hand to squeeze a bottle filled with water to wet a small area of my hair. Mind you that this was done sitting in a barber's chair with no sink in sight. Once he worked up a good lather, he slowly incorporated the dry portion of my hair into the soapy part. He proceeded to massage my scalp for a good 10 minutes. Wonderful, though I couldn't help but wonder how he was going to get the soap out of my hair. When he was finished shampooing and massaging my head, he moved me to the back of the salon where the sink was located. Ah. Question answered. I didn't have to bend under a spigot outside. There he rinsed out my hair and continued to massage my scalp. He wrapped my head in a towel and I returned to my chair. A second man dried my hair and cut it. All that for 10 RMB (about 1 USD).

Rainy Days at the Consulate

2007-06-14T01:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we made a special trip to the U.S. Consulate to have some papers notarized. We are working on the final paperwork to sell our house. It's been a special challenge with us being in China and the house and the buyers being in the U.S.

Two days prior I had been searching for 'legal-sized' paper on which to print out all the documents. The paperwork came to us as PDF email attachments and we were advised to have it printed on 'legal-sized' paper. The U.S. doesn't use the metric system nor does it use the same paper sizes as much of the rest of the world. Don't get me started on clothing sizes. In Europe and here in China, the standard paper size is A4, which is pretty much the same thing as the standard 8½x11-inch paper used in the U.S. We followed everything to the letter as best as we could so there wouldn't be any unnecessary delays with the house sale. We thought we needed 8½x11-inch as well as the 8½x14-inch paper. Of course, the response I got from various shop owners was the same: "Mei you" (don't have it). Fortunately, the secretary at Eric's office was able to source the right paper for us.

We took the bundle to the U.S. Consulate, which has the citizen services in an office tower attached to a mall. Once there, you show your passport to the security guards who then point you past a long line of Chinese people waiting to be admitted to the consulate. Inside you walk through a metal detector and put your purse and pocket contents through an x-ray machine. It's much like the airport. You surrender your cell phone, camera, and PDA to the guard at the front desk. He puts your belongings into a cubby and hands you the key. You are then free to enter the U.S. citizen services room. This room is separate from the main waiting room where dozens of people sit waiting for a turn with the consulate. Once you're in the citizen services room, you take a number and wait. The wait wasn't long. We handed over our paperwork, which the woman behind the counter looked over and stamped in preparation for the notary. We sat back down briefly and returned when the notary was ready. We needed witnesses for a few of the documents so we got a couple of people waiting there to help. All in all quite easy. We bundled everything up later that afternoon and Fedexed it to America.

It's still raining today. It has been for much of the week. Today I went to the foreign languages bookstore. It was nice to sit amongst books in a language I could understand.

Post Office

2007-06-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

I started this post a few days ago and then discovered that images from Flickr are being blocked. We've fixed a few things over here on this computer to accommodate. Such is daily life in China.

I was at the post office the other day. The post office is located down a leafy street near Best Buy.

We have gotten a couple of packages from America that get routed to the post office. The front desk calls to let us know that we have a pick up slip. I bring the slip and my passport to the post office and they will then release the package to me. Letters to America require 6RMB (.75 USD) of postage. The stamps here do not have glue already on them. Once you get your stamps, you go to these kiosks set in the middle of the post office floor. There are a couple of pots of glue and brushes for you to paste the stamps to your letters.

I stink at proper glue application. It's like being back in 3rd grade during art, except I don't have a smock to protect myself from the glue. Now I just carry a glue stick in my purse. Much easier. The post office does have a sink available. Probably for glue-impaired people like myself who gets glue all over the envelope, the counter, and herself.

The Day After the Vet

2007-06-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

Thank goodness that the vet visit is only once a year. Yesterday I put the cat in the carrier and we took a taxi to the vet for his yearly check up and vaccinations. Vet visits are not Mugsy's favorite thing. He was yowling in his carrier all the way down the elevator. He quieted once we were in the taxi. Once at the vet, he refused to get out of his carrier so we gently dumped him out onto the exam table. He then commenced his growl-hiss noises while the vet tried to soothe him in German. The vet wasn't able to do a very thorough examination since he turned into demon-cat once we entered the examination room. She could, however, see his teeth quite well when he was growling. Mugsy tried to jump off the examining table several times. I managed to catch him before he could get far. The vet had to call in a second person and between the 3 of us, we managed to get his vaccination injection administered. Mugsy then jumped off the table and hid under a chair. He wouldn't budge or go in his carrier. The vet left the room to get a broom to shoo him back into his carrier. I moved the chair and grabbed Mugsy and stuffed his unwilling 10-lb self back into the carrier. His was the first appointment of the day. It wasn't much past 9am, but we were all a bit worn. I'm sure the vet was ready to call it a day after that.

I've got some scratches on the back of one of my hands. Mugsy's anger was escalating and he simply struck out at anyone who happened to even try to touch him. Once we got home, he was back to his normal self, a little spooked perhaps, but nothing like the possessed beast he had been.

Maybe next time I'll try carrying him in a plastic shopping bag.

I saw this woman when I was walking through the neighborhood around the South Bund Fabric Market. I did a double take because I wasn't sure if I had seen what I thought I had seen. Yes, it was a woman carrying a live cat in a plastic shopping bag. She was carrying the cat in her arms like a baby. The cat was quite placid. Where do people find these calm cats? I could never take Mugsy out like that. I have no idea why the cat was in a bag. I don't know enough Chinese to ask her or even to understand should she decide to share.

South Bund Fabric Market-Sort of

2007-06-04T03:46:00.000-07:00

What did I do today? Not much. I went out to lunch with Eric's office ladies, Wu Jin and Penny. Yu Xiao Lin and Tina couldn't make it. We had a good visit over a delicious South China (Guangdong Province) meal consisting of soup, a dish of fish heads, a savory egg custard, and broccoli. I hadn't seen the women in a while so it was good to catch up.

After lunch, I went on to Carrefour to start buying ingredients for a dinner party we're invited to on Saturday. There will be about 16 people there and the dinner is potluck. I'm making garlic black bean ribs and I need to get enough ribs to go around. I bought about 2 kg today, which I put in the freezer. I'm going back to Carrefour again later this week to buy 2 kg more. I know how to say 'I want 4 kg' in Mandarin, but it doesn't seem to really matter since the butcher doesn't pay attention and just grabs a handful of ribs and tosses them at you.

Once I returned home, I simply sat around the house stretching my calf muscles. I had a massive walk yesterday and the day before. I need to study my Shanghai map and figure out exactly how far I walked.

Saturday I took the metro to Jing'An Temple. The temple is really old (as are many things in China) -- the original structure was built in 240 AD. It's undergone multiple restorations and it's undergoing one now.

'Jing'An' is Chinese for 'Tranquility and Peace.' Given that the temple is located on a busy intersection surrounded by skyscrapers and shopping centers, the name seems contradictory. Admission to the temple is 10 RMB (about 1 USD). Inside the temple are all sorts of tourists mixed with worshippers burning incense. In the center of the courtyard is a large metal urn (for lack of a better word).

As you can see, there were streams of banners hung on the metal urn and strung out to the eaves of the roofs. People were tossing coins into the big urn, which is much more difficult than it may seem. Upon entering the temple courtyard, you see two large rooms on either side, each housing a Buddha. One of the statutes is a female form of Buddha called the Goddess of Mercy. That's what is in the following picture.

From the temple, I took the metro on to People's Square. It was my intent to find the fabric market. I had studied a map and thought that I would like to attempt walking to the fabric market from People's Square. It would be a long walk, but still doable. If I got tired or lost, I could always hail a taxi. As I walked down Tibet Road, one of the main roads going north-south, I saw a lane filled with stalls selling every imaginable piece of Chinese kitsch you could think of and then some. I don't know if it has an 'official' name, but I refer to it as the Liuhekou Curio Lane.

(Yes, there's a lot of pictures in today's post. You should see the activity in my Flickr account lately. We got a new camera so I'm going wild with it.)

You know me. If there's something to sidetrack my attention, I'm all there.

There were stores behind the stalls selling yet more stuff. Statues, figurines, clocks, old coins, brushes, mahjong sets, Little Red Books, lanterns, birds, old photographs, dishes. I think that there even may have been a kitchen sink available for sale. I walked on some more before calling it a day and heading home. I was meeting the women from my American women's group for drinks and snacks. Husbands were invited and it was interesting to see who paired up with whom.

Sunday, I took a taxi to the fabric market (I didn't make it there on Saturday). After seeing where my taxi driver took me, I don't think I would have made it there.

The fabric market is a large building with 3 floors with fabric of all kinds and in all sorts of patterns. Not far in the distance was the Nanpu Bridge. Like most markets, the building is populated with many, many individual stalls. Each stall has clothing samples hanging outside and I believe that most are able to tailor clothes. I would like to get some blouses, perhaps a dress, and some pillow covers. I didn't buy anything. I couldn't decide what sort of blouse I wanted and I wasn't feeling all that inspired by any of the ready-mades I saw. I'll have to go buy a copy of Chinese Glamour or the like and find something to copy. I should also have Eric with me when I pick out material for pillow covers since my taste tends to be a bit too gaudy for him.

Leaving the fabric market, I decided to walk around before hailing a taxi home. Just up the street was a promising lane. I had seen one fabric market and now, had found another. Here the vendors were selling fabric out in the open under an awning.

I didn't see any of the fine silks that I saw in the other building, but everything else looked much the same. At the corner, I turned and walked on further. I bought something that seemed to be a fried egg patty. At least the main ingredients seemed to be egg and scallions. I got one fresh off the griddle for about 1-2 RMB. I bought a milk tea-tapioca ball drink further on. I walked down a narrow road where people were selling fruit, vegetables, and household goods from sheets spread out on the ground and men were offering tubs filled with bulk tea. Around them were crumbling buildings, rubbish heaped in piles 8 feet high, and children openly urinating in the streets. Tables were set out in the streets and men in pajamas played cards or drank tea.

Though the streets were narrow and filled with tables and people busy at various tasks, there were still mopeds, and even cars, edging through.

I must have been wandering these little streets for nearly 3 hours. I managed to find my way to a major street and then nearly had a heart attack. I saw the Pearl Tower and it seemed so close that I could have sworn I was on the other side of the river in Pudong. Using the Pearl Tower as a landmark, I walked towards it. After awhile, I realized that, remarkably, I had somehow managed to land on my feet. I was on Zhongshan 2 Road walking along the river and I found my way to the Bund. I was still in Puxi (whew!) and near People's Square metro station. I lingered at the Bund a bit before walking to a nearby deli to pick up a burrito and salsa for supper. I was quite tired by the time I got to the metro station and to home. Of course being tired didn't mean I went to bed at a decent hour. Eric is out of town and I typically keep odd hours when I'm home alone. No exception here. I got engrossed in a movie and didn't turn out the lights until 2am.

So now Monday is coming to a close. Eric comes home tomorrow. Mugsy goes to the vet on Wednesday. I go to mahjong on Friday. I just learned mahjong last Friday and I'm still studying the rule sheet. It's about 10p and my bed is screaming out to me.

Friendships

2007-05-28T05:57:00.000-07:00

I know I've mentioned the American Women's Club of Shanghai (AWCS) and the Huan Ying program of initiating and welcoming new members. What I hadn't mentioned was my low expectations of the group. The AWCS is a social club and I was expecting an older set of women. My Huan Ying group is fairly young -- the youngest member is 24. Aside from one mother of 2, the rest of us have no children. Another woman (she has 1 child) was signed up to join our group, but was unable to attend the Huan Yings. Our group clicked pretty well, which was a really wonderful surprise. It's interesting, and perhaps a bit sad, that it's easier to meet and make friends here in China than back home in the U.S.

Today I was wandering through a wet market in Hong Qiao. Originally I was going to a home store to buy a big container for cat food. I was already in Hong Qiao with my Huan Ying event, so I thought I'd visit this store while I was out there. If you know me even a little bit, then it'll come as no surprise that I got lost. This getting lost was more pathetic than usual as the store was less than a 5 minute walk from the metro stop I had left (I realized this as I was making ready to go home). My intuition told me to turn left though the map suggested that I go right. Which to follow? Map or my intuition? After all these years of my intuition guiding me in the opposite direction I need to go, I should have disregarded it again today. But common sense was never my strong suit. Just ask my sister. Instead, I walked in the opposite direction for blocks. After a while, I just thought that it was further than I had remembered or that it was on some side street I couldn't recall. In a lane between and behind the stores was the entrance to a market of some sort. I couldn't resist.

The market was divided into 2 main areas. One area had produce and the other had fish. Around the perimeter of the produce area were stalls selling various fresh meats. Along edges of the market were corridors, for lack of a better word, lined with stalls selling, in one area, prepared foods such as fried chicken and barbecued meats, in another area, household goods like house shoes, pots, and mats. The smells from the fish market were as you'd expect. Every kind of seafood you could imagine were on display: squid, long silver fish, round fish, fish heads, fish middles, eels, crayfish. People squatting and cleaning fish, letting the innards fall to the floor and then tossing the guts in the general direction of a rubbish pile a few feet away.

Outside were people with buckets, tubs, and bags literally full of live fresh shrimp. Shrimp skittering and hopping out of the buckets. At least I believe it was shrimp. It could also have been small crayfish.

I took a picture of a woman gutting a fish outside. In front of her is what looks to be a cage full of snakes. The woman who is waiting for her fish has a fresh chicken in her shopping bag.

I know that the pictures I choose to display in my blog tell only one part of the story of Shanghai, but it is a part that I find fascinating. Who are the people that work in these shops? The people that provide the goods in the shops? How do the local people here really live? How many of them shop in the modern supermarkets that we expats find so indispensable? I know that it is possible to live here on much less than what we currently spend. But it is hard to give up our comforts.

China Past, China Present

2007-05-21T03:05:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, we went to the Chinese Propaganda Poster Art Centre.

Here's one side of the brochure. The center is located in the French Concession area of Shanghai. We had seen the description in the Lonely Planet guide book to Shanghai. Thankfully we brought the book with us. There is no indication on the street that this place exists. I don't know how the writers of the guide book ever learned of this place. The book instructs you to walk towards a block of apartment buildings and go into the basement of one of them. The center is in the basement and is housed in 3 separate rooms. Admission is 20RMB (2.50 USD) per person. The posters are organized by date. The first room has a variety of propaganda posters. Photos are prohibited so I satisfied myself by taking pictures of the brochure.

The things I wanted to really take pictures of were in the second room, which contained the dàzìbào or 'big character' posters. These posters were hand written in large characters and were used to for propaganda or for protest or for debate. Also in that room were a couple of intricate Chinese paper cuts on red tissue paper. One had a large Mao face in the center with a crowd of people underneath. Both had to be at least 2 feet wide.

Sunday, we had Penny and her aunt over for pizza. Penny's aunt wanted to learn to make pizza. Originally, Penny was going to watch and take pictures and extensive notes, but we decided to simply invite her over.

Here, I'm stretching the pizza dough while Penny's aunt is taking notes. Pizza is such a simple, basic dish to me that it's hard to imagine what the process must be like to a newcomer. I take shortcuts, like buying ready-made dough at Carrefour and pasta sauce in a jar.

I suppose pizza is something of a novelty because few Chinese have ovens in their kitchens. The oven we have now is not as big as a standard oven in the U.S. My cookie sheets barely fit in the oven. I actually slide it onto the rack tracks inside the oven. It just fits. Penny's aunt loves Italian food, so maybe I'll have to plan on a lasagne lesson sometime.

Home Sweet Home

2007-05-18T02:23:00.000-07:00

It's been a couple of months since we've moved here and it's starting to feel like home. At least when I go out, it doesn't feel odd to be surrounded by Chinese-speaking people and Chinese-only signs. We feel pretty well settled in, including Eric's G.I. Joes.

Despite the New Year's and the May Holiday being over, people still light fireworks. I got up at about 11:30 on a Sunday night after hearing the 'pop pop pop' of fireworks going off. I could see the display in the distance from my balcony. My camera isn't very good for night shots so this is all I could imagine. The noise isn't terribly bothersome and I like to watch.

This has been a pretty busy week for me. I've joined the American Women's Club of Shanghai (AWCS) and we've started our Huan Ying (HY) group this past Monday. I met with my HY group for lunch this past Wednesday after an AWCS event in the French Concession area of Shanghai. One of the women in my HY group has actually been in China for 8 years and in Shanghai for 5. Her Mandarin is pretty good. We went to a small local place to eat lunch that Wednesday and Amy, being able to read Mandarin, ordered for the table. The restaurant staff did manage to find an English menu and we discovered that donkey meat was one of the items available on the menu. No, we didn't order donkey meat. Thursday was an afternoon doctor's appointment (routine check up) and an Expat Professional Women of Shanghai meeting. I'm meeting with my HY group again on Monday and I'm looking forward to that.

On one of my many excursions on the metro this past week, I saw something remarkable that I have never before seen. At People's Square, the people waiting to board the metro were organized into 2 lines with an open pathway between for the people getting off the train. People were allowed off the train in an orderly fashion and people then boarded the train, also in an orderly fashion. This is the way it's supposed to be done. There are markers on the floor telling you to do this but that's largely ignored. I haven't seen this happen since. Must be a once-every-70-years sort of event like Halley's Comet.

This is also odd fruit week at our house. I was at Carrefour and I saw a big fruit special display. I bought lychees and rambutan.

I'm learning that the things I had been calling lychees are in fact called longans. In this picture, the fruit to the left are lychees and the red hairy thing to the right I believe are rambutan. I prefer longans over lychees. I haven't cracked open a rambutan yet, but I think they're supposed to taste similar to lychees.

I also bought these red berries. I don't know what they're called but they have a sweet-tart taste that reminds me of the flavor of sweetened cranberry juice.

The berry, when you pull it apart, seems almost fibrous. At the center is a pit. They're about the size of a dollar coin and a deep dark red. I hope I can find more.

Street Food

2007-05-12T03:29:00.000-07:00

Everywhere you go, there always seems to be something cooking. Along the street are tiny restaurants that can't seat more than 20 people and food stalls barely bigger than a closet. Here's my new favorite thing to eat:

Squid on a stick. The person behind the counter skewers several pieces of squid onto a stick and brushes it with some sort of sauce. The skewers of squid are then placed on a barbecue. What you get is deliciously smoky squid with a little bit of heat. This skewer is only 3 RMB (about 30-40 cents, US). This is so far the best thing I've eaten from the street.

TGIFAINLOTM (Thank Goodness It's Friday And I'm No Longer On The Metro)

2007-05-11T01:52:00.001-07:00

Friday again. Another week has gone by in a blur. I don't really know where the time goes. Today I had an interview with a recruiting company who places people with various companies here in Shanghai. The office is across the river in Pudong so I did some recon yesterday to figure out about how much time I needed in order to get there. The office isn't far from a metro station, so that is what I used to get over there. Really not a bad commute during the afternoon hours.

Of course, all that changes with the morning rush hour.

The Shanghai metro has a main north-south artery, which is Line 1. The east-west one is Line 2. Lines 1 and 2 intersect at People's Square, which is undeniably the busiest metro station in Shanghai. I needed to ride Line 1 to People's Square and then transfer to Line 2 and take that to Pudong. Simple, except for the fact that that is the basic plan for a million other people. The metro station near me (Xu Jia Hui) is a fairly busy one and the car was full going to People's Square. At the intermediate stops between Xu Jia Hui and People's Square, it was a struggle for people to exit and to cram themselves on board. Once we reached People's Square, the train literally emptied. There couldn't have been more than a handful of people left on the train. I elbowed my way onto the escalator (take that you pushy old woman with your pointy handbag!) and got swallowed up in the sea of people transferring to Line 2. Once you exit the train, you go up a flight of stairs and through a tunnel in order to get to the Line 2 part of the station. There is a bottleneck at the beginning of the tunnel and at the end. I wanted to take a picture of all the people in the tunnel, but I knew that there would be no way for me to accomplish that without having the camera jostled out of my hands or me being swept unwillingly away with the crowd despite my efforts. So I kept moving. I barely made it onto the Line 2 train. My purse got caught on the door and I had to work to free it. Even though there wasn't any room to move or to breathe, still more people crammed themselves into the already overfilled cars. And there were hundreds of people left who didn't make it onto this train and had to wait for the next one to arrive. To get an idea of how closely packed we were, get out 4 cans of sardines. Open all 4. Lay one can in front of you. Take the contents of a second can and stuff them into the first. Repeat with the third can. Now take the contents of the fourth can and cram them into the first can with all the other sardines. Use as much force as needed to put the lid back onto this can of sardines. That is about how full the car was. You needed a big shoe horn to cram the last 3 men onto the train. I suppose the Chinese should be thankful that they are so slightly built. Maybe they're built like that from cramming onto trains. I don't know.

Emerging from the metro station into Pudong is a bit unsettling. It's hard to believe that this is also Shanghai. Pudong really feels like a different city than the rest of Shanghai. I suppose that is because Pudong was more planned than the Puxi part of Shanghai.

Things went well in my interview and the ride back home was uncrowded and uneventful. I went to Malone's American Cafe (which I think is actually Canadian) for a hamburger and fries. I have been craving a burger for a while now and Malone's is pretty good. I had the 48 RMB (6 USD) lunch special, which included soup and a salad. Don't eat the soup. Tomorrow I think I might get a burrito and salsa. Yes, I think about food frequently. No matter where you walk, there seems to always be something cooking. Or, as Eric might say, it sometimes smells more like something is dying and decaying.

Right now it is late afternoon and I'm feeling a bit tired. Maybe it's from walking all over in heels, which I never wear. I'm trying to rouse myself to get some bread. I know I'll feel more energized if I can get myself moving; it's just that first step that is so hard. Alright. Time to go.

Back to Our Regular Schedules

2007-05-07T00:37:00.000-07:00

The Chinese Labor holiday is over and we are back to our normal schedules. It feels good to get back into my usual routine. I haven't been getting the best sleep this past week. We love our internet telephone line and being able to keep our old number helps us keep in touch with people back in the U.S. Unfortunately, that also means telemarketers. We have put our number on the National Do Not Call List, but we still get calls. Since our number looks like a normal Georgia telephone number, people don't know we aren't actually in Georgia or even in the U.S. This means that we get telemarketer calls during normal U.S. business hours, which in China means the middle of the night. The worst has been this past week where we got a telephone call at around 2am from an unidentified caller (we have caller ID). Not just once, but for 3 consecutive nights at roughly the same time. One of those mornings, that telemarketing call was followed by a second one from another company a couple of hours later. Bleah. I am a somewhat light sleeper and once I have been woken up, I have a hard time falling back to sleep. The third night, I anticipated an early AM wake up call, so I positioned the telephone in a convenient place. I managed to answer it on the second ring but no one responded on the other end! No one! And then the line went dead. I was so annoyed. An internet search showed that the number belonged to Six Flags and that other people had also been similarly annoyed with a no answer-hangup. We called the number back and left a message to stop calling. So far, so good.

Yesterday, we had Penny, her sister (Li Li), and her sister's son (Dan Dan) over for dinner. Between Eric's Joe collection and our game console, Dan Dan was enjoying himself immensely. In China, it is considered impolite to call your elders by their first name. Instead, you refer to them as 'Aunt' (ā yí) and 'Uncle' (shū shu). Dan Dan was informed that Eric Shū Shu understood some Mandarin, but he had to speak slowly. Throughout the evening Dan Dan spoke --- very --- slowly --- and --- distinctly to Eric. To me, however, he spoke in his usual rapid Mandarin, forgetting that I know even less Mandarin than Eric. He told me a story about his grandmother and a cat. That is about all I managed to pick up. Li Li saw Mugsy sleeping on the bed and commented on how real our cat looked. For a minute I thought we had the stuffed toy cat out someplace, but then realized that she was referring to Mugs. I patted him to get him to stir a bit and we all laughed hard at the 'real' cat.

Eric had bought a new Snake Eyes back in the U.S. about a year or so ago. These are the new generation Joes. They're about 8-10 inches tall and have been designed to look more like Japanese anime characters. Eric had it in his office back in the U.S. and he brought it with him here. He gave it to Dan Dan. Here, they're looking at all of Snake Eyes' accessories.

We also played Wii games. We bought several new games over the weekend. One of which is called 'Mama Cook Off' and the objective is to prepare meals by chopping, stirring, and cooking items. We both burned our shrimp dishes and neither of us can figure out the proper way to tear lettuce leaves. Another game is called 'Elebits' and you need to find and capture all these little creatures that are bits of electricity (get it?). You can tear up a room in search of these creatures. Eric and I were playing it together and he kept flinging a bookcase around. I think that is the main reason why he likes to play that game.

Dinner was easy to serve since I had prepared much of it in advance. I just needed to warm everything and put some rice in the cooker and that was it. I made a lot of food because I just have no idea how much people can eat, especially a 10-year old active boy. I made pork ribs with a garlicky black bean sauce, roasted chicken legs, meatballs, bok choy, and green beans with garlic. Later on, Eric and Dan Dan were playing with his Joes. It must make no sense to a 10-year old boy why Eric just keeps all these toys to look at.

Today, I went out and bought a few things for the house. Paper towels, cat litter, and the like. I am reminded of my college days when I run my errands. Now, like then, I do not have a car and I use my backpack to schlep stuff home. I put a 10 L bag of cat litter in my backpack today and brought it home on the metro. The package doesn't give weight, but I imagine it weighs about 20 lbs. The metro was crowded today. I was in an already full car when a dozen+ people came out of nowhere and crammed themselves into the car at the last minute. From my limited viewpoint, it appeared that a person got caught temporarily in the doors. I had bought some rolls at the bakery and had to work hard to keep them from being smashed.

Now I'm at home. I've emptied out the last 2 packing boxes and I'm quite pleased with myself. I've put some laundry out on the balcony to dry. I had forgotten how wonderful clothes smell when you've dried them out on a line.

Lupu Bridge

2007-05-02T06:04:00.000-07:00

Before we moved to Shanghai, Eric would talk about the Lupu Bridge. How much he loved the Lupu Bridge, how much fun it was climbing up the bridge, how much he loved the view from the top of the bridge. Really, how much fun could a bridge be?

May 1 is the labor holiday in China and most everyone has the first 3 days of May off. Eric's office is closed here, though he is doing some work from home since it's business as usual for the home office in the U.S. Today shone bright and clear. May is beautiful in Shanghai. Everything is so green and the temperatures are perfect. It's as good as any other day to climb up the Lupu Bridge.

The Lupu Bridge is an arch bridge with 367 steps to a viewing platform on top of the arch. The slope is actually quite gentle (nothing like climbing up the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston -- fewer steps (294) but steeper) and the climb is not difficult. The steps are broad and deep with chest-high railings on either side. Beneath the bridge is a park where you buy your admission ticket (34 RMB per person; about 8.50 USD for 2 people). You then enter a building where you are directed to an elevator that takes you to bridge level. You emerge onto a platform on the side of the road and you walk a short distance to the foot of the stairs.

There appears to be walkways on all four legs of the bridge, though only one was open. The bridge was not busy with perhaps 7 other people on the platform. Along the river side were scrap yards and empty spaces waiting to be filled with tall buildings.

I love watching boats. Eric brought the binoculars and we were watching the people on the boats. I would have loved to have brought a chair up onto the viewing platform. I could watch boats all day. What would be ideal would be my porch rocker. Eric walked that thing home from the store in Indianapolis, maybe I could convince him to carry it up the Lupu for me. Likely that would make the bridge staff panic, not that we could fit it into a taxi or onto the metro.

Look on the right. There's Eric walking down the bridge.

I try to make a mental note of places I'd like to show any guests should they decide to visit. I think the Lupu should be on the list.

Ice Skating

2007-04-30T05:06:00.000-07:00

Saturday we were planning on meeting with Penny and riding the bumper cars at People's Square. She was still worn out from playing Wii. Later on that morning, Penny called to tell us that she felt alright enough to go climbing instead. We arranged to meet at the climbing wall. When Eric and I got there, we saw sections of the wall lying outside the stadium. Sure enough, when we arrived at the gate, the guard informed us that the climbing gym was closed. There is an ice skating rink nearby and we decided to do that instead.

50 RMB (6.25 USD) per person got us admission (2 hours on the ice), skate rental, and a pair of gloves. This was Penny's first time ice skating. Here Penny and I are skating together. I'm holding her up as she learns how to skate. We skated together for about half an hour and then I let Penny go. She was very determined and concentrated hard as she skated nonstop for the remaining hour and a half we had. Penny had forgotten socks and she had a couple of hot spots on her feet when we were finished. I'm going to put together a 'Penny 911' kit that contains socks, bandages, wet wipes, and ointment.

We went to IKEA and bought a wardrobe to store the rest of our clothes. Our apartment doesn't have much closet space (especially compared to the house we moved from). Delivery from IKEA is 30 RMB (3.75 USD) and assembly is about 40 RMB (5 USD). Not bad at all. I am reminded of the time when I bought our dining table set from Pier 1 about 4-5 years ago. We lived close enough to Pier 1 that we could easily walk there under 10 minutes. They wanted $50 for delivery. I just brought the table and chairs home in my car. May 1 is a holiday here in China -- Labor Day. Which means that things are a bit messed up. Delivery was late. I propped the door open to allow the delivery men to bring everything inside. This was a sign to the cat that it was prison break time. The door at the end of the hall was also propped open and Mugs was making a beeline for it. I caught him before he could go far and he promptly made for the door. But it was the wrong door. Fortunately, that door was firmly closed and I managed to catch the cat and stuff him in the office.

Tomorrow someone is coming to assemble the wardrobe. The primary reason we are having our IKEA furniture assembled (aside from the fact that it's just $5) is that the doors require a drill in order for the handles to be attached. And we don't have a drill.

We've done amazingly well for having had the bulk of our stuff delivered on Friday. We down to about 5 boxes. 2 have Eric's clothes, 1 has coats, and the remaining 2 have bedding. The new wardrobe should resolve most, if not all, of this.

Household Shipments

2007-04-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

Yes! Christmas has come! Our air shipment arrived on Wednesday evening -- 14 boxes. Most of which contained clothes. The ocean shipment arrived on this (Friday) morning. Knowing that the ocean shipment was going to come, I had called the front desk to have the couch, chair, and a bedroom console removed on Thursday. I think the management thought I was a bit nuts.

Now we are reunited with our red couch, a well-travelled piece of furniture. We bought it in Albuquerque, NM from a 'modern' furniture store. They didn't have any in stock, so they had to order one from Denmark and had it delivered to our apartment. From Denmark to Albuquerque, next to Indianapolis and then to Atlanta. Now, it has come to China. We also got Eric's leather recliner, my porch rocking chair, our 2-drawer file cabinet, the barn-timber coffee table, 3 20-lb bags of cat food, and several other boxes containing kitchen stuff and the remainder of our clothes.

Both Eric and the cat had fun playing with the packing paper. Mugsy was shredding it with his teeth and claws. Eric was making 'paper angels'.

I spent much of the day washing clothes (much of our things smells like a forgotten shipment in a damp Goodwill storage closet) and washing dishes (it seemed that everything was covered with a thin film of grime). Now the kitchen is nearly in order. The office is chaotic as are the bedrooms and living room. Not surprisingly, some of the things we unpacked left us scratching our heads. In one box, I found Mugsy's cardboard cat scratchers. I thought I had thrown those out. Another box was full of salt since the movers had packed a salt shaker full of salt without sealing the top (I should have learned my lesson the last 2 times). Also found: Halloween treat bags from 4 years ago, a bottle of Elmer's glue (likely from Eric's Calvin days), and road atlases of the U.S. We still have a few more boxes to unpack. It's nearing bedtime for me. Tomorrow we are going to ride the bumper cars at People's Square with Penny.

Oh, Eric's G.I. Joes make it safe and sound. I think we can all sleep easier with that knowledge.

Xintiandi, the Shoe Mall, and Shanghai's Sleepiest Cats

2007-04-25T01:23:00.000-07:00

I think I found a couple of cats that are sleepier than my cat. One cat was napping right outside its owner's magazine stand. I did a double take because I wasn't sure what I had really seen. This is a supremely relaxed cat.

I walked on to the metro station on my way to Xintiandi. Xintiandi is one of Shanghai's new trendy hotspots. Nice restaurants and little shops. Near Xintiandi is one of World Link clinic's medical facilities. I have an appointment coming up and I wanted to see how close the clinic is to the metro station. As it turns out, not very far at all. I don't really find Xintiandi to be all that exciting. I did take some pictures of the Cisco banners hanging there for Eric.

Not very exciting. I walked on further on Huangpi Road to see what I could see. Getting off the main thoroughfare is always more interesting to me. I bought some fruit, including lychees. I was peeling and eating them as I walked along, periodically tossing handfuls of the skin and seeds in any convenient trash can. On one intersection, I saw people carrying bundles of shoe boxes and then I saw stacks of shoe boxes on the street. I walked into a nearby building and discovered a shoe bonanza. Nothing but shoes. Stacks and stacks of shoe boxes on the street, in the alleys, in doorways, in stair wells, on bicycles, everywhere.

I nabbed a couple of business cards from the shoe stalls inside in case I want to come back. There were 2 buildings, one on either side of the street and both were full of shoes. I have never seen so many shoes in my life.

On the way back to the metro station, I bought a couple of small bonsai. One of them is a ginkgo. I don't know what the the other one is. I'll have to take a picture of them later. At another stall, I saw a white cat wearing a bamboo collar sleeping on a table.

I petted it and then got out my camera to take a picture. The old woman sitting next to the cat tried to coax her cat to wake up a bit for a picture. It obliged briefly before falling back to sleep. We were laughing at the cat. I imagine she was scolding it gently for being so lazy.

Now I'm back home, waiting for our air shipment. We were told that it would be delivered this afternoon around 5:30p. The ocean shipment will likely come on Friday. It seems that we are going from famine to feast. I really don't remember what we all packed. I'm sure we'll have some adjustment before the apartment absorbs everything. I don't think I need to say how much we are looking forward to getting our things.

Dinner at Wu Jin's Place

2007-04-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

Last night, we were invited to Wu Jin's for dinner along with some other people from the office. Wu Jin is one of Eric's co-workers and they now share an office space. She lives in Pudong with her husband and daughter. Penny came by and we took the metro together to Wu Jin's.

Eric decided to bring along our Wii game console, which was a brilliant idea. We set it up and put in Wii Sports, which was an immediate hit with everyone. Penny was playing tennis so energetically, I thought she would surely end up embedded in the television, the coffee table, or a wall. She even hit Eric on the head (not hard) with one of her enthusiastic serves. Here, QQ (Wu Jin's 8-year old daughter) and Wu Jin's father are bowling. The best was when we started the boxing and got people to box each other. QQ fought the computer. I fought Penny. Eric fought me. Wu Jin fought her husband. Grandfather fought Grandmother. I have some video of the boxing, which everyone found to be hilarious. You don't realize how silly you look. I know I look absolutely ridiculous and I make weird noises to boot.

In between bouts, QQ played a song on the guqin. Wu Jin has two guqins. One is the more traditional instrument and has a 5-note scale (do, re, me, fa, so) and the other has the more modern 7-note scale (do, re, me, fa, so, la, ti).

Dinner was excellent. There were 6 different dishes and then tons of dumplings. I peeked in the kitchen earlier and took a picture of the army of dumplings on the counter top.

I swear that this must have been only a third of the total number of dumplings. The rest must have been stashed in another part of the kitchen. We were served bowl after bowl of dumplings, vegetable ones and meat ones. Then, when you couldn't possibly eat more, the meal was concluded with sweet soup. We rolled ourselves back into the living room and sang some karaoke.

We headed home at around 9:30p. I'm surprised the metro didn't measurably slow down with all the dumplings in our bellies.

Cao Jia Du Flower Market

2007-04-21T21:01:00.000-07:00

The Cao Jia Du Flower Market is located across town from us, near Zhongshan Park and Jing'An Temple. I went there anyway. I took the metro to Zhongshan Park and walked from there to the flower market. I really should start wearing a pedometer because I don't really know how far I walked from the station to the flower market and I'd like to know so I can give better directions to people. It is a straight shot from the metro station; you just exit onto Changning Road and keep walking until you're there.

The flower market is in a building set back from the street behind a Friendship Store located on Changshou and Wanghangdu. It's easy to miss if you're not looking, though you know you're at the right place almost immediately because the air suddenly smells fresher, of flowers and greenery. I believe that the building has 3 floors, though I only went up to the second floor via a back stair way clogged with boxes. The building houses many vendors, each with an individual stall, selling potted plants, cut flowers, and bouquets.

I loved walking in the flower market. Every building, alley, and crevice in this city is a smoking zone despite signs that say otherwise. The flower market also has no smoking signs, but here, people actually seem to abide by them. The place smelled so green and fresh that I wanted to lie down in the middle of the floor. Don't worry, I didn't.

The first floor is all fresh flowers with a few places selling teddy bear bouquets. The second floor is all artificial flowers. I don't know what there is on the third floor. I stayed mostly on the first floor.

One stall had only orchids. They had pots of plants on shelves lining the outside of the stall. Inside, the floor was littered with brilliant purple blooms that the vendors were making into bouquets. I bought an aloe plant (or something similar) and some cut peonies for myself. I also bought a couple of potted daisy plants with orange and red striped blooms for a couple of women in Eric's office. I carefully tied the aloe plant in its bag and tucked it into my backpack. I carried the other plants since they seemed too fragile to put into my pack.

On the way out, I passed a rubble field of crumbling buildings standing knee-deep in debris from what must only have been other buildings in the neighborhood.

What struck me was that there were still people living there amidst the rubble and ruin. You have to wonder what the story is there. Where did the other people go? Where will these people go? What does the city have planned for this location? The landscape of Shanghai, like that of other cities in China, can change so rapidly. Out with the old, in with the new. The flower market I had just left had its old location torn down a couple of years ago to make way for a new venue. It migrated over here.

On the way back home, I bought some DVDs from a street vendor. Eric wanted to watch 'The Fantastic Four' movie and I found it. I got a good deal since the woman charged 5 kuai per movie (all the other vendors we've encountered want at least 10). It must be my winning smile. Once back in the metro station, I stood next to a woman who was carrying two small plastic shopping bags. The bags were wiggling and cheeping. I couldn't help but stare.

She allowed me to take some pictures. Each bag had either 3 or 4 chicks. They were wiggling too much for me to count. Needless to say, a cheeping bag draws a lot of stares on the metro.

I managed to get home with all my plants intact. That afternoon, we watched the new TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) movie that I had just bought. As for 'The Fantastic Four', it was worth 5 kuai, but probably not 10.

Chinese Hoofers

2007-04-18T20:06:00.000-07:00

I was planning on going to the gym this morning but instead I'm sitting here writing while a herd of 'engineers' are fixing something in my bathroom. The call I got from the front desk stated something cryptic and vague, like "The engineers are going to replace the light bulbs in your table. O.K.? Thank-you madam." Okay. I think my table is alright. I let in 3 engineers, who in turn let in 4 more engineers, 2 of which were bearing ladders. The cat is sleeping behind the couch and can't be bothered to investigate what is going on. Now, 2 more engineers are here, one with a metal suitcase and the other with some tubing. The living room has all the countertop contents of the master bath on the floor. I hear a great deal of generic noise, water running, some rapid Chinese chatter, and the sound of tools on pipes. I don't know what exactly they're doing -- routine maintenance I suppose, but it sounds like they're breaking something from the wall. Now all the engineers have left, leaving behind a tremendous mess. Thankfully the maids have just arrived.

Yesterday, I went to People's Square. I have a professional women's group event this evening and I don't want to spoil things by getting lost like I did on Monday. So, I thought I'd do some reconnaissance and see where exactly this place was. The event was going to take place at a the Radisson New World and the hotel's website stated that it was right by the People's Square metro stop. Indeed, they weren't lying. It certainly helped that the hotel is easy to spot because it's topped by a space ship (go look it up -- it really looks like a flying saucer landed permanently on top of the hotel). Next to the Radisson is the New World Shopping Center. When I got there, there was a crowd gathering outside the shopping center. In the middle of the crowd were dancers. Music was playing from a speaker system and then it stopped as a band stepped out onto a stage. I don't know what event this was or whether this is something done routinely. On stage were 3 men, one on drums, one on saxophone, and one on a keyboard.

People dancing in pairs and singly. The solo dancers seemed oblivious to the world, immersed in their own enjoyment. One older gentleman was dressed in a suit and reminded me of the Fatboy Slim's music video 'Weapon of Choice". Watch it if you have the chance. It's one of my favorite videos. I took a few short videos of the dancers, which I hope to put up on Youtube sometime. I love it. In America, if something like this happened, it would likely be with young, professional dancers and everyone in the crowd would be too embarrassed to join in, me included. I prefer to watch, though if the hoofer in the suit had asked me to dance, I don't think I could've refuse.

Sponges!!

2007-04-16T19:33:00.000-07:00

After a crappy day, it was wonderful to find you've received a package from America. With sponges inside! I had a hard time finding decent sponges here. They were poor quality. It is odd the sorts of things you crave when you can't have them. My beloved mother-in-law include a couple of sponges in the last Fedex she sent. We also got pictures of our new nephew, Wesley. Believe me, he's adorable. Better looking than sponges from America.

Other things I want besides sponges is Mexican food. I like Mexican food but it has never been my favorite cuisine. Now that I'm here, I so want a burrito and guacamole. Some women here have margarita nights so I might join them and see if there is decent food to go with those margaritas.

Another new thing I love (besides my sponges -- I might never unwrap them) is green tea. I bought a small baggie at Carrefour and I'm really enjoying it. Most of the green tea I've had has been pretty bitter and grassy. This stuff is much more subtle. It may be that I just like watching the leaves unfold in my cup.

Before and After. I didn't realize how much the leaves expand and dumped a lot of tea in my cup the first time.

Last night Mugsy and I stayed up late watching movies. Okay, just me since Mugsy was sound asleep under the covers. Today it is raining. In the dream I had last night, I was going to make chili for a friend. That sounds like an excellent idea for a rainy day. I'm going to scrounge around and see if I can't find all the ingredients.

Usually, I can't read my blog on its front page nor can I read any other blogs hosted on the same site. Sometimes though, I'll try to open it anyway. And sometimes, it actually comes through. It's such a pleasant surprise. When the window cracks open, I oftentimes rush to read my favorite blogs before it slams back shut.

China Days

2007-04-16T02:17:00.000-07:00

This past weekend and extending to today, I've been having what I refer to as "China Days". Days when I get so utterly frustrated living in China and having to deal with everything that entails. And I've only been here a month!

Shanghai has a population of about 20 million people. I think all 20 million of those people decided to follow and congregate around me all weekend. Xu Jia Hui, the part of Shanghai where we live, is one of the city's biggest shopping districts. The malls here are packed on weekends. Usually I can take this in stride, but this past weekend, it was driving me absolutely nuts. People pushing and shoving and elbowing their way in front of you for the cashier, the elevator, the escalator, the metro, taxis. People casually lighting up cigarettes anywhere and everywhere. People hawking up phlegm. Shopping for a 12RMB (1.50 USD) item and having to walk halfway across the mall floor to find a cashier (why can't each shop have their own cashier?). Fighting for space on the sidewalks with mopeds, bicycles, and cars. Dodging cars, buses, mopeds, trucks, bicycles and everything else with wheels when trying to cross the street. It's all been driving me crazy.

Today, I was going to meet with a bunch of other American women to tour a silk factory. The map made it look really straightforward. You take metro line 4, get off, walk along the street for a bit, then make a right turn, walk a bit, and make another right turn and you should be there. Not so easy. I got to the part where you get off the metro and walk along the street, but this metro station, unlike the others I had been to, has no English on its maps. You kind of have to guess what is where. After walking up and down that street for about an hour and a half, I gave up on finding the street I needed and simply got back on the metro. Even looking at the map, I still am not clear how I missed the street.

This evening, Eric is off on a business trip. I don't know when he'll be back and neither does he. He is scheduled to go to Taiwan. Today he just found out that he may also need to go to Dubai. We don't know yet. Two couriers stopped by, one about 3 hours before his flight left with his ticket to Taiwan, the other about an hour later with his passport. I don't think I need to say that we are both starting to lose our minds.

As if things couldn't get crazier, our household shipments are not coming this week as we had thought. The shipping company had not made the government deadline with the proper documents. Which isn't surprising since we keep getting different information about what documents are needed and then when we think we have submitted everything, they ask for something else. This has been going on for the past week and a half. Just today, we were asked for a letter confirming that we had an employment offer here. Then 3 hours later, we got the message that it was too late and we needed to try again later when Eric (and his passport) are back. I wonder if the officials here are just making stuff up as they go along. I better find my 4th grade school report on the planet Neptune in case they want that, too.

So, I don't think I need to say that I'm tired. Although it's only 6p, I'm feeling ready for bed. A better plan would be to go to the gym and then go to bed. I think I'll try for that one.

Don't Leave Your Mobile Phone Unattended

2007-04-12T18:57:00.000-07:00

This is what happens:

He snapped a nice picture of himself with the phone's camera and left it as the phone's background image. I think everyone should have the opportunity to have Eric's mug on their mobile phones.

Haochi and Xiangyang

2007-04-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

Last night, we were invited to Penny's for dinner. Penny is one of Eric's coworkers. She is a Chinese woman who in addition to speaking Mandarin and Shanghainese (the local Shanghai dialect) is also fluent in English. A coworker from the U.S. had been in Shanghai for a business trip last year and he had been invited to Penny's for dinner. She had made a microwave steamed fish that he raved about. Penny lives in Hong Qiao in an apartment she purchased a couple of years ago. Her place is warm and inviting. She has blond wood floors and blond wood furniture, which gives the place a spacious and airy feel. Here Penny is wearing her apron and preparing the dinner. The entire meal was prepared in about 30 minutes, including the rice. She prepared several dishes, including cooked greens (something similar to baby bok choy), chopped cucumber salad, scrambled eggs with tomato and scallion, barbecued chicken, and of course, steamed fish. The ingredients were simple: soy sauce, vinegar, salt, oil. She did most of the cooking in a wok or in the microwave.
It's amazing that such simple ingredients could produce such delicious results. Partly too, food prepared by other hands seems to always taste better. Haochi (delicious)! I feel inspired to try my hand at cooking fish. Penny has a market near her place where she buys fresh fish. The grocery near us has tanks of fish, too. I'll have to get my nerve up and my dictionary ready. Once when we were at Carrefour, we saw an especially lively fish jump out of the tank and flop on the floor.

I went to the April meet and greet for the American Women's Club of Shanghai (AWCS). Pretty self-explanatory, but it is a group for and by American expat women. According to one woman, there are about 500 members in Shanghai. It is rare to see all 500 members at any single event. The newcomers are put into Huan Ying groups (huan ying is mandarin for 'welcome'), which are sort of peer cohorts of women who arrive in Shanghai around the same time. These groups arrange to meet 3-4 times during the following month and is a way for people to figure out Shanghai. You have a group to commiserate with when things seem overwhelming and people who can help you learn how to cope in China. I'm looking forward to meeting more with these women.

The meeting place for the AWCS was at a place in the French concession area of Shanghai. Briefly, in the 1800's, the British established a settlement in Shanghai after the Opium War. The French, Americans, and Japanese each established their own concession areas. In the concession areas, the law of the occupying country took precedence over Chinese law. Foreign occupation of Shanghai endured until the early 1900's (1930's? 1940's?). Discussing Shanghai history in the depth it deserves is a topic for another day and another blog entry.

Anyway, this was the former French concession area. The French concession was, and still is, known for its beautiful tree-lined avenues. I had taken the metro to Changsu Road and walked down Huaihai Road and then turned down Xiangyang Road. Along Xiangyang Road, as with many smaller side streets, are stalls selling a variety of goods and services. Restaurants, bicycle repair, fruits, vegetables, shoes, shirts. I saw a stall with styrofoam boxes filled with water and panting fish next to a woman selling shrimp on a tray. On one street corner, someone was getting fresh chicken for dinner. It appeared that there were live chickens in a metal cages attached to a bicycle. (Living in Shanghai, you learn quickly that you can buy nearly anything from the back of a bicycle -- plants, fruit, shoes, chickens.)
You would pick out your favorite chicken and the woman would butcher it for you on the spot. The pictures I managed to take are a bit rushed since I snapped them as I was crossing the street. You don't want to lose concentration when you're crossing the street as you an be easily taken out by an impatient and / or distracted moped. I don't know what that feels like nor do I want to learn. I've had enough close encounters with illegally turning buses and taxis and kamikaze bicyclists.

Further on the street, I saw a man calming riding his bicycle while reading. Maybe they're directions. I don't know. I suppose that it probably isn't as worrisome as it seems since most people on the road don't seem to be paying
close attention to the road. Many are talking on their mobile phones. It doesn't matter how hyper vigilant you are, someone else will be distracted. Some things are true the world over.

Tonight I'm going to cook chicken (packaged from Carrefour -- not fresh from the street). Tomorrow, or the next day, I'm going to try my hand at buying a live fish. I'm going to find the proper phrases for 'No, I don't want to carry it home in a bucket' and 'Please clean this fish'. I hope it isn't still blinking when I'm eating it, like the fish Kevin ate in Japan. Right now, I am off to Watsons Pharmacy to buy hand sanitizer. I thought I'd share that bit of excitement with all of you.

Smile Kevin!!

2007-04-08T05:54:00.000-07:00

Smile Kevin! (Happy Belated Birthday!)

Blue Sky Weekend

2007-04-08T04:25:00.000-07:00

Shanghai counts its blue sky days, days where the air and sky is clear enough to see blue. It's one way they measure the success of their anti-pollution campaign. I don't know how many blue sky days Shanghai has had up until now, but this weekend was all blue sky. We had an enjoyable weekend. On Saturday, we went wall-climbing with our friend Penny. We love Penny because she is so laid-back and easy-going. Very little fazes her and she's game for just about anything. We invited her to go climbing with us and she agreed to join us though she's never done it before. It's been nearly 10 years since Eric and I last went climbing, so we had to relearn how to do it all over again. Eric found a climbing gym at Shanghai Stadium, which is only 1 metro stop away from us. Easy peasy.
Penny came dressed on khaki slacks and a short-sleeve blouse with low heels, which didn't deter her from joining in. The shoes didn't matter since we all rented climbing shoes.
We all tried climbing the same wall 3 times. Eric made it to the top all 3 times and Penny and I made it about half way. Eric then attempted a more advanced wall that was taller with smaller handholds and made it about a third of the way up. There's Penny on the left. Can you tell who has the camera most of the time? Eric and I plan to return to the gym and climb again, even if Penny can't join us.

On Friday, I took the metro to Zhongshan Park. I like to visit Carrefour at least once a week to replenish our kitchen and other household supplies. During the week, I shop at whatever fruit stands I come upon to buy more fruit and vegetables as I need them or I go to the market downstairs to get a few items. I'm trying to see if how many places I can get to via the metro. Supposedly there's a Carrefour by Zhongshan Park since that is an expat haven. I didn't find the Carrefour then, but I did find a wet market and watched dancers at the park.
A wet market is what people here call a street market where you can buy meat. These places usually sell produce as well. Some of these wet markets have live chickens that they will butcher on the spot for you. I have yet to find a live chicken place. This place I found had tables of seafood, poultry, pork, and beef. I walked around it and simply decided to buy baking potatoes and sweet potatoes. Food bought at street markets is cheaper than at places like Carrefour, though you can't be as sure of the cleanliness of the place. If I'm not planning on peeling the food, I give it a quick soak in a bleach solution. As for meat, I am not yet comfortable with buying meat from a wet market. On a slightly related note, I did find dried beans at an expat-oriented grocery store.

I knew Carrefour was not far from the metro stop, but I had neglected to write down anything specific, like an address or a cross street (what's new). I ended up wandering around until I got lost (again, what's new). I then asked a traffic officer where Zhongshan Park was. Zhongshan Park is sizable and an easily recognized landmark and it's right by the metro station. I know just enough Chinese to ask where someplace is. My pronunciation must be suspect because the officer asked me to write out where I wanted to go. The only written Chinese I am capable of are the number '1', '2', and '3'. I'll teach you right now. Grab a pen or a pencil and a sheet of paper. Go ahead; I can wait. Now, make a short horizontal line:

Excellent. That is the number '1' in Chinese. Now for the number '2'. See how made the '1'? Following the same technique, make 2 horizontal lines, one on top of the other:

Beautiful. You're a fast learner. O.K. Looks like you have the technique down. Here's how you make number '3'. Make 3 horizontal lines, again, one on top of the other.

Fantastic. Now you know how to write about as much Chinese as I can. Needless to say, for me to write 'Zhongshan Gongyuan' was beyond my abilities. I handed the traffic officer my notepad and pen and he wrote it out for me, sounding out each character carefully for my edification. Zhong Shan Gong Yuan.
Then, I spent about 5 minutes being schooled by the traffic officer on the proper way to say 'park'.

me: "Zhongshan Gongyuan zai nar?" (Where is Zhongshan park?)
traffic officer (TO): "Gong yuan"
me: "Gong yuan"
TO: "Gong yuan"
me: "Gong yuan"
TO: "Gong yuan"

Repeat a few more times. He did point me in the right direction and even followed me across the street to make sure I knew.

While at the park, I decided to walk through and see what there was to see before boarding the metro back home. All over Shanghai, and especially in the parks, you see people participating in all sorts of activities. Tai chi with a group or solo, people walking alternately forwards and backwards, and on that day in Zhongshan Park, dancing. There was music playing over the P.A. system. The park even has these coat tree poles. There was
a crowd gathered there to watch the people dancing. I took a short movie. People were dancing in pairs and a few were dancing solo. I don't mind getting lost. I don't have any appointments to keep and there's always something interesting you find that make getting lost something to look forward to. I never did find that Carrefour. I'll have to go back again and look. With the address this time.

Beijing

2007-04-01T00:37:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Eric had a trade show he needed to attend in Beijing. I decided to tag along. Once one of the women at Eric's office learned that I planned to visit Beijing, she kindly organized a driver for us and a brief sightseeing tour. (Thank-you Wu Jin!)

We left Shanghai Thursday morning and landed early afternoon in Beijing. Beijing is about 900 miles north of Shanghai. We had a driver pick us up from the airport and bring us to our hotel. The driver then took us to the Forbidden City. He dropped us off and (we thought) agreed to pick us up there when we called him. Unfortunately, the Palace Museum ticket booth was closed (they have summer hours and winter hours -- we are still on winter hours) and we weren't able to go inside the Forbidden City. We instead walked down to Tian'Anmen Square. We walked a circuit around the square. We couldn't see Mao's tomb as it was closed
for renovations. When we returned to the drop-off point, we called our driver, who, for some unknown reason, couldn't or wouldn't return to pick us up. Between the two of us, we remembered enough landmarks to walk back to the hotel. The walk was short and enjoyable.

When I was a child, I would drop pebbles into a pond and watch the water radiating outward in a series of concentric circles. Beijing is organized like that, with the Forbidden City the pebble at the heart of the city. There are now (I think) 7 ring roads extending out from the Forbidden City. Our hotel is located within the inner ring and is quite close to the Forbidden City. Walking back to the hotel was actually a blessing as it helped me orient myself on the streets for the walks I was planning on taking the next day.

Friday, Eric needed to work, so I spent the day wandering Beijing. I walked to back to the Forbidden City, planning on visiting the Palace Museum. I took a circuitous way there, though not on purpose. I saw a beautiful Catholic church I would have otherwise missed.
Once at the Palace Museum, I could understand why their ticket office closed so early. The place is enormous and you could easily spend a good 2-3 hours wandering the place. I took a ton of pictures, too many to post here, but I put them on my Flickr. Not surprisingly, the place was full of tourists. There were parts of the Forbidden City that were under renovation, also not surprising, since Beijing is getting ready for the 2008 Olympics. Despite that, I really enjoyed walking around. There wasn't a map available (aside from the one you could buy in the gift shop) so I got lost a bit. Nothing unusual there for me. As I was wandering through, I thought about all the people who built the place, the artisans who painted the roof arches, the craftsmen who carved the rail posts, and the people who lived there. All
around Beijing you see similar curved and painted rooflines. Even the toll booth roof has it.

Once I was finished walking through the Forbidden City, I walked back to the hotel and took a brief break. I then headed back to the streets and walked down to the Hong Qiao Pearl Market. Walking through Beijing makes me appreciate Shanghai all the more. Beijing is a gritty, working class city. A sort of Chicago to Shanghai's Los Angeles. Every few yards (or meters -- China is metric), I would hear someone hawking up phlegm and then spit on the ground. Every Few Yards. I see / hear less of that in Shanghai. Do I need to say how nasty that is? Same thing when we visited the Great Wall. I actually caught some spit on my coat collar on the Great Wall. I didn't notice it until Eric told me and then he tried to ease my disgust by trying to convince me that he was the one who spit on me (this is why I love him so much). I'm glad I had my head and face wrapped in a scarf. I have no idea how Beijing will be ready for the Olympics next year. Everyone spits, the subway stations I saw were poorly lit and small, and the street vendors are hyper-aggressive to foreigners.

The Hong Qiao Market is 5 floors of all sorts of crap. Electronics, clothes, shoes, purses, tchotchkes, and pearls. I enjoy browsing. After walking through the market, I took a taxi back to the hotel, ready for a rest.

The next day, we went to the Great Wall of China. We went to the Badaling section, which is well-preserved and a popular drop-off spot for tourists (read: crowded). It was extremely windy. We fought the wind and walked up and down the Great Wall. We took the 'sliding cars' down, which dumped us near a small
bazaar, where people were selling snacks and souvenirs. Further down was a man with a camel that you could have your picture taken with. Then we were in the bear park. There were a few enclosures with black bears, who were obviously accustomed to tourists. You could buy a dish of cut up apples or tofu for 5 RMB and feed the bears. We were scheduled to see the Ming Tombs after the Great Wall, but we decided to skip that and go on to the airport. We were tired and ready to go. After walking all over Beijing, I had had my fill of Chinese antique architecture. I'm sure I could spend days around the Beijing area looking at museums and tombs and other points of interest. I would like to see the Great Wall at some of the other, more remote, access points. Perhaps when it is warmer. I hear that further in the spring, the Great Wall is beautiful. One part is known for the profusion of yellow flowers that bloom on the mountain. Now, it is still winter and the place looks barren and forbidding. I can't imagine what life must have been like for the soldiers who had to patrol the wall when it was an active border.

What struck us the most about this trip were not the things we had seen, though they were remarkable, but the fact that it didn't seem odd or unusual that we were going to the Great Wall or that we were going to the Forbidden City. It seemed as normal of a thing to do as visiting the Lincoln Memorial on a trip to Washington, D.C. It's probably all part of the expat experience.

Today is coming to a close and I am ready for bed. We had thunder showers today. I wasn't sure at first whether we had thunder or fireworks. We saw fireworks going off as we were landing in Shanghai last night. I think I am coming down with a cold. I'm going to hunt for some Zicam in the medicine chest and head for bed.

Simple Pleasures

2007-03-25T18:54:00.000-07:00

Today the sky is bright, though overcast. Yesterday afternoon was in an odd sort of permanent twilight, probably a combination of smog and clouds. The temperatures are rising and we don't need heavy winter wear much. This past weekend, we did go to one of the many 'copy markets' here in Shanghai and buy some warmer coats, partly because of the spring sales and also because we are going to Beijing for the weekend. Beijing is supposed to be cold. Keep in mind we are now thin-skinned southerners who have gotten accustomed to the mild Atlanta, Georgia winters so that 'cold' takes on a different meaning than our childhoods in Minnesota and upstate New York. 50 degrees is cold. 60 degrees is chilly. Lower 70's also might require a light sweater.

A dollar can go a long ways here in China. At the copy market, we bought 4 coats (2 winter, 2 light jackets), 3 men's dress shirts, and 5 ties all for around 120 US dollars. Not bad. We returned to the market we had seen the other day when we out for lunch with our Chinese teacher's friend. The alley next to the metro station was full of vendors as was the street next to it. People were selling the usual purses, watches, and DVDs. Places like this are excellent for just people watching. If you are intent on buying things other than DVDs and CDs, you're probably better off at a place like the copy market we had been to earlier. We got back on the metro and went to People's Square. We ended up in a park near the People's Square park with the Shanghai Museum. This park had a mini amusement park with a carousel and a few other rides, including bumper cars. For 5 RMB (about 60 cents, US) a person, we had to do it. I took a short video of the bumper cars. It appeared that the people in the cars were carefully trying not to hit each other. That changed once we got into the ring.
That was a lot of fun; the best 5 RMB we've spent.

Serendipity

2007-03-20T17:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we met with a friend of our Chinese teacher, Charlene. Kelly is about our age and lives in Hong Kong. She grew up in Taiwan and moved to the U.S. when she was 15. Her family is good friends with Charlene. We met at her hotel, which is in a part of Shanghai we hadn't seen yet. The people at her hotel recommended a Shanghainese restaurant nearby. We had to struggle through a packed street market in order to get to the place. I think Eric and I will definitely have to go back. There are people selling all kinds of goods and the street food looks so good. We saw a man carrying a monkey and another carrying an air conditioner. I love stumbling across those places. The weather yesterday and today is beautifully sunny. Rain is predicted for Saturday, but in the meantime, it should be clear.

I am hoping to find a good place where I can find dried beans. The only ones I have found so far look like black turtle beans, but are green on the inside and taste like lima beans. There's a couple of 'expat' stores that I'm going to check out. Here's to hoping.

Technical Difficulties

2007-03-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

I'm having difficulty lately accessing my blog front page. I can still get to the Dashboard and edit / create posts, but I can't see the blog itself. If you're in the U.S. and also can't get to it, let me know via email.

The Art of the Elbow (or how to survive a line in China)

2007-03-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

One thing I've learned in the brief time I've lived here in China is that people rarely line up neatly. Rather, everyone pushes their way to the front of the line and if you want to make it through, you need to learn to shove. Here is where all the skills I learned playing rugby come in handy. Push, shove, elbow, straight arm, push, elbow, shove, straight arm, elbow.

Yesterday Eric and I stuffed ourselves into a metro car with what seemed to be a quarter of the city's population. We were packed so tightly, you could not slip a single sheet of paper between the people. There was no real need to hold onto anything as the car lurched forward since you literally could not possibly move anywhere. Thank goodness that all I had in my backpack was a soft coat and not anything fragile, like a priceless Ming vase; it surely would have been crushed into oblivion. We only had to ride for 2 stops and then had to struggle out the door since we were the only ones getting out at that stop. You could almost hear an audible 'POP!' as we freed ourselves.

On Saturday afternoon, we met with a friend from Eric's office to go up the Pearl Tower. There is an observation deck up there that affords a wonderful bird's eye view of the city. In the base of the tower is the Shanghai Municipal History Museum. The museum shows traditional life in the city and the history of the foreign concessions in Shanghai. I recommend that anyone visiting Shanghai should do this. It is really quite fascinating.

The entrance to the tower was decorated with red lanterns. A uniformed band was playing 'Auld Lang Syne.' The crowd was fairly light. Penny told us that on holidays, you can wait in line for an hour in order to take an elevator up.

It was really cool to see the city of Shanghai from this perspective. In the foreground is the Bund. From this height, cars and people were tiny. You could see sparks from new construction as workers welded.

Digital cameras are ideal for a person like me. I tend to take tons of pictures, often of the same thing. If you look at the picture files on the computer here, you'll see hundreds of the pictures of the cat, a dozen or so pictures of some eggs, scores of pictures of grass and so on. I don't profile all the pictures I take here, but most of them end up on my Flickr page. Check them out. The link is at the right: S Flickr page. I need to really sit down and organize my Flickr. I should probably start by taking a break from uploading more pictures.

On Sunday, we visited the Yu Garden Bazaar. Yu Garden is a garden (duh) with teahouse set in it. It is known for the zigzag bridge leading to the teahouse. Around Yu Garden is a bazaar. The bazaar is 4 floors of stalls selling anything you can imagine: socks, cell phones, calculators, underwear, jewelry, kitchen sponges. Shanghai people think of it as a tourist trap and it is. But it still fun to walk around there.

Later this week, we'll likely go clothes shopping. We don't have enough warm clothing. Though the air shipment delivery has been estimated at 15-20 days and the ocean at 6-8 weeks, we had not really considered when the countdown would begin. In our defense, no one really told us. Right now, we are waiting on our residency paperwork. Once that goes through, then the shipments will get sent and then, finally, we can start the countdown. I believe that both shipments are currently being held in Atlanta waiting for the go-ahead from the Chinese government. One other thing we need to consider is the length of our visa permits. I have a 60-day visa and Eric has a 30-day visa. If our paperwork gets delayed past the beginning of April, Eric will need to leave the country for a few days and come back in order to reset the clock on his visa. Fortunately, he has a multi-entry visa, which means he can exit and re-enter the country however many times until the visa expires. Here's to hoping the paperwork goes through quickly.

Why I need a bun today

2007-03-16T01:28:00.000-07:00

Another rainy day. I spent this morning working on my resume and surfing the internet looking for jobs at American companies in Shanghai. One of Eric's coworkers knows a local headhunter and is willing to pass my resume on to her. That done, I went down to the apartment business center to print out a sign that says "Don't let the cat out" in Chinese for the maids.

小心,别让猫出去.

See the third character from the right? That is the character for 'cat'. I think it looks like a cat with ears on top and a tail to the left.

The computer in the business center is a challenge since the screen is mostly in Chinese (I know, what did I expect being in China). After waiting for 20 frustrating minutes, I gave up on the printer producing anything but noise.

I went back to the apartment and did laundry again. Our wardrobes are quite limited since much of it is still in transit. I attempted to iron some shirts with our odd little ironing board. I set the iron on it and the thing immediately collapsed. I picked the sad thing up and found 2 screws on the floor. Even a its highest setting, the board is so low that I need to stoop to use it. Mind you that I am about 5 feet tall, about the height of the average Chinese, so I have no idea who this ironing board was built for.

Going to the kitchen to make a sandwich, I discovered that the bread had turned into a science experiment. I suppose I could keep it around and hang moldy slices to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. On a positive note, that provided a good excuse to go to the bakery and get more bread and sweet buns.

In other news, my sister just had her baby on March 8. Little Juvon Choi Mitchell weighed in at 7 lb 6 oz. His big brother, Jamar, gets to hold him (with help). Jamar likes to give his baby brother kisses, but when he's finished, he's finished. Jamar pushes the baby away and goes onto more interesting things. Not unexpected behavior for an 18 month old. So, that's one baby here and one to go. Eric's brother's wife is due any day now. We got pictures of the nursery via email. The room is a beautiful shade of yellow. The color reminds me of the color I had in my kitchen in Indianapolis -- lemon parfait.

Not So Simple Tasks

2007-03-14T19:10:00.000-07:00

Our apartment in Shanghai came equipped with a combo washer dryer. For those of you unfamiliar with this type of appliance, it is simply a machine designed to both wash and dry your clothes. Simple enough.

Washing clothes is easy enough, though the first time I washed a load, I had water everywhere. Someone had neglected to tighten the water supply line in the cupboard.

Drying clothes is a new challenge. First, you need to remember to turn the water supply off, otherwise, you end up washing your clothes again. I forgot to do that once and ended up with a hot wet mess. Even if done correctly, the clothes take forever to properly dry. There is no vent like with a dryer (I suppose that's impractical since it needs to hold water in order to wash), so clouds of steam come out the front. I find it easier to use a Chinese-style dryer, which is just a large drying rack you set out on the balcony. Thankfully, the apartment also came equipped with one. Hanging clothes out to dry is a very Chinese thing. Everywhere you go, you will see clothes hanging out of windows drying, either on lines or poles. I'll have to take a picture sometime.

These past two days have been cold and rainy. I did some wash yesterday and had to set up the drying rack in the bathroom in order to hang up clothes to dry. Today is the kind of grey, dreary day that compels you back to bed with a cup of hot tea and pastry. In fact, I just had a cup of hot tea and a pastry. Mugsy is curled in my lap. I gave him a bit of my pastry, which he ate with his usual relish.

I have a sweet tooth and cakes and sweet breads are a weakness. Unfortunately, there are good bakeries in abundance and the goods are fairly cheap (about 50-60 cents for a raisin bun or a pain au chocolat). Unfortunate in that this is easy temptation. Yesterday, I set out from the apartment to visit Bread Talk for some raisin buns. (I don't know why it's called 'Bread Talk'. I saw another place called 'Juice Talk'.) Bread Talk is located in a mall which is easily identified by a large glass globe.

Our apartment is near an intersection where 5 streets converge. Zhao Jia Bang Road is a main thoroughfare with several lanes of traffic. There is a overpass pedestrian walkway (where this picture was taken), which we use to get to the building with the big glass globe (we are situated kitty-corner from the globe). Of course I didn't take the simple way of getting to Bread Talk. I crossed the street from another direction and decided to cross again at another point and take the scenic route to this mall and to Bread Talk. Nearly an hour and what seemed to be several kilometers later, I was seriously lost. Thankfully taxis are plentiful and cheap. When I got tired of wandering in the drizzle and was ready for the comfort of Bread Talk, I hailed one and got a ride back home.

Once you get off the main streets and onto the smaller, quieter side streets, you can easily lose your way. I had a hard time pinpointing any landmarks. It's hard to memorize street and business names when they're in Chinese. (Did that character have a hat or a tail? Both?) I found a small market and bought some fruit. They spoke very little English and I speak very little Chinese. Along the streets are tiny shops, hardly bigger than a closet, each filled with merchandise for sale. Cell phone stall next to a shoe stall, next to one filled with socks next to one selling underwear. Almost anything you can imagine can be found. If it's not there, it's likely that the proprietors know where or who to go to. Lots of restaurants serving noodles and set dinners. Next time, when I have my dictionary, I plan to visit one of those places and have a meal.

I doubt I could find that little market again. I don't have their address and I couldn't find a street name nor did I remember to take my mini dictionary so I could ask for their address. Though I suppose that it isn't that big a deal that I won't likely be able to find that place again. Fruit stalls are plentiful.

For my next walk, I am going to try to find the church that I see from my balcony.

Cat out of Quarantine

2007-03-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

Mugsy got out of quarantine Monday. A courier dropped him off at around 11A. I signed for the delivery of 'one lovely cat' (really, that was on the form). After an hour of tiptoeing around our new place, he settled right in. His fur felt dusty and he seemed like he lost weight, but no worse for the wear.

We had a bugger of a time finding a proper litter pan for Mugsy. I bought a small shallow one at Carrefour, which was all I could find. Then we were at Parkson and happened across some decent-sized ones with covers. Perfect. Mugsy is a smart cat so I had no problem introducing a covered litter pan to him.

He has been quite happy and much more affectionate than usual. I assume it's because we are finally resuming a normal routine after a really topsy-turvy past month. Right now he is curled up in my lap, hoping for a nibble on my bun and a sip of my coffee.

On another note, I finally found the language settings for this blog. Since we get our internet through China Telecom, the default setting changed to Chinese. Because it was in Chinese, I accidentally deleted a section of the blog. Needless to say, I was extremely frustrated. My new mobile phone is a Chinese one and a kind woman at Eric's office configured it for me so that it reads in English. Heaven help me if the thing crashes because it'll reboot in Chinese.

Sights and Sounds

2007-03-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we spent riding the Metro. We took it to Shanghai Stadium and IKEA. We went to a metro stop near Eric's workplace, trying to figure out which line closest (not line 4, which was the one we were on). We then rode to People's Square and walked down Nanjing Road to the Bund. And then, from Nanjing Road back home.

There's always something going on here. On the street corner of North Cao Xi Road and West Zhong Shan Road near Shanghai Stadium, we saw this man selling rabbits and hamsters to passersby. Look closely at the picture. There's a hamster in a wheel on top of the stack. Here's a man buying a white rabbit for his girlfriend.

Further on down the street were people selling corn on the cob and hot baked sweet potatoes, cakes, watches and jewelry, umbrellas. All sorts of things. That sort of thing I expected. I was surprised to see people vending pets on the street corner.

The metro is easy to use and cheap. It does get crowded and you really need to push your way onto and off the cars. There was one station where my purse got caught on someone exiting and I simply could not move through the crush of people. Eric needed to grab me and pull me through before the doors closed. At another stop, we exited with about 85% of the other people on the metro. I was again wedged, this time by 2 women with several large shopping bags and again needed Eric to pull me through. I saw one man clinging to a pole in the car, trying desperately not to get swept away by the tide of people exiting the car.

We also went to People's Square again. We walked down Nanjing Road to the Bund. The weather is starting to improve. The sun was out and the day was quite nice. I'd like it to be a bit warmer, but I suppose in a few months I'll be whining for cooler weather.

We just got Mugsy out of quarantine. More on that later.

Health Physicals

2007-03-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Eric and I went to the Immigration Health office to get our physicals for our residency visas. We were instructed not to eat after 8:30A the day of the examination. A very lovely woman from Eric's office, Penny, came with us to help translate. When there, we had to complete a form and then present 3 passport-sized photos, our passports, and high-quality copies of our passports. We then sat in a waiting room with a large round table in the center with an aquarium set in the middle.
When our numbers were called, our information was entered into a computer. We were then ushered into the examination area where we were instructed to remove our 'top underwear' and put on these examination robes. Don't I look lovely. At least the robe covered everything. We were also given shoes covers.

We were shuttled from room to room. First we got weighed, had blood drawn, then a chest x-ray, eye test, EKG, blood pressure, an ultrasound. We did not need to provide a urine sample. It was very efficient.

Here is part of my health form (no one needs to know my weight :) ) and my EKG.

The nurses check your papers and guide you from room to room. The doctors speak little English and tersely say 'lie on table' or simply pat it. If you've ever had an ultrasound, then I don't need to tell you about the gel. The woman had a squeeze bottle of conducive gel, which she squirted liberally over your abdomen. When she finished, she handed me a single paper towel to wipe myself off. I just used my examination robe. Eric met me as I was going into the EKG room and laughed as he told me that this would be fun. I've never had an EKG before, but I thought that you'd have a bunch of little round sticky probes stuck onto you. Maybe I watch too much television. The woman put a clamp on one ankle and one wrist and then put several probes on your chest. The chest probes had little bulbs so they suctioned onto you. It looked ancient, like it came from a Soviet yard sale. All in all, it was the fastest medical examination I've ever had.

We'll get something in the mail in about a week. We got there at about 12:45/1P. We left at around 3P and finally had some lunch.

Just Pictures

2007-03-07T21:38:00.000-08:00

Just pictures today.

The Grandmas talking to Kevin on the mobile.

Eric showing off his vitamin C lozenge.

Relaxing on the couch. The best thing to when you get a foot of snow overnight.

Dan and Julie Lindh.

Typical view of Robert Redford.

Gibby's Diner.

Men at work.

Eric giving me a ride on the dolly while the movers were at lunch.

Farewell dinner with our beloved Chinese teacher, Xiao Lin Zhou.

One last hike up Stone Mountain.

Mugsy and I camping out at the house.

New Year's lanterns strung up in the Grand Gateway mall near our apartment in Shanghai.

The ironing board that came with our apartment. Really, that is as high as it goes.

Toilet paper package. I'm not sure what this is supposed to convey.
Despite what the front says, the package bottom states that this is made in China, not America.

Dragonfruit and bananas. A dragonfruit looks like a pink, fleshy kohlrabi. The inside is white with little black seeds scattered throughout. The texture is much like that of a kiwi, but a bit creamier with the taste being sweet rather than tart.

Not just any kind of bananas, but Doritos brand bananas. Who ever said Doritos were bad for you?

Odds and Ends

2007-03-05T16:49:00.000-08:00

It's Tuesday morning and I finally see the sun. Our last visit over the first of the year was cold as it is now. Lately, the cold has been combined with rain and wind. I'm having a quiet morning eating carrot bread (white bread with shredded carrot in it) spread thickly with butter (difficult to achieve much finesse with a spoon) with a bowl of tea (no mugs -- only big bowls and small bowls). The kitchen is furnished with a basic set of dishes. 4 dinner plates, 4 salad plates, 1 wok, 1 pot, 1 Dutch oven, 1 rice cooker, 1 toaster, 1 coffee maker, 1 microwave, 1 knife, 1 pancake turner. Instead of tea cups or mugs, I have 4 small tea bowls without handles. There are no butter knives or western-style metal spoons. Rather, there are 4 Chinese ceramic spoons and 4 sets of chopsticks.

Among the odds and ends tucked into our suitcases was a large spoon Eric had left in the dishwasher and 1 glass drinking beaker. I had rolled my eyes at tucking the single sad spoon into my suitcase but now, I am grateful for it. Right now I am using it as a multi-tool of sorts. Butter knife, whisk, fork, spoon.

I brought an odd assortment of items from my pantry back in Atlanta. Maple syrup, a bottle of my favorite salad dressing, baking powder, a nearly full bottle of vanilla extract, some miscellaneous spices. I don't really know why I brought the box of kosher salt. I also tucked in a couple of pans I had bought at a discount place in Atlanta. I hadn't thought about food preparation when the movers came to pack up everything, so I neglected to hold any pans or utensils back and had them all put in the ocean shipment. We've been to a nearby grocery here and also to Carrefour (so-called French Wal-Mart). There are many other things I wish I knew to tuck into my bag before I got here. I haven't yet found a baking aisle with supplies like flour and baking soda. I suppose that I'll figure out where all this stuff is in time. In the meantime, excellent bakeries are plentiful and cheap here.

Also found in our luggage, leg supports for our bed frame. Which is in storage along with the bed. On an unrelated note, Eric got back some odd change when we were shopping.

Look closely at the first picture. These coins, despite being about the same size, are not the same. On the right is a 1 cent Chinese coin. Oddly enough, the other coin is Jamaican. Makes you wonder how a Jamaican coin managed to make it over here in China. Speaking of money, I got a 1 cent bill the other day. You heard me. Paper pennies.

[Oops. Correction: this is a 10 cent bill, not a 1 cent bill.]

Last Days and (finally!) Arrival

2007-03-04T19:15:00.000-08:00

Thursday was our last day in the U.S. Our flight was scheduled to depart early Friday morning. We planned to close up the house that afternoon and spend the night in a hotel near the airport.

Thursday day was, not surprisingly, busy. I had spent the better part of Wednesday night tucking in odd things into all the bags and then carefully weighing them on the bathroom scale. The next day I lugged all the suitcases downstairs and lined them up in the kitchen so I could systematically go through the upstairs rooms and make sure they were all clear.

Mugsy was scheduled to be picked up by the pet service people at around noon. The woman with the pet service was about an hour late because she got lost. Our house is located on West Court. 'West' is the name of the street. Oftentimes, people think 'Court' is the name of the street and that the address is W. Court Street. Which is what happened with the pet lady. She arrived about an hour late. I had just bundled Mugsy into his carrier and got him out the door when I got a call from Eric telling me that someone was coming to see the house. Eric had the van that day and was hoping to get home in time to pick me up so that the people could view the house without me there. It was pouring rain outside so a nice walk around the block was out of the question (the umbrella was carefully packed in one of the suitcases -- springtime is rainy in Shanghai).

I spent a frantic 20 minutes picking up around the house and tossing out the cat litter box before the visiting realtor and client were at the door. We were not expecting them so quickly. I politely excused myself and spent the next 40 minutes in the garage. About 5 minutes after they were finished looking at the house and on their way out, Eric arrived home.

With that out of the way, we walked through the house to make sure we got everything. We met with our realtor later that afternoon to give her our keys and garage door openers. After that, we loaded up the van and headed down to the hotel to spend our last night in the U.S.

Our flight was scheduled to leave at about 7A. The first leg would take us to Chicago and then from Chicago to Shanghai. Mugsy would fly ATL to Amsterdam and then Amsterdam to China.

We checked into our flight bright and early on Friday. Our heaviest bags were at 69 lb (just under the 70 lb max) and the lightest was 50 lb. Atlanta had some rainstorms on Thursday and the midwest had been pounded with snowstorms. Not surprisingly, our flight to Chicago was delayed, which meant that we'd miss our connecting flight to Shanghai and would likely have to wait another night for the next flight out. Fortunately, the woman at the United desk was able to get us onto a flight to San Francisco where we could catch another flight to Shanghai. When we landed in San Francisco, all the people who had to catch a connecting international flight, and there were a lot on that flight, were instructed to go to a particular podium. There, our passports and boarding passes were checked and then we packed onto a shuttle to drive us a few hundred feet to the international terminal. We hurried to our plane and finally were able to take a deep breath and relax. Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, we crossed the International Date Line and the 2nd became the 3rd and Friday melted into Saturday. Night never came on that flight as we were flying continually west . I slept in fits and starts. Eric was able to pass out for much of the flight.

The Pudong airport was much calmer than when we had arrived back in December and the line to move through customs was short (relatively) and moved quickly. We waited a long time at the baggage carousel. We worried that since we had a last minute flight change, that our bags were somewhere in luggage limbo. This past December, Eric had flown to Hong Kong and had encountered the same situation. His flight to Chicago had been delayed and he had been transferred to another carrier (Continental) to Hong Kong. His luggage had been held at the Atlanta airport by the previous carrier (United) instead of being handed over to Continental. I had to drive to the airport, pick up the suitcase at the United office and wheel it 20 feet over to the Continental office in order for the suitcase to be sent to Eric in Hong Kong. I had nightmares of something similar happening to our bags, though we had stayed with the same carrier. My worries were unnecessary as all 5 of our checked bags finally showed up.

Eric's new boss was kind enough to send a driver with a minivan to haul us to our new place. Finally, we were home. Needless to say, we slept soundly that night.

Call me Ishmael and why 'Garbage Day' is the best day

2007-02-27T11:34:00.000-08:00

Here's our lovely rental minivan, Moby Dick. So called because it is a big, white whale. How creative are we? We are allowed 5 70-lb suitcases (Eric is allowed 1 more than I am since he has many more frequent flyer miles than I) and we are definitely going to need all 5. We will also have our carry-on pieces. All that will surely be enough to fill the belly of this beast. Eric, surprisingly, loves the minivan. He has been talking of getting one someday and doing some crazy 'Pimp my Ride' nonsense in the back, like wood paneling. Maybe a sauna and a fireplace.

We are finishing packing (or more accurately, 'me' and 'cramming') our suitcases. I would say that we are 97% packed. We have 2 large suitcases finished (each weighting about 68 lb). Right now I am working on finishing filling 2 more, both currently at around 55 lb each.

I don't know what it is about cats and containers. It seems if there is an open container or a cupboard, the cat will be in there. Somehow he is able to sense if he is supposed to be there, because then, he is absolutely not interested. An open suitcase is an obvious feline temptation, even if it filled with sharp-cornered objects, as this one was. I'm nearing the point of packing where all that's left are odd bits and pieces that you don't really wish to dispose of, yet there's no logical way to pack them (as if my packing process is logical). Mostly, I suppose, is that I am nearing the end of my patience (plus I am really tired today -- we got a 1am call from Shanghai), so I don't really care about a packing system anymore.

Today was 'Maid Day' and 'Garbage Day', both holidays in my household. I am not by nature a very tidy person, nor am I a very organized person. I tend to collect odd bits of paper on which I have scribbled myself little notes (ask Eric about the receipt from the late 1990's on which I had written a list of the top recommended sports bras from some now-defunct women's health publication -- he thought it so funny, he mailed it to his mother). So, being the kind of person that I am, junk tends to accumulate. That, in addition to the movers packing, me packing, Eric packing, me painting, and a partridge in a pear tree, meant that the house looked like a Category 5 storm had passed through.

I had no idea that dust kittens proliferate like Tribbles. Without the bed to hide under, they sat there on the open floor with a seeming sneer. I am so happy to see them gone. The garbage people have just gone through the neighborhood. Lately, I've taken to peeping at them from behind the curtains to see if they'll really take all the crap we put on the curb. So far, the answer has been 'yes'. We are pretty much finished with disposing of junk. I brought a last load to Goodwill a couple of days ago and we managed to make the most of this garbage day.

I think that tomorrow will actually be a free day. No appointments, no schedules. I can't wait.

End of a very looooong week

2007-02-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

This is all that remains of my car -- a license plate. We just sold one of the cars yesterday. The other one went today.

We got back from upstate New York on Sunday evening. Monday we spent organizing everything in the house (haphazardly). Tuesday, the movers came to pack up everything. We had been given 3 days for packing everything but the movers, once they had surveyed the house, said that they could do it in a day. As it turns out, it was a very long day. They arrived at around 9 am and didn't leave until 9:30/10:00 that evening. 12 hours. 12 looooooong hours. Even though we didn't lift any boxes ourselves, we were totally exhausted by the end of the day. We hadn't really planned well. It was 10:30 at night, we had no bed, no blankets, no pillows, and most of our clothes were gone. We sat down and called up all the nearby hotels. No vacancies! On a Tuesday night! Grrrr. We finally found a place near Eric's workplace. On the way there, I realized that I had done a brilliant thing: I had forgotten to set aside a coat and had them all put in our ocean shipment. Daytime temps are about 50-60 degrees in Shanghai (much like here in Georgia) -- in other words, I'd likely need a jacket. And since I had consigned the coat closet to the ocean shipment, I wouldn't see any of my jackets until summer. I had a gift certificate for the Gap stores, which was a surprise gift from Eric (probably a 'Thank-you' for not twisting off his head -- 'We're going to China when!?!?'), so that was added to Wednesday's to-do list.

I hurried back to the house on Wednesday morning since I had scheduled a meeting with the church across the way to take our microwave. I don't remember much else of Wednesday except that it was busy. Then it was time to pick up Eric and go home. We spent a few hours there, repacked an overnight bag, and returned to the hotel. Thursday was worse. The cat had a morning vet appointment so he could get microchipped and to get his International Health Certificate completed. Poor kitty. I had a doctor's appointment that afternoon for a persistent cough (turned out to be nothing to worry about). Friday afternoon, we picked up a rental vehicle and then sold my car. Saturday, we sold Eric's car. We spent the rest of Saturday doing odd jobs around the house. I managed to empty my vegetable bin of carrots by feeding them to the donkey next door. I don't think he'll eat olives, though. Soon, it will be time to pack up a bag again and head back to the hotel for sleep. Which, from my incessant yawning, should be soon.

Moving Day

2007-02-20T06:54:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to keep out of the way while the movers are packing up all of our belongings. Eric is holed up in one of the upstairs rooms working from home and Mugsy is hiding under the couch. We were allotted 3 days for the movers; they say it should all be done by this evening.

Our air shipment limit is 400 lb; ocean and storage are considerably larger (though not limitless). The air shipment is supposed to arrive within 15-20 days and the ocean takes 6-8 weeks. We have to work out our visa requirements (which we can't do until we are there) so the air shipment will likely be delayed by a couple of weeks. It's weird to think that this is the last we'll be seeing some of this stuff for at least 2 years.

The empty house reminds me of our newlywed days in Albuquerque where we had barely enough stuff to fill the back of a pickup truck. We had a lot of fun then and the next couple of weeks should be an adventure, too.

Departure

2007-02-19T12:30:00.000-08:00

We've bought our plane tickets and we are leaving the country on March 2. It feels so strange to have just written that. We're no strangers to moving, having had 7 different addresses in 3 different cities and 3 different states. This is our first international move. We are packing it all and moving to Shanghai, China.

Tomorrow the movers are coming to begin boxing up all of our worldly possessions. We are sorting things into 4 piles: checked luggage, air freight, ocean freight, and storage. Of course there are 2 more piles called 'Goodwill' and 'Trash'. I'm working now to pack a couple of suitcases for checked luggage and to get the kitchen ready for the movers. I really hate throwing out food. I may send a care package of half-used spices to my beloved mother-in-law, who volunteered to give any of that stuff a good home.

This weekend, we'll likely sell one of the cars and get a rental. We'll sell the other car soon after that. Then, it'll just be the two of us, a few suitcases, and the cat in an empty house.