Day 11, 12 and 13. "I'm tired of writing and posting"

Day 11, 12 and 13. "I'm tired of writing and posting" quote by Hollie

Sorry if you were enjoying daily entries in this blog. I needed a break from writing and I didn't have a lot of time to write so I took a break. I feel recharged now...or as much as a woman can in a foreign country guiding three children around mostly by herself.

Even though this is a VERY large city, there isn't a ton to do, especially with children. It doesn't have the rich history other chinese cities have, much has been torn down and turned into new businesses. The changes have probably been great if you live here, but if you are visiting and looking for site seeing opportunities with children you can run out of ideas pretty quickly. I was talking to our friend Alex (who has lived here for 10 years) and he was surprised the things that I have found to do here, apparently I taught him about some new things he can do with his son. I think having homeschooling as our back ground has helped us learn to find educational things to do anywhere and everywhere.

Since I last wrote the kids and I went to the Science and Technology museum on Friday. I had been avoiding this place because the review I read about it said it was "baffling". It has its own subway stop so I figured someone must have thought it was pretty important or interesting. We decided to venture down there against what the review said and see for ourselves. The beginning of the exhibition starts with the dividing of the continents and the animals that have evolved following this time. We followed the exhibit through different types of animals, plants, fish, reptiles, and microscopic beings. The microscopic area had really bad, rudimentary models, but it was interesting for the kids. I think it was good for Riley and Claire to see what might be living on their hands and why I am so neurotic (especially here, not so much at home) about them washing their hands and doing our little ritual of Purell before we eat here.

I didn’t find the museum baffling or confusing in anyway, perhaps not very technologically advanced, but a good way to spend a couple of afternoons with the kids. We barely made it through half of it and will go back later this week.

Saturday was basically a lazy day so Jeff could recuperate from working all week. We took him over to the park and explored it more. Claire played on the playground and Jeff and the boys played keep away with the basketball. We found a book store with a small section in English a couple of blocks from our apartment. We spent a good hour in their leafing through books. Claire and I found a new series (at least new to us) about colored fairies that she is gobbling up.

I did manage to book our hotel and flight to Beijing for next weekend. It’s really hard and exhausting to do anything here. I find it hard to know what resources to use and when I do conquering the language difference is always the next frustration. I am pretty sure we have a flight for five of us for next weekend. I have been back and forth with the airlines since Saturday. Apparently, Riley and Claire’s names are too long. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me because Jeffrey Richard Bernhardt is a much longer name than either of the kids, but because they weren’t sure how to write the reservation they didn’t book theirs, but booked Jeff, Aiden and mine. We are adults so we can have a different number of letters in our name. Go figure?!?

Sunday we went back to the zoo and went on a night tour of the city and an acrobat show.

This time the zoo had a gazillion people at it. I realized that most people around here have two working parents, not a lot of stay at home moms. This would explain why the zoo was empty on Friday (the local kids got out of school at the end of last week so they were home, but their parents weren't). I tried to explain to Jeff before we went that the people were rude to the animals, but he really didn’t get it until we got there. At one point we had to leave an area because there was a group of young men and their grandmother throwing rocks at the lions to wake them up. They weren’t just throwing the rocks in their general direction to startle them, but were trying to actually hit them and get a response out of them. When the lions got hit with rocks every one laughed. By the time we left the zoo 3-4 hours later the front of every cage was littered with garbage and debris that the animals had had thrown at them. They had one area of the zoo called pet world and it had 30 plus breeds of dogs. Each cage had at least two dogs in it and they were no bigger than 6x6 ft cages. There was everything from Saint Bernards, Great danes, and Dalmatians to Beagles and Dachshunds. Having had two Dalmatians recently I know they need a ton of exercise and if they don’t get it they become neurotic. The two that were in there were obviously completely neurotic.

I realize that all the animals are in small confined areas, but I guess having had dogs as pets I know first hand how much more these animals need. I have always liked zoos because of their educational value, but I like our Woodland park zoo where the animals have more space and places they can go and hide from the visitors if they need to. I also can’t speak for everywhere, but in our area people seem very respectful of the animals. I personally think if they start fining people in this zoo they will stop. The zoo itself has signs every where about not teasing the animals or feeding them, but they go unnoticed. I think that part of the appeal for these people in visiting the zoo is to torment the animals, I think they expect it. I guess it’s sort of like going to a hockey game in Seattle; part of the appeal for many is the fights that break out, not necessarily the games themselves. I didn’t enjoy those events either.

I know it's hard to see in this photo, but this man is leaning over the cement barrier into the porcupine exhibit and trying to feed the porcupines. There were at least five animals in there and I would consider this down right stupid. I tried to take a picture of a man leaning into the brown bear cage too, but my picture only shows the brown bears standing on their hind legs reaching for the man.

Later Sunday evening we went on a night bus tour of the city. Our tour guide spoke pretty good English so we learned a bit more about the city and gave me more ideas for where to explore during the day. We stopped at one point and took pictures of the Bund area with all the beautiful lights. This is not a very good photo, I think we will go back at night and check it out and read in my camera manual about how to take good night pictures, but in the mean time this gives you an idea of how neat it looks in that area at night.

Next we went to an acrobat show. It was fairly entertaining, there were several acts. There were contortionists, muscle men, 15 men juggling hats together, a lady twirling items with her feet (which Claire has tried to do at home several times since we watched it last night), a pretty good lady magician, several ladies twirling and balancing plates on sticks while they danced and did other contortions with their bodies, six motor cycles and riders all riding around inside a globe at the same time. There was even an act where they had 10 ladies all riding on one bicycle at one time. Jeff and I didn’t think that was so exciting, we have seen at least that on a bicycle around here. You haven't really rode a bike until you’ve ridden in it Shanghai. They move everything around here by bike, it’s pretty amazing. Below is a picture of a lady on a tricycle type bike and she has the biggest load I’ve seen yet. I am pretty sure it’s Styrofoam, but it’s huge never the less. Her load was swaying as she was driving down the road. I’ve seen men riding bikes with several appliances in the cart behind them. These people are amazingly strong! I've also seen couples making out while riding down the street and negotiating traffic. That's pretty good! Anyway back to the topic I started on, the show was entertaining and it was a nice way to end our weekend.

Also, if anyone is wondering…My toe is finally doing much better. I didn’t realize how much it was hurting until it stopped hurting. I think the bone is healed (or as much as it ever will be for a shattered bone) and the nail is feeling so much better that I am able to wear closed toe shoes for the first time in a month. Yeah!! I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I was suppose to keep my foot dry and clean until it healed and that was nearly impossible because I couldn’t wear any closed toe shoes and it was non-stop rainy (and the ground is in no way clean around here). I got so tired of my lovely boot shoe and the stares that came with it. Normal shoes for me again, or at least my Keds and Keens. Now I can keep up with the kids again.

Below are a few more pictures that I had to add from the zoo...

This picture is for Andrea and Lisa, Look familiar? The sign says they are Coypu rats, but I am fairly certain they are MOUNTAIN BEAVERS! In an exhibit??

This is for all of you in Everett or cabins in the San Juans. Herring gulls...or what we call annoying SeaGulls. Jeff and I thought they were the nicest looking sea gulls we'd ever seen, but in an exhibit at the zoo?

Day 10: “This is the nicest Pizza Hut I’ve ever been in.”

Day 10: “This is the nicest Pizza Hut I’ve ever been in.” quote by Jeff

We went to the Shanghai zoo today. First off, anyone who knows me knows I am not a relaxed passenger when others are driving. I prefer to drive. The taxis here freak me out! They weave in and out of traffic at amazing speeds and none of us are wearing seatbelts. I can’t relax for a second. I will ride the subway anywhere, but I avoid the taxis as much as I can. We didn’t get through the entire zoo today; I’d really like to go back and see the rest of it, but I need a break from the taxi scene.

The two words that come to mind for me to describe the zoo today are interesting and sad. Having been to zoos all over the west coast and a couple in Canada I have to say that this one was very interesting. Not because the animals were so different, but the people going to it were rude and disrespectful to the animals. It has been interesting because no matter where we go there are a ton of official type people working keeping order. Keeping order is important here. Every time we have gone to the playground across the street some one older than 10 has tried to ride the teeter-totter and been shooed off by some official, telling them they need to follow the rules (the park is for 3-10 year olds). Today at the zoo there were hardly any workers. I have to say it was the one place I haven’t felt particularly safe. It was very woodzy and not a lot of people there. So we would often times be alone with a small group of people (sometimes all men, which is when I would get more uptight). I can’t explain exactly why I felt unsafe, but my safety radar was up the entire time. The sad part was nearly every exhibit we went to had humans throwing food or garbage at the animals. People seemed to be doing it because they thought they were being funny. If they couldn’t get to the animals physically then they pounded on the glass. A set of baboons got several plastic bottles to chew on and one baby baboon was walking around with the plastic water bottle lid in its mouth.

I was really worried about these animals and there was no one to tell what was happening. Now at the park, there are a ton of workers to make people follow the rules, but here at the zoo where lives are at stake there was nobody. I felt really sad for these animals. Notice the group of people offering the giraffe the water bottles in the picture below.

Since everything is written in Chinese I don’t know if this is privately owned and perhaps that’s why there are no workers, but I do find it very interesting that this is the one place we have been without any workers (even the public bathrooms have a worker or two).

We surprised Riley and Claire and went to Pizza Hut for dinner tonight. It is really nice and sort of glitzy inside. When we walked by the outside we didn’t realize it was a Pizza Hut at first because it had white table clothes and a really nice atmosphere. It had REALLY nice napkins too! And they were free! (I found out that we are being charged for the napkins in every restaurant…except the food court we go to for lunch every day. Sorry if you are tired of hearing about the napkins, but it’s really becoming inconvenient and tiring to eat with my children without adequate napkins). We chose to have what we consider normal pizza from home to fulfill that need for some of home. There were some interesting choices, several fish options and corn; I would never have thought to add corn to pizza. Our pizza tasted pretty much like pizza from home. The kids were happy. Then we stopped by Haagen Dazs ice cream; since we were having a dinner from home we might as well have a dessert from home too. I was shocked! We all had one scoop each (one very small scoop btw) and it was 40 Yuan each…which means we paid $22 dollars for five scoops of ice cream. I think we refilled our home reservoir for a while.

Here is a funny picture of the kids. We were at the zoo. There was some really pretty foliage that I wanted a picture of, but the trees were filled with birds and there was poop all over the ground. The kids were freaked out that the birds were going to poop on them. You can see the looks on their faces. I still enjoyed the background. :0) And no one got pooped on.

Day Nine: "I really don't like being called "Hey Lady!".

Day nine: “I really don’t like being called “Hey Lady!”. quote by me, Hollie

Not much today. We are getting good at the subway. We went shopping in a subway market that is a couple of transfers away from our place. We are having fun learning the haggling system. After we bought something each time Aiden, Riley and I went back into the common area and talked about what we could have done differently. I think it’s going to be hard to go to Redmond Town Center now and not try to negotiate a price for everything. It’s sort of a fun process. Although, I am tired of hearing “Hey lady, you want to see my merchandise”. I told one lady who I visited with for a while (she had pretty good English and she told us a bit about the market) that I don’t like being called lady, I find it somewhat offensive. I explained she would probably do better business with westerners if she didn’t call them “Lady”. I think she appreciated my comments. Her ploy was... she liked me and was giving me a good deal because she thought my daughter was beautiful, so she gave me a special deal….or so she said, over and over and over again. I didn’t believe her, but it’s an interesting ploy, flattery works much of the time in most situations.

I bought a couple of things for myself. I don’t know what to think about it though. I have a hard time buying clothes that fit in the USA. I am usually a small and pants are nearly impossible for me to find something that actually fits. I was told yesterday that I am not a small, I am a chinese medium. I’ve never been a medium in my life. Then I bought a cute, new jacket and not only was I not a small, but I wasn’t a medium either. I was a large. Wowza! You don’t want to be big here; you won’t find clothes that fit. So I’m pretty happy with my new purchases, but not happy about the sizing….now I see why the US has been slowly changing their sizing names and numbers.

I had been warned not to get caught in the subway at rush hour. While we were shopping it wasn’t particularly busy down there so I lost track of time. Before we knew it it was 5:30, Uh-Oh!, rush hour had already begun and we needed to try to get home before Jeff got home at 6:45. We got down to the level where you catch the subway and did get on the needed one in our first try, but barely. We were squeezed so tight that I was afraid Claire was going to be crushed. She is at the wrong height for a really thick crowd of adult people (I’m talking thicker than I have ever been in my life). People for obvious reasons are not looking down and don’t expect to see young children this time of day. Again, no one is being aggressive or mean, just focused on their own needs. I was so afraid she was going to be crushed that I put my legs around her and sort of hopped along with the crowd. I tried to a position my legs so she could still breathe. I’m not kidding; she had everyone’s behinds directly in her face, so she was being smothered. Riley and Aiden stayed right by me luckily, they are taller so it wasn’t as much of a problem for them. If I was stronger I would have put Claire on my shoulders, but I didn’t think about it until after it happened. Plus, then I would have been top heavy and would probably have gotten knocked over myself. After everyone got situated they realized there was a young child under all of them and they went out of their way to find a safe place for her. An elderly man let her sit by him and we moved closer to her. Boy that was an experience, not one I want to re-live, but glad I did so I really understood what people had warned me about! We were lucky the stop we wanted was the one many others wanted, so we just moved with the crowd to get off. Otherwise, I’m not sure how a group of four of us gets off when it’s this busy. No one understands us, so I can’t say “excuse me get the heck out of my way”. I'll have to have Aiden look that up too I guess.

No pictures today...you can go to my http://www.facebook.com/ page, register, become my friend and see a ton of pictures if you want. I'll probably do pictures with tomorrow's post, I'm just tired of writing at this computer today. Also, I love all the emails and posts....it makes me feel a bit closer to home. I haven't been away from home for this long before and I miss everyone already!

Day eight. “Aiden how do you say, will you play with me in Chinese?”

Day eight. “Aiden how do you say, will you play with me in Chinese?” quote by Claire

We ventured off to the Shanghai Aquarium today. It is a really nice and well done. Not much to say except that we were there during feeding time so we got to see the scuba divers down in the water hand feeding most of the fish and other marine life.

The only thing we didn’t get to see eat, which we probably could have, but we needed to leave because Claire got really upset when she found out what was going to happen. The alligators had live ducks put in their pen. It was only a matter of time before those ducks became dinner. You can see the alligators in the lower left corner of the picture watching the ducks very carefully. Sorry the pictures not very clear, I couldn't get a clear one.

It sort of bothered me, but only because I knew the ducks didn’t have a chance and they would die a cruel death. I’m not a vegetarian, but I like to be in denial about where my meat comes from.

We stopped by the park on our way home. Claire really wants to play with the other kids and sometime they will interact with her, but some times not. Poor thing, she really wanted to make friends with these two little girls at the park today. She followed them around for nearly 10 minutes and then came over to Aiden and I who were sitting on the bench and she asked Aiden “how do you say, do you want to play in Chinese?” Aiden didn’t know, he said he’d go home and look it up in his book. Again communication is getting in our way.

This is just another pictures of the kids at the aquarium today. Notice the cute panda Claire is holding? She bought this panda a couple of days ago and it goes EVERY where with us now. She talks to it constantly, it eats every meal with us...I really think she needs a friend here besides us.

Day seven: “Black diesel oil, what do you think they were trying to say there?”

Day seven: “Black diesel oil, what do you think they were trying to say there?” quote by Jeff


(sorry in advance for this one, it's long...so much to write about Also, I added two posts today. Day six too. I'm almost caught up, I just have to do today still, which I might skip because I'm getting tired of writing :-) or make it really short (really!).

Not much going on today, mostly recovering from site seeing all weekend. We did make it over to the basketball court in the park across the street. It was really full and they wouldn’t let us in. I think it was because it was too full. I gathered from the worker that he wanted us to come back tomorrow morning, but I didn’t know for sure why. About a half hour later, it poured down rain (we were still hanging out at the park) and we noticed the basketball court was emptying out. “Wimps”, I thought, “it’s too rainy for them”. So we headed back to the basketball court to play. The old man there yelled at me. (There’s nothing like being yelled at in a different language about who knows what) I’m not really sure except that I think he was telling me he already told me to come back tomorrow. I think they booted everyone out when it was raining so hard (it looked like the basketball court had turned into a small swimming pool, it didn’t drain very well). It was also thunder and lightening after all. I couldn’t decide if we were safer in the park with all the small trees around us or in the 25th / top floor of a high rise building. I went for the park, besides it would stop sooner or later and we needed some fresh air and exercise. This picture is in the park, our apartment is in the background, the 3rd building from the right, on the top floor.

My posting today is about observations that we have noticed over the past week. I found out answers to most of my observations, but they are still different than the way we do things, so I thought I would share.

The Chinese are very superstitious. There is no 4th or 14th floor in our apartment. Apparently, 4 in Chinese translates to die, so if you skip that floor then it doesn’t really exist right? I don’t know the exact translation of 14, but I am assuming it has a similar translation and that’s why that floor is skipped too, although, there is a 24th floor.

Speaking of the elevator; we figured out that the reason one of the elevators is so shabby looking is because it’s the elevator that they use for transporting furniture or other big supplies to the rooms. They don’t want to risk beating up the nice looking elevator.

No fortune cookies, but we do get cut up watermelon following all our meals in sit down restaurants. We were in San Francisco last summer at the fortune cookie factory (where most fortune cookies are made) and I guess I assumed those cookies were shipped here or made in similar factories here. Bad assumption, I haven’t seen one fortune cookie, but I’ve seen a lot of watermelon.

Napkins are a scarce commodity. If you happen to get lucky and get one, they are always very small and you get one to share. They are about 3 inches square and really thin. Jeff talked to a friend at work and apparently the reasoning is that there are tons of people here and it’s expensive to give things away (which explains why there is no toilet paper in public places either). So we all walk around with dirty hands and faces…..maybe their children are neater than mine. I went to the market and bought a package of napkins and paper towels thinking I would just keep them in my back pack and we could pull them out when we needed them. Even those napkins were extremely small and thin. I’m talking like one ply toilet tissue. Have you ever tried to wipe your fingers or face clean after a sticky meal with toilet tissue, this is perhaps a bigger problem than the original one. The nicer restaurants give you cloth wash clothes to wipe with before and after your meal. I like that!

We had some time to hang out at the super market last night. We had to show Jeff all the interesting things. We wandered around forever looking at everything. Things such as the meat area had frozen turtles, bull frogs, eel, squid, and many different kinds of whole fish (just the guts taken out), and ducks and chickens with their heads still attached. We did finally buy some eggs. I’m pretty sure they are chicken eggs. I had to laugh because there are several different types of eggs, some really big, some really small, different colors, spotted, but the ones still covered in fowl poo were the best by far. This isn’t a local open air market; this is a store in the bottom floor of a large department store. It’s pretty upscale and expensive, but they had eggs with bird poo still on them. We decided to see if we could find some things from home and see how expensive they were such as flour or sugar (not that I was going to buy flour, I was just looking to see if I could find it) we found sugar (not powered like we wanted for french toast…since there’s no syrup either), but didn’t find flour. We found gallon size jugs of vegetable oil in several different brands. We tried to buy a small one and it’s still really large, they don’t come in small sizes. We also figured out if you buy the local products they are considerably cheaper. I was told cereal would be really expensive here, and that’s true if you want to buy a western brand, but there are several versions of Chinese cereal that are very reasonably priced. I don’t know what’s in it for sure, but it was about ¼ the price. So we paid $2 versus $10 for a box of cereal. It’s a little harder to buy oatmeal because I don’t know if it’s instant or traditional style and I can’t read the instructions to know how to cook it.

As far as eating, I am really proud of my children. We have been eating some really interesting things. Some of it, I could only guess what it is. We went out last night and no one spoke any English and there were no translations any where on the menu. We looked around the room and pointed at what looked good. The first night we were here, Riley insisted that we were going to eat at Pizza Hut or KFC (which are everywhere btw), we insisted that we don’t eat that way at home we are certainly not going to eat that way here. He was not a happy camper, but given the option gave up his stance and ate what ever it was that we found to eat that night and actually really liked it. If anything becomes of this trip it will be that Riley is no longer a picky eater (and the best part is he doesn’t see himself as a picky eater anymore either!!). Claire and Aiden have always been adventurous eaters, but this trip could push even an adult to act picky. They haven’t complained at all.

Here is a picture of a man who has made a make shift BBQ on the back of his bike. He is selling some sort of BBQ meat. Yummy! Not! We aren't that adventurous, but you gotta give the guy some credit for being a creative entrepreneur.

Speaking of food and restaurants, some of the restaurants have translations above the traditional Chinese writing. We have been enjoying some of the translations. One restaurant had the best translations (I wish I had written some of them down because they were obviously not checked by anyone who spoke English), one of its meals mentioned spicy,black diesel oil. I will write some of the funny ones down and share with you all later. They are pretty funny; language is a funny thing and the different ways of interpreting it.

I have to say I was nervous coming here, because I am somewhat of a scaredy cat. I get very nervous in down town Seattle and in any large city that we have ever visited. I do not feel nervous here at all. I feel very safe. The people are very friendly and there are always a ton of people around and very few that seem off. We have to walk behind the building to get to our apartment, they aren’t connected in the inside and our building is three buildings down from the lobby. If this was in Seattle, I would be nervous and would never do it at night, but it doesn’t seem to be a problem at all (except for all the groups of smoking people and occasional cars that drive through). Today the kids and I headed off down an alley type looking street to explore an area that I could see from our apartment that looked like it might have a playground for the kids. I was a bit nervous when we started down the street because it’s narrow and there aren’t gads of people, but once we got started there didn’t seem to be anything to be worried about. We found some old people sitting outside in their lawn chairs enjoying the cool weather. They talked to us a bit (they like to practice saying hello and interact with the kids). We found a fruit stand that I didn’t know existed and it was great. I would never have done that in Seattle or even Bellevue, I might be asking for trouble.


Here are some other random pictures:

This one shows the back of a local apartment. I think it's interesting that everyone has these clothes lines that project horizontally off their decks. I don't think anyone has a clothes dryer. (We do, but it doesn't work, so I hang my clothes up on the deck too, but I don't have a nifty clothes line).



















Here is the view out one direction of our apartment. Pretty spectacular view. Notice the old and new buildings sort of intermixed.

This fine looking building can be seen if you look down behind our apartment. This is a scary looking building. I haven't walked down this street yet, so I don't know what it looks like from the front.

Day six: “Should I be following this man into this building just for a purse?”

Day six: “Should I be following this man into this building just for a purse?” quote by me, Hollie.

Another day of site seeing with our friend Alex, he picked us up in his car and drove us to Yuyuan gardens and bazaar. This is a picture of the opening to the Yuyuan area. We drove through what I imagined we would see when we got here in China. The neighborhood was very traditional, old Chinese.

There were vendors all over the place. People were sitting along the side of the road playing Mah Jong together. We went into the bazaar area first and I quickly needed to learn how to say ‘no, I don’t want that, quit bugging me”. One young vendor told me how to say “not want”, “bu-yao”….I thought he was trying to trick me into saying yes (because of the way he was smiling at me), but I quickly figured out he was probably laughing at my inability to pick up the language, not trying to trick me. I learned that if I say “no, thanks”, or just “no” they keep bugging me, but as soon as I say it in Chinese correctly they leave me alone immediately. Great, a new skill that I will need here in china to adapt; I am adapting, whoo-hoo!!

We had lunch at a somewhat famous dumpling house called Huxingting TeaHouse. It was built in 1784. The tea house is surrounded by water filled with giant carp and turtles; it has a zig-zag type bridge that leads to it. The pictures below are of the tea house and bridge. I didn't realize until I downloaded them now that they don' t really show how cool the bridge and tea house look.

Apparently, the zig-zag design on the bridge protects the building from evil spirits (evil spirits can’t turn corners you know, but neither can radiation, so maybe they’ve got a point here). We waited in a very long line to eat; apparently we weren’t the only ones who heard about this place. It was really good. We ate several dumplings, sort of like dim sum at home.

I really wanted to buy a purse while we were in Shanghai. I had heard that the really good ones were hidden from the public. I also heard that sometimes they are factory originals that didn’t make it to the stores. We found someone who would show us some purses. We walked for quite a ways (the young man kept saying it was right around the corner. Corner after corner after corner and we were starting to wonder when it would end…Lee, I figured you would appreciate this…sort of like your apartment will be ready soon and it took two months) before we were lead into the back of a building. I have to say I was a little nervous at first, but I had Jeff and Alex with me and I figured between the two of them no one would try anything. At least Alex would know what they were saying if they were going to mug us. To give you a picture it was an alley that turned into an hallway that weaved through horrible smells, people cooking food, doing laundry in buckets, flickering lights and oozing walls. We bargained for quite a while before I settled on two purses (one for me and one for my friend, Mei….I got you a LV purse Mei). I’m not very good at this haggling thing, but I’m getting better. By the time we leave I’ll be ready for a trip to Mexico, NOT.

Another successful day, I got my Prada bag, it’s pretty cute. Oh, and the site seeing was nice too.

Day Five: “Mom, I want more pigeon. What, there’s no more, order more please?”

Day five: “Mom, I want more pigeon. What, there’s no more, order more please?” quote by Claire

Before we left on our trip I met a woman in Redmond that has a brother that lives here in Shanghai. She was extremely helpful to me in preparing for this trip and knowing what to expect. She told her brother, Alex that we would be traveling here with our family and he offered to be our tour guide this weekend. We met Alex and his family and went off to see many things. We started at the Pearl Tower in Pudong.

From the tower there is an amazing view of Pudong and Puxi. These two areas are separated by the Huangpu River. On one side of the river there are many, very old buildings 100+ years old (Puxi) and the other side is all very new and modern (Pudong), symbols of western commercial power.

It was lunch time and little did we know Alex had a feast planned. We ate in a local mall in a very nice restaurant where we were treated by Alex, Jennifer, and John (their very cute 7 year old boy) to an incredible amount of very yummy, very traditional, Shanghai dishes. I don’t know the names of any of the items. There must have been 15 dishes. Apparently, Shanghai area is known for its sweet flavors. We had at least three different kinds of tofu. Peanuts cooked in a yummy sauce. There was pigeon. Riley and Aiden couldn’t help but be very interested in the pigeon because there were cooked heads on the plate too. Claire couldn’t get enough of it. It was good. Most of these things I would have never thought to order and yet I liked every one of them. It was great!

Next we walked down to the harbor area along the Huangpu River called the Bund and got to see the view of both cities. I guess 10 years ago the river was so polluted that it was black, today it’s still really dirty and polluted and not very clear because it has a mud bottom, but improving all the time as far as pollution.

Century Park was a subway stop away. What a great experience! We all needed to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Century park is only about 50 years old and one of the few places that has no history. It’s an amazing park. It has a large lake in the middle.

You can rent paddle boats. There is a small amusement park (I haven’t seen Riley this excited since we went to Disneyland last year). We followed the signs to the amusement park with a symbol of a child’s rocking horse, assuming to find a play ground, but instead we found a small roller coaster and other amusement park rides.

The park is really quite beautiful and different than near our apartment. There are trees and grass and walking paths everywhere. We found some beautiful blooming Lotus flowers along the water’s edge. Century park is in Pudong which is the new part of the city and our apartment is in Puxi, which is in the old part.

A little Chinese language lesson here….dong means East and Xi means West and Dong means river…so if I ever get this all figured out I will know what these people are saying, at least for now I know if I am in the west or east based on the name. If I had to move to Shanghai I would chose to live in Pudong. Apparently, it is the wealthier and more educated section too. Apartments average about 300K and if you are lucky enough to find a home to buy with a very small lot it will cost you around 2 million. I guess we’d be living in an apartment.

I wanted to add some more pictures to this post, but it wont let me for some reason. I'll try again tomorrow.

Day Four: "That babies not wearing a diaper?"

Day Four: "That babies not wearing a diaper?" quoted by Riley

We went to our local, favorite food court for breakfast. Nothing new except poor Claire had to finally use the potty while we were out. It went better than I thought it would. She must have really had to go to have made the choice to use the interesting facilities. Then we headed to the super market again. It’s really interesting trying to buy such things as laundry soap when you can’t read any of the labels. No idea what I bought, but I am hopeful it was Oxy Clean and some sort of laundry detergent. The next step is trying to negotiate the washer and dryer in our apartment. It’s all in Chinese…I tried it on my own, but I couldn’t get it to work. I didn’t feel quite so bad when I had someone come to translate the words and it wasn’t my fault the machine wasn’t working. So…now I have a load of very wet laundry with hopes someone will be coming tomorrow to repair the machine.

The kids and I decided to go check out the park across the street today. Xian Jia Lu park, It‘s really a nice park. It has basketball courts, a climbing area, a nice water way that floats through the middle. We saw several turtles and Koi fish swimming in it. The native children were trying to catch the wild critters in the water. We also saw several wild cats. They were obviously nursing baby kittens so I would imagine there are many more than we saw.

I have noticed two very young children, not much older than babies wearing very interesting pants. Both of them were boys and around 12-18 months old. The reason I know they weren’t wearing diapers is their bums and other non mentionables were hanging out. I tried to get a picture (not of the bum, but of the pants…I’m not sure it turned out….I didn’t want to make any more of a spectacle of myself than I already am). The pants are hard to explain except that there is a slit from the front to the back and then normal legs and normal waist band. I assume it’s so they can use the potties I described earlier, but they are so young. My children were potty trained very early and these little guys were much younger than any of them. Having dental hygiene as my prior profession I judge children’s age by how many teeth they have and these kids were definitely no older than 18 months. Just another interesting observation; I am curious to get back home and ask my friend Mei what the deal is.

We are getting tired of being gawked at (and it’s only day 4 of a 45 day trip). Aiden and I did an experiment today. We walked down the street and counted how many people DIDN’T stare at us. I’m not talking about causally glancing at us, I’m talking about non-stop watching from the moment they see us until they pass, and many of them keep their heads turned for quite awhile past us. This picture is a picture of people standing in line to have their picture taken with Claire (you can see Claire in the lower right corner of the picture). Claire was a really good sport about this. As you can see in the picture it wasn't just chinese people, but Indian people too. Every where we go people stop us so they can have their picture taken with her. This particular situation got out of control, it went on for several minutes with many, many people taking their pictures with her. One person started it and then others thought, "wow what a great idea"...or maybe they didn't have a clue and thought she was someone famous and they didn't want to miss out. I don't get it?!?


The school age children that we have seen are very intrigued by the kids. We plan to go play basketball at the local place next week and start interacting with the kids. This should be interesting. Anyway Aiden and I did continued our experiment for a short amount of time. We counted 7 people that didn’t stare after we had passed 50 people. We didn’t count the people on the buses, bikes or scooters (entire bus loads of people stare at us as they drive by…not just a few, but I swear every single person). This is a stretch for Aiden and I who prefer to not be the center of attention. I guess we will be doing some stretching in the next month. We try to just smile at everyone and not let it bother us, but it’s challenging at times. Claire on the other hand loves the attention. Riley who also loves attention says, why don't they want their picture taken with me? Poor guy, wrong color hair I guess.

Day three: Subway day…"thank goodness for people from St. Charles, MO!"

Day three: Subway day…"thank goodness for people from St. Charles, MO!" quoted by me, Hollie.

Today we decided to venture away from our hotel area. I arranged for a lady from Shanghai to help us while we are here. She is a college student and will not be out of school for a couple more weeks, but came today for a couple of hours to help me a bit and figure out how to travel around. She bought us transportation cards, which we will need to ride the subway or take a bus. We decided on a location that I could get to without making any transfers as our first adventure. She couldn’t go with us; she needed to get to school. Her name is Farah. Btw, I think it’s very interesting that everyone here has an English name and their given name. I offered to call Farah by her given, Chinese name, but she said she never gets to use her English name and really wants to hear it. So, Farah it is. We took the Metro (subway) to People’s Square to visit the Shanghai museum. I think I’ve been pretty naïve about some of this traveling in a country where there is no English. I headed down to the metro; I knew where the opening was near by. We managed to find the entrance to the actual gate and then proceeded to mess that up some how. Lucky for me a nice Chinese lady helped me figure this all out. I had to squeeze three of us through the turnstile at the same time to fix my error. I was really hoping I wasn’t breaking some rules that I would get in trouble for later. Next, I couldn’t figure out which subway to take. The signs had pinyin on them, but never haven ridden the subway before (or really any form of public transportation except the city bus when I was in Jr. High.) I wasn’t sure which direction I needed to go. So…we jumped on a subway and hoped for the best. I figured the worst case scenario we wouldn’t end up where we wanted to, but would learn from our experience. Aiden wasn’t thrilled with me and was really nervous about my uncertainty about where we were headed. I wasn’t too worried, how hard can it be right? Very lucky for us as soon as we got on the subway (which by the way was the right one….whooo-hoo, success!!) a woman heard us speaking English and started talking to us. Turns out she is from St. Charles, MO and has been living here for two years with her husband. She explained the entire process to me. She showed me where to look to know when to get off and how to make transfers. I’m so set now. I can go anywhere! We went to the Shanghai museum. It was very interesting. It was huge and full of artifacts that are 700+ years old. There are 11 galleries and apparently has the best displays and interpretations in all of China. The above picture isn't a very good picture, but it is of Riley and some masks that they were facinated by. Claire was the only one who didn’t stay interested the entire time. We have been doing a lot of walking and she was tired by this time of day. Aiden made the observation that “man this stuff is old”…I don’t think until that moment Aiden realized what an absolutely fascinating city we are visiting and how old the civilization is and how we don’t have that history where we live.

We are still trying to get over our jet lag. We wake up way to early and are way too tired by dinner time. Poor Claire fell asleep at the dinner table tonight. It’s bad enough that we have people gawking at us because of the color of our hair (you’d think it was green or something), but a sleeping blond child on the edge of a table is apparently quite the site.





I forgot to mention that we eat out for nearly every meal. This is going to get old. We have dishes in our apartment, but not many and no oven. I tried to buy eggs today, but I wasn’t sure what kind of eggs I was buying so I passed. Even the meat is marked in Chinese so I’m not sure what I am buying. So far it’s been easier to eat out and point at what we want….and hope we are eating what we think we asked for. This is an adventure after all!

Whoo Hoo, I turned 13!!

Day two: Whoo Hoo, I turned 13!! quote by Aiden

Even though we are all exhausted we woke up at 3:00am. Riley and Claire proceeded to make tea and dirty up every dish we have. We don’t have a lot and we don’t have any dish soap or a dish washer. We will be making a trip to the grocery store today. I don’t know where one is, but clearly we have some needs.

Jeff headed off to work and the kids and I ventured down the street to a large mall that has a food court in the bottom. It has probably 20 different vendors all with slightly different variations of Chinese food. We were told it’s not “Chinese food”, its “food”. Duh! What was I thinking? We found a place that served some variation of French toast with eggs and a warm drink. We tried to explain to them that we wanted tea with our breakfast, but instead of telling them we wanted tea Aiden told them we wanted “dissatisfied, falling short of expectations”…no wonder the gal looked at us like we were crazy and didn’t understand we wanted tea. Aiden figured this out when we got home and he looked through his Chinese book. Apparently, he put the intonation in the wrong place. Oh well, live and learn. Then we proceeded to make spectacles of ourselves by dipping our French toast in this liquidy substance and mixed it with a powder substance that they had given us. I had never eaten this sort of thing before, but I was willing to try it. The workers there just stared at us and wondered what the heck we were doing. Then I continued to embarrass us even more by cracking the egg open on the table top (I thought it was hard boiled) and had it seeping all over the table. The lady worker there couldn’t stand it any longer and came over to save me. She cracked the egg into the dish (It was barely cooked…not even what we call soft boiled at home) with the powder and liquid substance and stirred it up. It actually tasted pretty good. I know we are not supposed to eat raw eggs, but when in China do what the Chinese do right? (I may regret that later when I spend a few days in the bathroom doing as the Chinese don’t have to do here). I like this mall. I can point at the food I want, tell them how many and pay with a pre-paid card that I had to buy. Works for me! Going into sit down restaurants with menus has not been as easy.

EVERYONE stares at us, especially Claire. I told the kids I was starting to feel a bit like the elephant man. I couldn’t explain that to them so we came home and looked it up on the internet. Did you know there is a man in Kirkland who has the same condition (or very similar anyway). I found it interesting that I am half way around the world and I found an article related to a town one town away from my own hometown when I did a simple google search about a disorder. Anyway, back to the staring…we have found that less people stare at us when it’s Jeff and I and the kids, but when it’s the kids and myself we turn a lot of heads and get lots of talking about us. Aiden has said they are saying things about how cute Claire is (apparently she looks like a doll to them) and how much the kids look like their momma. They keep talking about us being American. Aiden may not be able to speak the language as much as we need yet, but he is able to understand some of what they say. Not every single word, but the gist of some of it. We walk by windows and people are waving at Claire, they are touching her, pinching her cheeks, putting her on their lap, picking her up and hugging her. Lucky for us, she seems to like the attention and doesn’t get upset.

Walking down the street is an interesting adventure. There are bicycles and scooters everywhere. They drive fast and don’t care if you are in their way. No one is mean; they are just focused and busy. The taxi drivers are very aggressive so trying to cross the street is also risk taking. It is rainy outside. I guess June is their rainy season. So it’s about 80 degrees and very rainy. Everyone has umbrellas and the workers at every store are there to help you put it in a plastic bag before you come into their establishment. Which brings me to the next interesting observation….there are workers everywhere. We made it to the “super market” today. We bought the necessities we needed; it was very interesting trying to find what we needed when you can’t read any of the labels. What I did notice is that there was a worker on every isle (they’re doing I don’t know what except standing there) and on one isle there were five people opening boxes. I didn’t stop to watch what they were all doing, but it sure takes a lot of people around here to do a little bit of work. I see a lot of people doing nothing. It does seems like everyone has a job here (although we did see two homeless people so far…I’ll write more about that later, they used an interesting ploy to beg), but I’m not sure how satisfying or interesting their jobs are.

Bathrooms outside the hotel are VERY interesting. I had warned the kids that we needed to use the bathroom every time before we leave, but Claire didn’t seem to believe me. She quickly changed her mind when we went out to dinner and she saw where she had to go and what she had to use. It’s sort of hard to explain and I really don’t get why they are like this, but they are basically porcelain bowls in the ground that you flush. You have to squat over them and there’s no toilet paper to use (so you’d better bring your own). They were actually much nicer than I was expecting (I had been warned). I was expecting a small hole in the ground with no flushing device. So this was somewhat of a pleasant surprise. What I don’t understand is if you are going to go the trouble of putting a flushing device in, why not make it a toilet that you can sit on, spread less germs and have more comfort. Oh well, I don’t think I’ll ask about that one.

Aiden celebrated his 13th birthday today. I think it’s pretty special to be turning into a teenager in a foreign place you’ve never been. Most of the people here are very kind and go out of their way to be helpful. We bought Aiden a cake and candles for his birthday. I actually wasn’t expecting to find a cake because there are no ovens here, so I figured it wasn’t part of their culture, but we did find a bakery type place in a local mall. I didn’t know where to buy matches so I explained our situation to the front desk of our apartment and the bell boy ran somewhere outside (not sure where) and came back with a lighter for us. I offered to pay for it, but he insisted that I not. I thought that was really nice of him and pretty characteristic of how we’ve been treated here so far.

I really hate to complain or be judgmental of other’s cultures or homes, but it stinks here. There is always a fog of some interesting odors, but then every once in a while VERY strong smells come up in the vents in the street. It completely takes your breath away, they are so bad. This makes me wonder what people from other countries think about coming to our area. I do try to keep in mind that this is a big city and probably not completely characteristic of the entire country, but it definitely leaves an impression that’s hard to forget.

A successful day over all, we ate, exchanged money and made it to the super market for some food and other things. What more could I ask for on the first full day?

Dad does the airplane driver get tired of driving the airplane for 2 days?

Dad does the airplane driver get tired of driving the airplane for 2 days? Quote by Claire after flying for about 10 hours

This is the first entry in a six week journey for our family. Jeff was sent here for work and we are traveling along for the adventure of it. Most of the adventures will be just the kids and I since Jeff will be working all day every day during the week. We do plan to take some weekend trips out of Shanghai together, but all the local traveling will be me and the three kids by ourselves.

Well it all started with a 4:10am shuttle ride to the Seattle airport. Claire asked when we were all the way in Redmond if we were in China yet. I could tell at that point it was going to be a LONG day. We flew to the Vancouver, Canada airport for a two hour lay over. I don’t know if you’ve ever flown into or out of that airport, but as Aiden said “This is the craziest place on earth”. The customs and immigration departments are not laid out with any reasonably thought out manner. I’ve been through customs before in other countries and this is by far the most confusing airport ever. Canadians should not design airports!

Next we spent 12 very long hours flying to Shanghai, China. Quote from Riley here “BORING”. The flight was fine. There was a lot of turbulence the last 2 hours, but other than that a pretty smooth ride. Riley definitely got his fix of TV. Each of us had our own little station with music, TV, movies and I’m sure other things that I didn’t explore.

Arriving in the airport we got our first dose of China. Claire walked through the entire airport with her nose plugged. It was humid, hot and smelly. She finally stopped plugging her nose a half hour or so later. I had to agree with her, but the adult in me had more manners than that.

Next we had a shuttle driver there waiting for us as soon as we got through customs. The Chinese have the customs thing down…not confusing and quick! Our shuttle ride was a heroic experience. Our apartment is about 40km from the airport and it took us nearly an hour to get here. The traffic in Shanghai is somewhat of a bad dance. I haven’t noticed any banged up cars, but I was shocked how many times our driver just moved over into the adjacent lane, even if there was currently a car already there. He wasn’t the only one, everyone was doing it. The hard part for me was we lost Claire’s car seat at the airport, so I kept imagining her being beheaded by the shoulder belt we placed her in. We also noticed along the highway that there are “no honking” zones (which it turns out our apartment isn’t in one of these zones). Even though we were stressed out and nervous about the traffic, no one else appeared angry or aggressive…it’s just the way it is. Not like in the US, when you cut someone off there you risk making someone really angry and being shot.

We arrived at our apartment really tired and a bit disoriented. We’d been awake about 24 hours at that point. In this picture, all three kids were asleep, even Riley until he heard me get the camera out.

Our apartment is on the 25th floor, probably about 1200 sq feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and very nicely decorated. We have half of the top floor of the building so we can see out nearly any direction. We have a beautiful, amazing view of the city! We have a large park right next door that we can see from one of our balconies. I see the people doing Tai-chi there in the morning.

I don’t think this room gets used much because we had to ask for help several times to get things working. Trying to communicate what the room is lacking or needs fixed has been interesting. Getting the internet working was a challenge. It’s not wireless, which surprises me; I thought Shanghai would be very technically progressive. I did found out very quickly if you push the red button on the wall (they are in every room and not marked in anyway) that a loud alarm goes off and a very militant voice (in Chinese of course) will come over the intercom system (which we didn’t even know we had) and ask you questions that you don’t understand. If you don’t answer him there will be security guards who come to investigate. Apparently, those buttons are SOS buttons. I thought it was a clothes line to be honest. It was right out side the bathroom and there was one directly adjacent to it on the other wall and I thought it was going to push out a tab that I would string to the other one across the room (And I always wondered who Riley gets all the button pushing from…hmmm). That was a bit embarrassing to say the least. We couldn’t turn the air conditioning on because it was all in Chinese and we didn’t know what the buttons were. Plus they were remote controlled and we didn’t know that until we got a helper up here to help us figure it all out. It’s amazing how much you rely on reading to know what in the heck is going on, simple things like the bathroom has 6 switches and they are all labeled in Chinese. It’s not so obvious what each of them does so being able to read traditional Chinese would be helpful here. The only other notable thing about our apartment is each of the bathrooms has vents on the floor that are part of the sewer system. There is an intermittent smell of sewer coming through them. We covered them up with garbage cans and paper and it has helped, but it’s pretty disgusting. Reminds me a bit of our RV when I haven’t put the septic stuff in the holding tanks. Except that’s our poo, and this is everyone in china’s poo. Gross, gross, gross!!! Also, our apartment has the scariest elevator I’ve ever seen. Remember we are on the 25th floor, if it crashes, it’s going down a long ways. One of the elevators is pretty nicely decorated, the other looks like the inside of the kid’s tree house. It has bare lumber that is barely held in place. It makes me think the elevator itself it being pulled up by rope. I just keep thinking about what the standards might be in this country…especially given how much devastation there was a short distance away from that last earthquake. I’ll attach a picture, it’s worth seeing. The picture really doesn't show how scary it is.