Day 46 We are home!!

We are home! We made it home safely. Now we are just trying to recover from the time change. Riley and Claire didn't go to sleep until 5 am this morning. It's going to be a long day for all of us. I still have one final entry that I want to write. I learned many things about the government and their restrictions on the citizens of China. I didn't want to write anything about the restrictions or the government while I was there because it didn't feel safe to write about then. I thought you might find some of it interesting. I am too tired to write it now and we are headed off to the Oregon coast to camp for the week, but when I get back (or if I can get internet service while we are camping) I will make one final post. I know from what I learned I am extremely happy to be a US citizen and have the rights that I do.

Day 38-40 “This temple is kicking your butt, Hollie!”

Day 38-40 “This temple is kicking your butt, Hollie!” quote by Jeff

We didn’t do much on Wednesday and Thursday…mostly just swam and read. On Friday we decided to make yet another attempt to go to the Jade Buddha temple. We tried to go to the temple a couple of weeks back, but ran into obstacles each time. I don’t know why, but each time I have tried to get to this place I couldn’t make it. Last week when we tried to go to the temple we rode the subway to what appeared to be a pretty close stop, but I could tell from the map that we would need to get either under or over a major freeway. The kids and I walked around quite awhile in the blazing hot sun trying to find an underground tunnel. I stopped a woman with a child about Riley’s age thinking one of them might understand English. The daughter understood enough English to explain to me that I needed to take a bus because it was too far to walk. I realized I didn’t know how to use the bus, and even if I did I didn’t know exactly where we were headed so I thought we would take a taxi instead. I stopped three different taxis and none of them would take me to the temple. I assumed it was because it was too close, but I am not sure, none of them spoke English and made the kids and I get out of their taxi each time. I got so frustrated that we just found our way back to the subway and went home defeated.

Yesterday I came up with a different plan to make our way to the temple again. We decided to take the subway, but get off at an earlier exit, so we wouldn’t be too close, but not so far as to pay a ton for our taxi from our apartment. I guess the first exit I got off of was too close because I had three taxi drivers say they wouldn’t drive me again. I don’t know what the deal is…I thought about it later and maybe they didn’t want to drive me to a Buddhist temple. Jeff said I should have cried, but I didn’t want to cry I wanted to yell at them. Especially when one of the drivers said he would drive me and showed me on his calculator that he’d drive me for 60Yuan. I laughed when he showed me this because I knew from the distance it should be no more than 15 Yuan. He was clearly trying to take advantage of me and I wasn’t that desperate to get to the temple.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am incredibly stubborn and tenacious. I was going to figure out a plan to get to this darn temple (without being ripped off by a shady taxi driver). I didn’t care at this point what was there and if it was interesting. We were going! So back on the subway we went. I decide to get back on the subway and go several stops away and try again with another taxi. It worked; we found a nice taxi driver who would drive us. It was the craziest taxi ride. We drove down narrow streets barely missing scooters, bikes and pedestrians the entire time. I think our driver honked his horn the entire route. I figured out the system for the honking around here. Several shorts honks means I am coming up on you and watch out….one long honk means you better watch out I am going to hit you in the next second or so. The kids compared the ride to the video game Crazy Taxi. We nearly hit a child on the side of the road and the driver laughed at me when I gasped and grabbed my face. He wasn’t concerned he knew what he was doing, but as a mother I momentarily freaked out. I like these taxi rides because they usually take routes through town that I haven’t been and I get to see parts of the world that I wouldn’t normally get to see. I don’t like the driving portion, but I do like the views.

Finally at the Buddha temple! We made it!! This is one of the few active temples here in Shanghai. It is famous because it has several very large jade Buddha’s. The temple was built between 1911-1918. The centerpiece of the temple is a 1.9 meter high pale green jade Buddha; it’s one solid piece of jade. We finally caught some good karma when entering the temple. We were standing in line behind a woman who accidentally dropped money from her pocket. She didn’t realize it and I handed it back to her and tried to show her that it was her money, but it had flown out of her pocket when she pulled something else out. She seemed appreciative of my returning her money. After we bought our tickets and entered the temple I heard some one giving a tour in English. I came around the corner to find the lady I had returned the money to giving a tour to a couple of western tourists. At first we tagged along trying to be discreet, but after a while she invited us to participate in her tour. It was very interesting to listen to the history of the temple and Buddhism and how it had been changed from its origins in India to the current Chinese version. I have to admit I do not know very much about Buddhism, but it was fascinating to listen to the history. There were several statues of Buddha. In one room there were three huge Buddha’s the past, present and future. In this picture there are statues of future and present Buddha's. They are always either on top of or surrounded by Lotus flowers because they represent strength and good luck.

One interesting note is that sometimes Buddha is portrayed as a woman, but it was explained to us that that transformation occurred so women would feel more comfortable praying to him, but it is still a male.

One of the clearly more feminine statues is for women to pray for fertility (in the picture above). One of the other changes is that there are several dragons (being held in the hands of the Buddha) and in western views dragons spit fire, in Chinese culture the dragons spit water and are good. This explains the dragons on the roofs of so many buildings. Also, there is a symbol on Buddha’s chest; at first it looks like a swastika, but it turns out it is exactly the opposite in direction and beliefs surrounding it. The belief is that it brings good luck and the fact that Hitler used the opposite, very similar version was bad luck. I guess it was bad luck for a huge number of people. There were several monks wondering about during our tour. In this picture there are red ribbons tied to everything in the court yard. People write their wishes on the red ribbons. The higher the ribbon is placed the the quicker the answer will be realized.

The final part of our tour involved tea tasting.

We were instructed about the proper way to start our tea ceremony. We were advised about what the different teas would do for our health. Each tea was organic and had medicinal purposes. They didn’t have English translations because these teas are original. The leaves are collected by the monks and prepared and sold here all over the world. Apparently they are very special. We did enjoy our experience, but decided against getting hooked on this tea. Perhaps I will investigate how to get some tea when we get home.

We decided to head home. We tried to catch a taxi, but the first taxi I stopped wouldn’t take us home. I couldn’t believe it!! What is the deal with us and this temple? I think he didn’t know where our apartment was and didn’t want to take the time to figure it out.I tried to explain to him that I could call the apartment and they could give him directions, but he couldn’t be bothered. I always have the kids pile in the taxi too before they turn us down thinking that they wont kick us out, but no they yell at all of us to get out. The worst part about all this is I have NO IDEA where I am, its rush hour and I have no confidence at this point that any one is going to take us home. The second taxi that I stopped did take us home safely.

We drove through more interesting neighborhoods to get home. The one thing I have noticed over and over again in some neighborhoods is they do much of their living and life on the street. There is no privacy. On this ride home I noticed drying bras and underwear on wire hangers in the trees (at street level), there was a couple having a verbal, physical disagreement right on the street (Riley noticed this and I had to try to divert his attention), a man was brushing his teeth and spitting his toothpaste out on the street. After talking to Stephanne (My new friend who is from Missouri, but has lived her for two years now…her husband works with some of the poorer locals) she said that many people share very small homes or rooms. She said there maybe 10 plus people sharing a 10x10 foot room. They may have a couple of beds in each room, but no one has their own beds. They rotate around so that every couple of nights you have a bed to sleep in. They do not have air conditioning or heat or screens on the windows. The lack of a bed would explain why I see people constantly sleeping every where in this city. The kids and I laughed one day when we went by a local restaurant because all the workers were sleeping on all the tables when we walked by (I wouldn’t laugh now that I know the story behind it, but we didn’t know why everyone sleeps all the time then). The workers here also have amazingly long days. Once you start visiting the same places over and over you realize the same workers are there 7 days a week, from opening to closing time. I guess when you are with so many people all the time you get used to not having privacy. This would explain some of the actions I see others doing. It’s not unusual to see crying women. They just sit or walk along sobbing and I always wonder what makes them so sad that they cry out in public. We are much more private in the US, I can’t say whether it’s good or bad, but different.

Day 37 “You’ve got to be kidding me, you have no heat either?”

Day 37 “You’ve got to be kidding me, you have no heat either?”

I am glad to see from your responses that I am not the only one interested in the potty humor. I can’t help myself, sorry! I totally agree Tobey you have to have a sense of humor to be a nurse. The grossest thing I can handle is the scum coming off of people’s teeth, but that’s fun! Come on all you hygienists out there, don’t you agree?! I know you do…there’s nothing more fun or gratifying than watching those chunks fly off people’s teeth. Okay, done with the gross humor. Can you tell I’m ready to go back to work?

We spent the day at Dino Beach. Dino Beach is a water park with slides and other water activities. The kids have been begging me to go since they first heard about it a couple of weeks back. We had plans to go last week, but when Riley burnt himself we put those plans on hold. We took Farah with us so she could keep an eye on Claire while I stayed with the boys. Overall, I would say it was an expensive disappointment. We couldn’t do any of the big slides because the boys had on the wrong kind of swim shorts. The boys and I waited in line for quite a while to do one of the big water slides. I went down first and waited and the bottom for a long time without them showing up. I asked the lifeguard at the bottom where my children might be and if she could communicate with the life guards at the top to help me figure it out? She told me to go back to the top and look for them because she had no way to talk to the top lifeguard. What? Haven’t they heard of walkie-talkies or phones? Just about when I started panicking Riley and Aiden came around the corner (they had no idea where I was either…so they were pretty worried too). They were denied access to the slide because their shorts had pockets in them. Neither of them had snaps, buttons, or Velcro or anything beyond a flap of fabric in the back, but they were apparently the wrong type of shorts. Until that moment I hadn’t really noticed that every other male in that park was wearing a more European style swimsuit. They all had on the skin tight, sleek, polyester style swim suits. You know the ones that leave nothing to the imagination? My boys were wearing boxer style swim trunks. We were all pretty unhappy about this because we paid a ton to get into this place and now we couldn’t do much. Also, the website that I had referenced before I left was seriously outdated in regards to price, so I didn’t bring nearly enough cash with us (and there were no ATM’s available like the in the US in these type of places). We really wanted to rent tubes and float down the river and ride the other rides, but because of my lack of cash we couldn’t do that either. We brought a ton of drinks with us, but we weren’t allowed to bring those in. I have heard that there is some fear about explosives so they are not allowing outside liquids into most establishments (probably related to the Olympics again…although I did hear that there were a couple of buses bombed in the central part of China a couple of days ago). We did find some rather fun water play areas to hang out in. They were designed for younger children, but we filled our time playing in these areas. There was a wave pool too. Which could have been a lot of fun, but all the inter tubes kept knocking us over and I was afraid some one was going to get hurt so we didn’t get to enjoy that as much as we really wanted to. Ugh! It could have been so much fun. I think if I had been able to read Chinese I might have read some of the rules and brought more money with us. I felt pretty ripped off and discouraged by the end of the day. We have been to water parks in Canada, Mexico and many in the United States and honestly this is the only one that I have been disappointed in.

We noticed that several men had large red/brownish circles on their backs. When Riley pointed out the first man I thought maybe he had some sort of skin condition that I had never heard of, but when we started noticing several men I realized it was probably self inflicted. I asked Farah about it and she said it was a form of Eastern medicine called Chinese cupping. Ah-ha, I’ve heard of that before…I read about some famous people doing that in a gossip magazine once. I looked it up on the internet. Here are some interesting pictures. Ouch! Apparently cupping is recommended for the treatment of pain, gastro-intestinal disorders, lung diseases (especially chronic cough and asthma…go figure with all the smoking around here that everybody doesn’t need this), and paralysis, though it can be used for other disorders as well. Now that I know what this is and I am aware of it; I have noticed a few women with these same marks on the upper back/shoulder area above their shirts. I can’t imagine doing this, it looks like it really hurts. Here is a picture from the internet.

Farah and I had lots of time to talk while she and I watched the kids play. I learned several interesting things about her life. She lives in a dorm with three other young women. Her dorm doesn’t have air conditioning or heat. It does get cold enough to snow around here during the winter. I was told it is often around 0-5 degrees Celsius through out the winter. I asked her how she stayed warm and she said they add warm water to bags to put around their hands. She said there are parts of town that there is no heat available and cant be without changing the structure of the town. I didn’t understand this; I guess I don’t understand how they heat the houses here. I asked her if she had considered buying a space heater. She didn’t know what it was; I told her I would send her a link in an email so she could check it out. She has electricity, but no space heater? She graduates this upcoming spring. She said she plans to move to a different area of the city; where she can get AC and heat. I also learned that the water in all of China is not potable. I thought that the water wasn’t safe for visitors to drink because of the difference between home and here, but the water isn’t safe for anyone to drink. This is a major city; one of the biggest in the world (maybe 5th or 6th if I remember correctly) and it doesn’t have safe water for its people? Wow! I just can’t imagine.

Another interesting observation….to swim here you have to buy a “health card”. We had to buy them from the front desk of our apartment before we used the swimming pool. I assumed that they would ask us some “health questions” before they handed it out to us. They didn’t ask us any health questions, but I assumed it was too hard for them to translate it into English so just had us sign it anyway. But now I don’t think that was the case at all. Farah had to buy one before we went into the water park and she not only didn’t have to answer any questions, but no one ever checked her card. What is the point? It seems to me this is one more way to control the people and collect money. The cards aren’t very expensive, but what is the point?

Sorry we didn't bring our camera today, so I have no other pictures.

Day 36 “Score! We got Aiden’s eye glasses and silk comforters for all of us today!!”

Day 36 “Score! We got Aiden’s eye glasses and silk comforters for all of us today!!”

My friend Stephanne took us shopping today. She is the gal from Missouri I met in the subway the third day we were here(see day three entry if you don’t remember). We went to the Optical market and bought Aiden two pairs of eye glasses today for 300 Yuan. That is about $21 each. They are each nice titanium frames. We gave them the prescription, picked out the frames and had the glasses on Aiden’s face within an hour. Wow!! And all for $21, how can you beat that price and timing? I think they are the same frames and lenses that you buy in the US for a couple of hundred dollars. Stephanne has had several pairs made at this particular shop and has worn them for over a year and says they are great. I just can’t believe the prices of some things here. Some things are really expensive and it doesn’t make sense to buy them here in China, but eye glasses are not one of them. We haven’t bought a lot since we’ve been here, I am not a big shopper, but I left the markets today with a major shopping high.

Next we headed to a small silk shop that makes all the major hotels silk comforters. This place is a complete hole in the wall, but apparently the place to shop. There were three ladies and one gentlemen in a 20ft by 20 ft building who made one silk comforter after another while we were there. The kids and I really enjoyed watching the process. I had silk comforters made for all our beds. We have them on our apartment bed and they are nice. Our comforter on our apartment bed is more comfortable than the down one at home and no more worries about allergies from the down feathers. They will be available next week and I am very excited about this purchase. Again this purchase was very reasonably priced. I think the total was around $300 total for four silk (the real thing, not some cheap imitation), very thick comforters. Now when the power goes out for a week at home, we will be very toasty warm at night! Here are pictures of the four person team making a comforter. It was very interesting to watch. They start with a rather large piece of silk and they spread it out to the desired measurements. Then they keep adding layers until it gets to how ever many kilos you ordered. When they get to the desired thickness they do some rolling and pulling to get it all leveled out and then eventually stitch the corners together. After that they sew a cotton cover over the entire silk piece. They were very careful to make sure it was all pulled very evenly and stitched in place. Watching it reminded me of that show "How is it made" on the Discovery channell.

Stephanne lives down the street from us, but far enough away that we haven’t really explored her area. She showed us several new restaurants that we can now check out in our final week and a half here. We are quickly tiring of the restaurants in our area so it was very exciting to learn of a new area to explore that was within walking distance. These are some of the little things that make our life more enjoyable these days. We had a very nice lunch with her today and again I got to hear lots of perspectives from someone from the US whose been living here for a year. I will share later…

Oh and another potty picture and story. (Just stop reading now if you are sick of hearing about bathrooms!) So I think I went into the ultimate in gross toilets on this shopping excursion ( I couldn’t use it). The bathroom has three stalls in a row. There is one trough that runs through the three toilets. The stall on one end has the water source that periodically flushes and the stall at the far end has the hole in the bottom of the trough. So….if you are in the middle stall and some one on one end does their business it floats past you to the other stall to go out the hole. OMG! This is the worst! Who designed that? It’s bad enough that I have to go into these bathrooms and look at the garbage can full of used toilet paper and "red pee" Claire keeps asking me about, but now I have to see other people’s excrements too. I chose not to go into nursing because I didn’t want to deal with other people's stuff and now I have to see it when I use the public bathroom. No thanks. This is not an obervation it is an opinion!

Day 35 “Nobody on that ride looks wet, what’s the deal it’s a water ride.”

Day 35 “Nobody on that ride looks wet, what’s the deal it’s a water ride?” quote by me, Hollie.

Finally we made it to the Amusement Park. We tried to go last weekend, but had to leave before we entered because of the thunder and lightening storm that hit right before we got there. Yesterday we spent the entire day at this park. The kids had a wonderful time. It was crowded and hot, but they didn’t care. I am such a worry wart; I kept thinking about the lack of safety of the equipment. Jeff and the kids didn’t give it a single thought and jumped on every ride that they could and had a great time. I enjoyed a few rides, mostly the rides involving water. They have a river rapids ride that on the surface looks

a lot like the ones at most of the major theme parks in the states, but this one nobody actually gets wet. On one hand I don’t get the point, the appeal of these rides is to see how wet you can get, but on the other hand, the water in this particular ride looked like it came right out of the local river so it smelled and looked really dirty. Probably a good thing that we didn’t get wet, but it surprised all of us since we’ve been to Disney World and other places where you get drenched on these rides. (Remember Lezlie and MaKayla?)

Jeff and the kids went on the giant Ferris wheel (650 feet tall...I just looked it up and it's called an observation wheel). There was a sign/plaque out front in Chinese; I’m guessing that it was explaining about this being one of the largest Ferris wheels in the world. It was amazingly large. They never stopped it to let people on or off. It moved very slowly and when it got to the bottom they quickly unloaded and reloaded the cars. I bet they had an amazing view of Shanghai, I’m sure it was my loss, but I just couldn’t get on that ride.

It becomes very clear in a place with long lines that the people of this community do not like to wait in lines or know how to do it with much etiquette. We had to secure out spot constantly in line. People cut in front of others often, they appear to feel entitled. If you leave any sort of gap in the line some one will very quickly jump in front of you from no where, or you will be pushed from behind to fill the empty space. While waiting in line for one ride I could feel the breath of the young woman behind me on the back of my neck, she had tried to pass us in line several times and was frustrated with the wait. I could feel her entire body pushing up against me. We waited in this line for over half an hour and the entire time she was pushing me forward because she wanted to get past me. I don’t know where she thought she was going once she got past me, but she wouldn’t let up. She was doing it to Jeff first, so we traded spots thinking maybe she wouldn’t do it to me, but she continued. This sort of behavior is prevalent here. It’s more than about having a different level of personal space; it’s about impatience and immediate gratification. I don’t find the people of this city very patient or mindful of others around them.

I really don’t want to be judgmental of other people’s cultures. I don’t think most people here think they are being rude, but it is really grating on me personally to be treated so rudely all the time. I find the people here loud, pushy, self-centered and constantly invading my space in every way. I know it is my issue and I try to keep reminding myself that they don’t see anything wrong with what they are doing, but I couldn’t live here and be treated like this. The kids are having a hard time with it too. Okay, I’ve vented… I feel better now.

Here is a picture of a unique Carousel that was at this park. Claire enjoyed the top floor.

One last thing, on our way home there were several people who were all working together to dig through the garbage. They had quite an organized system all worked out between them. At first I thought they were part of the sanitation/street cleaners, but I later realized that they were digging through the garbage looking not only for the recyclables, but for chicken bones. They had quite a pile of bones built up. There is a KFC down the street from this location and they were digging through the garbage to collect the bones and scraps of meat. This was really disturbing. We have seen the same beggars day after day in our neighborhood, but this was beyond anything I’ve seen them do. The ones in our neighborhood are asking for money. They each have children that they sort of taut in front to get pity…or at least it seems that way from my perspective since I can’t understand any of what they say. The thing about these trash diggers is they weren’t begging. If I could have picked my jaw up off the ground quicker I probably would have given them money, but it took me so long to register what was going on that we were past them and headed home on the subway before I processed what I had witnessed. I just couldn’t believe my eyes. One more experience for me to think about for while.

Also, here is a picture of some sort of fruit or vegetable that we see them selling often on the street. Does any one know what it is or what we do with it? I’d like to try it before we leave if I can figure it out.

One last thing. I have really enjoyed all the comments, it helps me feel connected to home. Thanks so much!

Also, I have the next couple of days worth of blog enteries written, but I have had a hard time getting to this site and others that communicate outside of China. So I will try to keep posting, but it's not me if I don't post reguarly. I also intermittently can't get to hotmail or my facebook account. The screening is a bit frustrating. Jeff can get to these sites through his work computer that goes through Japan. Hmmmm???!!!!

Day 34 "Pizza!"

Day 34 “Pizza!”

Today one of Jeff’s co-workers welcomed everybody from their team to her house for a gathering. I was really looking forward to it because I hadn’t been able to see the inside of anyone’s home yet. I had been very curious. Jeff’s team here has 9 employees and just about everyone showed up. It was a bit awkward at first as many parties are, but after a short time everyone loosened up.

Xiaoyan served pizza, delivered from Papa Johns. I found that interesting. I am finding that most of the women around here (0r at least the ones we have had a chance to get to know) don’t cook. They have either a hired person who does all their cooking or they have mother in laws who do all the cooking. The people we have gotten to know since we have been here are all pretty comfortable financially compared to many I see on the streets. I would guess the poor families know how to cook for themselves.

Their apartment is in PuDong, which I mentioned in an earlier entry is the nicer part of Shanghai. They live about 4o minutes from our apartment and quite a taxi ride away. It is a really nice tree lined neighborhood. There are many apartments, but they are not as tall as in the city where we are and they are further apart. It really was much more peaceful in their neighborhood. The kids started getting restless during the party and decided to go outside and play soccer with Xiaoyan’s 9 year old son, Alan. They actually had an area outside where the kids could play. It still wasn’t grass, but at least there was a wider open space than we have here in the middle of the city. There was also a part of the river that ran parallel to their apartment. While the boys played soccer Claire and I took a nice walk around the neighborhood and along the river. It was sooooooooo nice to walk and not have anyone pushing, yelling, and hitting me in the eye with their umbrella. It was quiet except the cicada in the trees. I felt like this neighborhood was probably about as close to good old Woodinville as I was going to get here in Shanghai. It was nice! Being in the city (and even here in the outskirts of the city) has really made me think more about the book I read last year called “The Last Child in the Woods”. In this book the theory is that humans need nature, especially children. I wonder how much nature deprivation these children are getting. It makes me sad! I think if most of us were posed with the question what is your fondest or even perhaps first memories most people would answer that they remember something about being outside, will that be true for the children of Shanghai? Of course there is grass here and there, but there are signs everywhere saying you can’t walk on it. The grass is for show, it’s not to be enjoyed. Children don’t climb trees or swim in the cool lakes or oceans here. People who live in big cities or countries like this don’t have those same opportunities to be in nature and enjoy the peacefulness of it. I feel extremely fortunate to have such wonderful, peaceful surroundings at my real home.

The inside of the house was tidy, small, but well decorated. The thing I was most curious about was the toilet. I didn’t think anyone would really have a squat toilet, but I was curious. I had to laugh because not only did they have a western toilet, but it was an American Standard toilet. I know that this family lived in Canada for many years so they are probably a bit westernized, so I am still curious about true natives of this country and their toilet situation. You know me, always thinking and wondering about everything! The apartment wasn’t a whole lot different than the inside of our apartment, many of the same features and decorations.

The other co-workers were nice. Most of them are quite a bit younger than Jeff and I, so they are either not married, or have very young children. Only one family came, the rest came without their significant other. It was interesting listening to them quickly switch between English and Chinese during our conversations. We played several games together. The games were nice ice breakers and got everyone laughing and enjoying themselves. Some of them were similar to games we played in college and were drinking games way back when. Jeff and I taught them some magic tricks that we hadn’t done in many years and they seemed to be fascinated trying to figure them out. I had a nice conversation with Xiaoyan’s husband, Ping. He lived in Canada for 10 years and has many interesting perspectives after having lived in Canada and China (and also as an exchange student with the US for one year in Salt Lake City). I don’t want to share his perspective here, but he left me with many interesting things to think about. Future entries….

Sorry no picture today!

Day 29-33 "The Bugs Have Arrived!"

Day 29-33 “The bugs have arrived!”

We found a few things in a local magazine to do this week, but we are definitely running out of activities. I don’t know for sure how we are going to fill our time our last week and a half here, but I’m sure we will figure something out.

This week we went back to the Shanghai museum and visited the galleries we hadn’t seen before. We also went to the Shanghai Natural Wild Insect Kingdom and the Shanghai Kid’s Museum.


The Insect Kingdom had small animals along with the insects. We seem to catch feeding time when ever we go to these places so the kids did enjoy watching the snakes eat mice. I think they grow their own small animals/food there. There were a ton of guinea pigs and also many small animal consuming creatures. At first the kids (mainly Claire and Riley) were pretty upset about this feeding process, but after I explained that if they lived in nature that’s what they would eat they seemed to except the facts and enjoy watching the amazing process of a snake eating an animal bigger than its own head. Aiden has always been into bugs so he enjoyed the insects quite a bit. It’s too bad most of it was in Chinese because I think we could have spent a lot more time learning in this zoo. This place was full of giant dead and alive bugs. It also had a petting zoo where you could pet the rabbits, guinea pigs and goats. There was an owl and some sort of primate also. The sign said it was the smallest kind of primate, but again most of the signs were in Chinese so I don’t know what kind it was. They were very entertaining to watch play with each other.

The Shanghai Kid’s Museum was a bit disappointing. Most of it was very simple and not a lot of displays. There were 8 different exhibition rooms and each was on a different subject such as space, nautical or communication technology. It was fine the day we were there because it was pretty empty, but if this place was full, it would be hard to really see or experience anything. The two last rooms finally had interesting and worthy exhibits in my opionion. The room that my kids spent at least an hour in is much like the Everett or Seattle Children’s museum. It was filled with various child size exhibits modeled after real life experiences. There was a doctor’s office, bank, restaurant, store, a stage with a few props, and a climbing tree house. There were also a couple of puzzle type things to work on. There was a reverse vacuum and balls that the boys had fun seeing how far they could get them to fly. There was also a wall with several planks that you inserted into different slots to set up a track and see if you could predict which direction the balls would fall. The boys entertained themselves for quite a while with these activities. Claire on the other hand found another family with three children who also spoke English and enjoyed doing all the pretend stuff with them for quite a while. We have seen very few people traveling with three children. Mostly as you would expect we have seen many families with only one child. The last exhibit in this museum is full of books. They have a reading session twice a day where they read aloud to the little kids. The lady who was in there said it is usually in Chinese, but occasionally in English (I suppose it’s who ever shows up at that time). It was wonderful to be surrounded by so many books written in English, unfortunately for Aiden and Riley they were all Claire’s age, but it was great for Claire. The boys found a computer with a game running on it that they filled their time with while Claire and I read several books together.

We have gotten in a nice routine of walking after dinner. Our walks have changed this week though; the bugs have moved in. It is very noisy now, not just the city and people noise, but the cicada have arrived in full force. At times the noise is so deafing that you can’t hear each other talk. They are interesting bugs. They will be completely quiet for several minutes and then all of a sudden an entire row of trees takes off in a spectacular chorus of singing or chanting. We learned the hard way how they eliminate these bugs. We were walking home the other night and noticed a big truck a short distance in front of us spraying into the trees above us. The air around us was filled with pesticide and so was the food that was being sold on the street. We were walking on what is known as snack alley, the street is lined with small open fronted stores selling a variety of cooked foods. We walked as fast as we could to get out of the targeted area, but we were also covered in pesticide along with the trees. I just don’t understand this action. We have been on the street several times late into the evening and very early in the morning when there were few people on the street. I think they can’t ignore the bugs because they suck all the moisture out of the trees and the trees will die, but why do this right in the middle of dinner time when the street is swamped with people? Along with the cicadas the mosquitoes have arrived too. Just last week there were no bugs around and now they are everywhere. Interesting…

We also had a small medical emergency this week. Riley burnt himself on the steamer. For breakfast every day we buy frozen buns filled with pork or beef and then we steam them in the steamer. Riley didn’t realize there was a vent in the top and put his arm across it to unplug the steamer and got a nasty burn. I have to say I sort of panicked at first (which is unlike me in these situations…if you’ve ever heard the story of Aiden breaking his arm and the splint I made for him you’d know how calm I usually stay) because I quickly realized that we had a limited first aid kit with us, the kids had used all the ice, and there is no way I wanted to take him to a doctor here if I could avoid it. This burn concerned me because Riley wasn’t complaining about any pain. It is about 1 ½ inches round (exactly the shape and size of the vent c0ming out of the steamer) and the skin immediately peeled off. There was no blister and no pain. I immediately thought this kid has got a 3rd degree burn and I am in a foreign city. Ugh!! I know Riley wasn’t thrilled when it started hurting a short while later, but I was relieved. He is mostly disappointed because we have plans to go to a water park this coming week and if it’s not healed he wont be able to swim. He’s also missed out on swimming every day this week. Big bummer! It’s starting to heal and I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I think it turned out to be only a second degree burn, bad, but not bad enough we needed to seek medical help. The drug store here is amazingly bad. I can’t find any sort of gauze or wrapping material only band aids. I brought quite a bit of this stuff with us, but used it up on my foot the first couple of weeks we were here. I am really curious what the people do here for this type of problem.

Observations this week…

Very few people have gray hair (only the really old and many of them don’t have gray hair either). So there is either a lot of L’Oreal being used or genetically they don’t gray.

No wedding rings and very little jewelry worn.

Fake eyelashes are becoming very popular here.

They take great cautions to avoid the sun. Some people were sunglasses, but most use visors that cover their faces. I think they use the visors because it’s easier when you are riding a bike or scooter, but they shield their entire face. They also use umbrellas a lot. It’s driving me a bit nuts because they pretty much use umbrellas all the time, because it’s either raining or sunny. Do you know how hard it is to walk through a large group of people using umbrellas? They all hit me right about eye level; I am constantly dodging the umbrellas. They also make their own arm covers so that their arms are not exposed to the sun when they are riding their bikes or scooters; if they don’t have the homemade arm covers then they where long sleeve shirts on backwards to protect their arms. All this coverage from the sun would explain their beautiful young looking skin. The only people who have really weathered looking skin are the street workers. They wear large brimmed hats, but they are out in it all day long.

I am tall here. I am 5 foot 4 inches tall and in the subway I can see over most of the crowd. It’s pretty amazing. I’ve never been tall. There are people taller than me, but the majorities are pretty petite, including the men.

No one ever sits down on the street, sidewalk or a curb or anything close to the ground. They are very good at crouching. I see groups sitting around playing card games all crouched, not touching the ground. I think we take for granted that our ground is relatively clean. I don’t think my thighs are strong enough to crouch for as long as I see these people doing it.

Did you know there are no time zones in China? They have the same time all the way across the country. I just assumed that if we traveled west we would be in a different time zone, but I guess they don’t do that here. It’s interesting to think about how the light (or lack of at different times of the year) might affect the people across this country.

They don’t add a stinky smell to their natural gas. When we use our cook top I have to be really diligent about making sure the flame doesn’t go out (it along with most of the other appliances doesn’t work very well) while I am cooking. I can’t smell the gas pouring out and the flame goes out pretty readily. Even though I hate the smell of natural gas, it’s a good thing to have that smell.

There are many pregnant women here. It’s interesting to think that nearly all of them are getting ready to have their first baby. I so remember that feeling and all the unknowns that come with it. Nobody has been through this before; they are all first time moms. Just something I thought about…also you know how the English dictionary is always changing and we add and delete words as we use or need them. I would assume they have a similar type system. What will happen to their current words that mean brother, sister, cousin, aunt or uncle? They wont have any reason to use those words soon (Because of the one child law) so will those words be deleted from their vocabularies and eventually their dictionaries?

Maternity clothes are ugly here. They are the cutesy, ugly smocks with little bears and infantile pictures on them that went out with the 80’s in the US. I am glad that I had more stylish choices when I was pregnant.

Everyone has old, single speed bikes here (and no hand brakes). Many of them need new brakes (the constant screeching is awful). People must buy new bikes, but honestly I haven’t seen anything except black, simple, single speed bikes. Where do you buy such a bike? I see many make-shift bike repair shops in alleys around here. These old repair men are very busy every time we pass. I haven’t seen a single bike that has been bought in the last 20 years here, or at least that’s how they all appear.

I like the subway. I wish there was some way for us to get a subway in our area. I don’t see it ever happening, but it’s so much easier once you learn how it all works. I bet my car would be so much cleaner too (all that kid goo could be in the subway rather than the seats in my car)! I’d like to use my car just for long trips and when I needed to move a bunch of items. I can see where an extensive subway station is really a great asset to a city.

One last thing, a couple people asked for an update on our bathroom experiences. Claire and I have gotten very good at using the squat toilets here. We had to break down and use them when we were in Beijing. I guess Claire had been using them here, but I had avoided them. I honestly don't mind them too much now. I can not tolerate how stinky and disgusting the bathrooms are, but the actual squatties aren't that big a deal once you get excellent instructions from home. Thanks everyone! I am attaching a picture...I know it's in poor taste, but I bet a few of you are wondering what they look like...I know I was before we got here. This picture is of a pretty clean one, at least visually, but the smell in these bathrooms is AWEFUL!