Golden week

Mr. Lu (our driver) showing Sophie and Noah the wonders of a "wet" market. A market where the meat is super fresh (aka alive!)

So after a long period of being unable to access this site to post our photos and info I can get on again! We are all fine. We enjoyed our first Chinese holiday week and have new appreciation for the word crowded. We stayed in Shanghai as Jon had to work several days and were tourist here. Wow! Shanghai was hosting the Special Olympic World Summer Games then as well so the amount of people in Shanghai was truly amazing. We visited He Ping park. A typical Chinese park with gardens, walking paths, men airing their pet birds in their cages, a man made lake/lagoon and several amusement park type rides. I took one look at the rides and quickly decided that the children could only ride the ones that kept contact with the ground! They enjoyed them while I sweated, calculating how long it would take to get back to the entrance of the park, call our driver to retrieve us and find the nearest emergency room (that provided Western style care). I was happy when we moved on! While we waited at the entrance to be picked up by Mr. Lu (our wonderful driver) a crowd quickly formed around us. We were the only western family I had seen in the park and clearly we were the tourist attraction of the day. They were fascinated by Sophie's blue eyes and blond hair. They pointed, laughed to each other and stroked her hair. They kept pointing at her eyes and then to Jon's which are not blue. When I took off my sunglasses and showed them my blue eyes they smiled as if it all made sense. An experience I won't forget soon.

Sophie on the bumper cars


Kids and mom on boat being driven by Thomas. Dad sat next to him and helped with the steering. They were row boats with some sort of battery power on them. They had two speeds: slow and slower. We floated around the man made lagoons trying hard not to splash any of the scummy water into the boat. I sure look relaxed, don't you think!


We also went to the Jin Mao tower (where Jon works) and had ice cream at the Grand Cafe on the 54th floor. We had a fabulous view of the Bund, Pearl tower and all the boats going up and down the river. What a busy waterway.


Here is a picture Thomas took looking up the side of the Jin Mao tower after we had come back down! Neat perspective.

Noah has decided that since we live in China he will only eat with chopsticks. This is fun but makes for a long meal when we have corn or peas. He will eat rice with a spoon as someone told him that is what the Chinese do. He has even mastered eating pancakes with chopsticks! See below for proof!



I went on an incredible walking tour led by a Chinese freelance photographer Gang Fang Weng. He took us through the older parts of Shanghai, many of which are slated for destruction. It seems that there is no equivilant of Preservation Societies here. Big developers can come in and buy up pretty much any piece of property as long as they have enough money. Really sad. This photographer grew up in the area and was able to take us through several homes. Amazing to see how the locals live. 6-8 families sharing a single kitchen, each with their own hot plate and water spout. 4-6 people in a room. It was very humbling to see. I will include a few of the many photos I took. I am not sure if they are as interesting if you didn't hear the talk that went along with the sights!



playing Majong


I wonder how long laundry hung like that would last in NYC?

We continue to love our time in Shanghai and are having fun exploring the ins and outs of this exciting, vibrant city.

Spirit Day

So Friday was Spirit day at the kids school (SAS). The children were all placed in houses (think Harry Potter) and given t-shirts with their house animals on them. Thankfully all three of our kids were placed in the same house (the dolphins). Thomas painted his face blue! He was hoping to put himself in a bathtub filled with food coloring to dye himself blue but I nixed that plan. He had to settle for face paint. The kids all paraded around the school showing school spirit by yelling and cheering. The winning team got to put their house jersery on the school mascot (an eagle) for the school year. The dolphins won! I am sure it was directly related to Thomas's blue face!


Sophie and Noah enjoying Spirit day as well.


Sophie with her friend Jessica

The other exciting thing we has this week was a typoon day on Wednesday. Typoon Wipha was supposed to make landfall in Shanghai. The school closed because the Chinese government closed all local schools so they followed suit. Jin Mao Tower where Jon works was also closed so everybody was home for the day. Wipha changed her plans last minute and made landfall south of us so all we had was a bit of rain. Here is a photo of Jon and Noah both hard at work!

finally an update!

This is the Jin Mao Tower office building where Jon spends most of his time.


Sweeping the grass! (This one's for you Dad!)



This is Peabody's forbidden swimming spot.


This is our house.

I can't believe that Aug. 28th was my last posting. Sorry! (For those of you who are checking regularly). Thomas was sent on a mission over the weekend to take some pictures of where we live. These are the results. The pond is just outside the compound but is where Peabody is quite deperate to swim. There is a family (gaggle?) of 6 white geese that swim there and then wander around nibbling on the strange grass.

Things in Shanghai are great. The kids have all settled into a nice school routine. They are all very happy. Thomas is loving touch rugby and can even explain the rules to his mother. Not so hard to understand except you have to throw the ball backwards or sideways while running forward and looking up so you don't crash! I haven't quite mastered the scoring of it but the kids all look like they are having fun so that is what counts!

We are coming up on our first Chinese holiday. The mid autumn festival (even though the weather still feels like mid summer)! As far as I can tell the holiday involves lots mooncakes and not much else. A mooncake is a tasty little flat cupcake that is fill with yummy taste treats like lotus leaves, red bean paste and if you are really lucky salted egg yolk! Where are the chocolate creme filled ones! Dunkin donuts is mising a huge market in China! The compound is holding a BBQ for all the "guests" as we are called, next Sat so we will see if there is more to the holiday that mooncakes.

I had an interesting experience in the grocery store. I was standing in line with my very full cart and a lady came up and started pawing through my stuff, smiling at me the entire time. I guess she was interested in what a westerner was eating for dinner. They are also stunned at how much food I buy at one trip. Families of five are a rarity!

We are enjoying trying out new food. The kids are doing very well, trying food they know prepared differently. They are game for new veggies and fruits as well. Less excited to try eel and jellyfish. Although so was their mother so who can really blame them.

I promise it won't be so long till the next post! Hopefully some of you are still checking!

Noah's birthday

We celebrated Noah's birthday on Sat. at GM family day at Sheshan National Park. It is a park about 1 hour west of Shanghai. There were lots of things for the kids to do, a wading pool with slides, waterfalls and sprinklers, a large maze to get lost in (which Thomas did!), a bouncy hill (Chinese version of a bouncy castle) and a huge tree house. A good time was had by all even though it was super hot!

All is well in Shanghai. Peabody has turned the blog writing over to me as his schedule has filled up with various napping spots that all need attention. He is loving chasing the ducks back into the pond each morning and holds a grudge that I won't let him swim in the water. (It is gross!)

The kids are all loving school. Thomas has his first rugby game on Thurs. He had his cast removed yesterday and the finger seems to have healed just fine. He may sit on the bench for the first game just to be on the safe side.

I am including several pictures of the kids at family day.

Update on activities

Well, a lot has happened since the last post. Thomas broke his finger so we got figure out the health care system (surprisingly very good!), the kids all started school, (very happy so far) and we have further explored the shopping possibilities of Shanghai, (endless!).

The picture is of the kids leaving for the bus for the first day of school. Thomas is waving his cast making his argument against Heelys. Everyone seems very happy so far. Thomas particularly likes the MP3 friendly lounge. Sophie and Noah both have very small classes (only 16 kids in each) which makes mom very happy!

We have met lots of the other families living in our compound now. The start of school brought everyone out of their houses. Now if the temps would just drop below 90 I would be happy to come out of the house as well.

We went to a plant and flower market over the weekend and bought some large house plants/trees to fill up some of the space in the house. I am hoping they will absorb some of the echoes! We bargained for them (Jon did, he is sooo good at it) and we got two large tree things and nice ceramic pots for them for less than $25! I am loving the sport of shopping in Shanghai! Grocery shoppping is just as much as a drag as it is in the US with the added bonus of the live food section near the vegetables!

There have been some request for pictures of our house and compound. I will work on getting those taken today and get them posted soon! Keep the comments coming so I know that you can access the blog. I can't!

Settling in

Well at last we are all reunited. I can't say I loved quarantine but I sure am glad to be home. This place is filled with weird smells and strange vegetation. The grass here looks a little like the leafy sea weed I used to swim through at the beach house. Not grass like at all except it is green. One draw back is that there seems to be a thunder storm every afternoon. I have scouted out all the places to hide. My fave so far is to wedge my body under the couch in the living room. The only problem with this spot is that the flooring here is some slippery wood-like substance (laminate?) and I can't really get any traction with my paws to get myself out from under the couch when the thunder passes.

The kids went swimming today. They have to wear these crzy looking caps on their heads. That was quite a production. The first time into the pool the life guard came over and wagged his finger at them. No english spoken. Sarah wasn't sure what the issue was till he pointed to their heads and shook his finger again. Sarah looked around and noticed that everyone else in the pool had caps on. So out of the pool dripping wet, into the lobby to ask if they had any at the front desk. Luckily they did so swimming could commence. Notice the stylish look in the photos!

Shanghai At Last

We made it! The kids and I survived the marathon trip to Shanghai. They did fabulous. They all slept for quite a while, watched several movies, read a few books, played with the numerous things Amma had packed for them in their travel bags and still had an hour or two to bug each other and be bored! We are fighting jet lag today and hopefully will all adjust in a few days. We went bowling at our sports center today and will try badmitton tomorrow!

I will hopefully figure out how to put little captions under the pictures so you know what they are. These are the kids with our luggage in MI and bowling jet lag away!


(Peabody was too busy snoozing his last day of quarantine away to write anything today. He will join us at 11am tomorrow.)