One Month Assessment

We've officially passed the one month anniversary of our move mark. Overall, we're doing quite well. The kids are getting used to their schools. Rebecca and Allison have had a slightly easier adjustment than Henry, who has very few boys in his grade. Eric is now finally able to really dig into the new business. They have a good prognosis on getting their business license, a signed lease on the site for the first Disney Private Language Insitute, a full staff, and things are now moving at a fast pace.

I am adjusting to my new life of leisure as an accompanying spouse. I finally observed flower arranging this past week (I didn't realize I needed to sign up in advance) and the women did amazing work and I will officially begin that on March 4. I went back to Berlitz and am working on my Mandarin and trying to do yoga at least two times a week (I purchased 55 classes at the studio in Xintiandi). I'm also busy with the kids and their school and have signed up for a number of tours in the next few months. We've met a lot of people, but don't really yet have many established friends.

We really enjoy hearing from our friends back in the US. If you're reading about our adventures, please do drop us a line every now and then. We miss our friends and family a lot and love to get your news as well.

Why Disneyland has Secret Passageways

Pooh and Donald and Mickey with their heads off at the Lantern Festival. This horrified Eric. Did you know that Winnie the Pooh was Chinese?

The Lantern Festival In Jinqiao

On Sunday, February 17, after Sunday School we happened upon a celebration for the Lantern Festival, which marks the first full moon after the Lunar New Year (it's been quite a long month of celebrating).

Rebecca starts soccer

Rebecca started soccer last weekend at the British International School close by, and apparently most of the usual kids were at a judo competition, leaving only Rebecca and two older boys and the coach.
Rebecca basically ran circles around the boys. They actually gave up and layed down in the field before the class was over. Hopefully it will get a little more competitive for her!
This was the scene on the ride home. Lots of rickshaws!

Valentine's Day in Hong Kong

Eric had a meeting in Hong Kong on Valentine's Day, so I got invited to join him in my first visit there. We stayed at the Four Seasons and had a great Valentine's Dinner at Nobu on Kowloon. Hong Kong was a very vibrant much more westernized city than Shanghai. It was a relief to actually have cab drivers who spoke English (although the driving on the wrong side of the street was a little surprising). We got a great picture taken of the two of us on the waterfront, but until our scanner gets connected I won't be able to post it, so you'll have to settle for now for two pictures of just me. Here I am on the ferry to Kowloon. And here I am at Nobu. The food was amazing.
We were extremely excited to be reunited with a Four Seasons mattress (our mattress we left behind in LA was a Four Season mattress and regular blog devotees will know we've been struggling to come up with a reasonable subsitute in China). While Eric was in meetings I mostly napped and wandered pretty aimlessly around the mall attached to the hotel. I was very excited to find a butter dish! When Eric got out of meetings we went to a factory where our friends had custom dishes made (a project we want to undertake) and continued on our quest for a mattress for Shanghai. Of course, we found the sealy hotel (4 seasons) mattress below, but later learned it is not available in Shanghai.
There are apparently no Sealy or Serta matresses available in mainland China. There are however, some Slumberland mattresses. We did find this Slumberland mattress we also liked in Hong Kong, however, we have not located it in Shanghai yet. But we're continuing to search...

A few more views of SCIS

Here's a picture of the outside of the school from an angle I haven't captured before. On February 13 I got to volunteer in Allison's class and will now be volunteering in both Rebecca's and Allison's classes once per month. It was very cute and is one of the benefits of now being offically retired and a stay at home mom!

Here's Allie and Eric arriving at school one day on their bikes.

My motortrycle continued

Here I am on my first two rides on the motortrycle, first with Rebecca and her friend, and then with Allison and her friend. It's really most like a golf cart. It goes about 20km per hour.

Other than these two joy rides, it was quite handy when I had to pick up Rebecca's suitcase from her friend's house at the other end of the compound (and would not have been able to carry it on my bike) and also when I had to bring a wet Henry home from swim team in frigid weather in the dark from the pool over one mile away (he could just huddle inside his parka). It's also a relief to have a backup means of transporting kids within the compound when we're down to only one car.

My motortrycle

This was the electric tricycle I started lusting after in the SCIS parking lot. Finding it was not easy. First I got the name of an electric bicycle shop from my friend Jennifer, but they did not have the 3-wheel version with the back bench that I wanted. So, I actually tracked down a Dad who dropped his kids off at school in one of these, but his wife couldn't remember where theirs had come from and they said their former driver had found it for them. Then, while I was taking a picture of this vehicle (actually driven by a high school student with her younger siblings in tow), another woman came by and when I told her I was trying to figure out where to get one, she said her driver knew where. So, I immediately called Xiao Hu and passed the phone to her driver to pass on the critical info. Now, a lot of people just put their kids on the back of regular electric motorcycles, but I was pretty insistent upon getting this model. Here's the shop where Xiao Hu found it for me and here is my actual bike just before I bought it.

Another view of the shop.

Lauren Turns 40 in Shanghai

My 40th birthday arrived officially on February 12. The Disney offices were closed for Chinese New Year, but the kids had school, so Eric and I celebrated by going to the Shanghai Art Museum (which was interesting, but had no English explanations whatsoever) and then had lunch at Kathleen's on the roof.

We then went for massages and had dinner at home with the kids. It was a great birthday.

My wife's mid-life crisis

Eric posting now: in a turn that will baffle her friends, today Lauren dragged Xiao Hu and me to an uber-local motorcycle shop to find herself some new wheels.

No, this isn't a side effect of the Big Birthday arriving tomorrow, and it may make a bit more sense to you all when you find out that what she's been coveting is a motorized TRICYCLE with a big bench in the back for the 3 kids, so she can cart them around the Emerald for swimming, etc. at night, when we'd rather not have them riding bikes.

But it won't be easy to find. The local shop we went to today didn't have such a model, and after chasing down an Emerald-based triker, we were told their driver before-last found it for them, that driver had gone underground, they didn't remember where the shop was, and that these super-trikes aren't street-legal in the first place.... so we have something new to hunt for....

My Chicken Story

My friend Sarah, who took Eric and me around at various points, gave us lots of shopping tips, telling us where to buy the basics and helping us with some of the unfamiliar brands (like German whole wheat flour, which was completely unrecognizable). She told me she had trouble finding good whole chickens, but had finally discovered the best chickens were from the deli at the Ritz Hotel in the city (which is inside the nicest imported grocery chain in Shanghai (City Shop). She actually took me there and I got a card with the phone number, so I could call and order chickens. She even suggested buying two at a time and freezing one.

So after our rotisserie arrived and we got our power converters all straightened out, I decided it was time to buy the chickens. I pulled out my card and got over my anxiety over calling people I can't really communicate with and ordered my 2 chickens (thinking I was actually getting the hang of things). The woman spoke little English, but she repeated a price and the time I said I would be there. So, after failing to find a mattress, I proudly took Eric to the City Shop at the Ritz Hotel, which is also the only market I have found vanilla Coffeemate. I went to the deli and asked for the chickens and discovered they were giving me cooked chickens (which was not going to let me showcase my rotisserie. (I realized at this point that I probably needed to specify UNCOOKED chickens when buying them from a deli - clearly I'm a novice - but I'm not sure the person who took my order would have understood me anyway.)

Well, I was told they had no uncooked chickens (or at least they weren't going to go run to wherever the Chinese people run to get what it is that you really want. This happened when we went to buy my cell phone. We chose the model we wanted from the case and then were told they would go and get it and be back in 30 minutes.) So, I decided to buy one of the whole chickens for sale in the City Shop, figuring this is the fanciest market in the city and it would be an okay substitute.

Well, when we opened the chicken's bag, Lilybeth pulled out its head! There it is, right in my kitchen!

I couldn't really eat it. And now I've learned my lesson: I have to get them from the Ritz deli and specify uncooked.

Biking to School

School resumed today after the CNY break. Now that everyone has a bike, the preferred transportation to school is the bicycle. Jill, don't get upset about the helmets, it's only about 1/2 mile and there are usually no cars on the street and if there are, the guards make them go slow.
I should add that the fireworks last night were really incredible. Starting at about midnight they were constant through the time the kids left for school. At about 12:30a.m. Eric and I could from any vantage point view at least 4 major fireworks displays. (And they still continue....) It sounded like we were under attack from all directions.

The Hustle

After the exciting tunnel ride and museum, while we were trying to find Xiao Hu with our car, we were approached by 3 lovely Chinese ladies who were swooning over the kids and Allison in particular (yet again).They asked if they could have their pictures taken with us and since we couldn't find Xiao Hu we began talking to them. Two of the women were from Xian and the woman pictured alone with Allison was from Tibet. They reported they had met while in college in Xian and then gone to some kind of art program in Shanghai and were trying to become artists. We spent about 10 minutes talking to them and still no Xiao Hu, and then we were invited to their studio across the street where they were displaying their work. Then we were informed their professor would let them sell their pieces and were asked if we wanted to purchase anything!

Having already established relationships with them, we did end up buying some art (not expensive by any means), but in the end they seemed to be collecting money for each others' art pieces, and we weren't even sure if they were really the artists, but it was still a fun encounter! I feel that whenever we have a cultural exchange like that (or even when we ask our children to make room at the front of the bund tunnel car to let some Chinese children stand with them) that it's meaningful .

Weekend continued

On the other side of the Huangpu River lie the ultramodern buildings of Pudong. Here is the striking Pearl Tower.
We took the kids on the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, a psychedelic light show ride that takes you under the river. The kids were pressed up to the glass of a subway like car next to two Chinese children. They all seemed to like it. When we emerged on the other side and Eric was trying to find the entrance to the Pearl Tower, we stumbled upon the Shanghai Wild Insect and Pet Park. The highlight was these pgymy monkeys, the smallest primates.

Our weekend; dim sum and then some

Eric and I spent most of the day Saturday in search of the elusive mattress and file cabinet with no luck, but did find the alarm clock previously mentioned. The kids played at resort Emerald. Saturday night Eric and I went out for sushi in the city with a couple we met when we first came to visit in May. Sunday, since Sunday School and basketball were both on hiatus due to Chinese New Year, we went back to Din Tai Fung, which is a very famous dumpling restaurant where we had lunch the previous Sunday. Here we are with our pork dumplings.

Din Tai Fung is in this pedestrian shopping area adjacent to Eric's office building in Xintiandi.
After lunch we dragged the kids to the Bund, an area with European architecture along the banks of the Huangpu River.

(continued)

Shopping Update

We've now been here 3 weeks and have made a lot of progress in setting up the house. However, some things are just really hard to find in China. With creativity and persistance we've found a number of things. For example, I left my 2600 watt hairdryer in US voltage in LA. I suffered a lot of bad hair days while all we could find in Shanghai was 1500 watt hairdryers. A few times, the stores even had 2000 watt hairdryers on display, but when we asked for them we got the Mei you (don't have) response that you come to dread. Finally, I read an article in one of the expat magazines by an Australian hairdresser about finding products in China, and I called him and two days later he had for me a 3000 watt hairdryer (Italian) in Chinese voltage (just plug right in) for only $40!!! Yahoo!!!

We've also had a lot of trouble finding an illuminated electric clock for me (since Eric burned mine his first night here). We went to store after store and all they had was battery clocks. Finally, at one department store, we saw an electric alarm clock, but it was very fancy and about $100. Finally, we went to another store and saw the same clock for $70. It has the very unnecessary feature of projecting the time on the ceiling. Of course, there were no simple alarm clocks, so we gave in and settled for the fancy one and you can see it here, projecting the time on the ceiling! It actually was very nice to wake up to. The biggest things still eluding us:
1) a good quality king-size mattress (we've gone to several places we were told they sold good mattresses, but all they had were tempur-pedic and we are hoping for something more similar to our Four Seasons mattress and in a normal US size). We even went to a luxury linen store and they couldn't tell us where to go. We got an outrageous price quote from the supplier for the Four Seasons mattresses in China.

2) a file cabinet. We've looked at every store we've been to, and have chased several stores we thought were Staples out here, only to find they were distribution headquarters or very small storefronts that couldn't possibly hold even a single file cabinet.

Another thing that I strangely cannot find: vaseline (petroleum jelly). Go figure....

Current Exchange

Here's the counter of our new kitchen in Shanghai... mixer, rotisserie, coffeemaker... but what kind of appliances are those beige boxes sitting between them?

One of the many small challenges of moving to China is the difference in AC current. US current runs at 110 volts. China current runs at about double this -- 220 volts. As a result, plugging a standard US appliance into a Chinese electrical outlet fries it within seconds and then blows the circuit breaker in the house... a fact I (Eric) encountered for the first time when I plugged in Lauren's alarm clock the first night I stayed in the house and lost all my power (thankfully, Emerald staff came at 1am to turn me back on). The alarm clock was utterly fried (about which more later).

To remedy this situation, you can buy electrical converters -- boxes that convert 220v current into 110v current. These are available at places like Carrefour and B&Q. The trick is that they come in different ratings -- smaller ones rated for 40 watts, larger ones rated for 100 or 150 watts... you can plug a power strip into one and then plug several appliances into the power strip, but if the total watts drawn by the appliances plugged into the converter exceed the rating of that converter... you blow the converter (as we found out when we plugged Lauren's computer system into a 40w converter).

In this situation you have to become a quick expert on wattage and voltage and secure the right boxes that will power your appliances. When the sea shipment arrived I learned that the Kitchenaid pulled a comparatively mild 325 watts but the heat-producing applicances -- the coffeemaker and the rotisserie -- pulled 900 and 1250 watts respectively. All of these were far beyond the capacity of the sleek little Carrefour and B&Q converters -- so we were stumped for a while.

On a hunch Lauren went to the sketchy electronics bazaar near my office and found someone who said he'd source us one of the higher-capacity models. Lauren sent me back to verify and I found she had negotiated for a 500 watt model, good for the Kitchenaid but useless for my morning caffeine or a rack of lamb. I asked him for something bigger... and this is what we got: ladies and gentlemen, the 1500 watt converter!

(The writing on top notes that you can't operate the coffeemaker and the rotisserie at the same time; I'd hate to see 1500 watts of power shorting out....)

More Chinese New Year Break

So what else did we do all week with the kids off school? In addition to the museum on Wednesday and the party Wednesday night, the kids went to sports camp two days and we unpacked a lot of our things from the sea shipment. Eric went to Tokyo Wednesday night through Friday (and missed the New Years party). We also spent a lot of time in the compound, biking, playing on the various playgrounds, and swimming in one of the two indoor pools. Here we are arriving at the clubhouse on our bikes, ready to go swimming.
And here are the kids in the pool. I could almost imagine we were at a resort.....

Chinese New Year

We celebrated our first Chinese New Year in China at a family party in a neighboring compound. Henry and Rebecca have brother and sister friends at school and their parents had a big party. They set off their own fireworks in the lot next to their house. It looked really professional as shown here. In China, fireworks are rampant and everyone sets them off. We could hear fireworks all week and on Wednesday night we heard them all night long in almost every direction. At one point it sounded like we were in a war zone!
The kids also got sparklers.

Shanghai Science and Technology Museum

With the kids on break this week, Wednesday Eric and I took them to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. Here they are with the fake pandas in the Animal Exhibit.

We played Go against a robot (and all lost!).


Allison was again befriended by a young Chinese college student volunteering at the museum who couldn't stop picking her up and following us around. Allison seemed a little confused by this and couldn't understand her English. The Chinese are very interested in Westerners and generally love children.
These are robots with parasols performing in the robot show.