Breather for Eric

Eric here in a rare guest post. I joined Lauren and the kids back in LA a week ago and have just blasted through my week of "vacation" home leave, about to enter my week of "working" home leave. I think I can comment for all of us that the most peculiar thing about being home is how non-peculiar it is -- we've been living one life in Shanghai for 5 months but when we pick up and drop ourselves back in our LA home it feels perfectly normal, like we've just been away for a couple of weeks. We're enjoying seeing friends and doing the things we do in LA (oh my beloved Amoeba Records! oh Barnes & Nobel! oh Sam's Bagels!). What I wonder is whether we've split our lives in two, and when we're back in China we'll pick back up in the same way (oh, Blue Frog! oh, fabric market!), or whether it will be harder? To find out in a couple of weeks...

Wanted to post a few pictures of how far we've come in a couple of short months in Shanghai on the first Disney English Center. We've gone from this (student clubhouse)...

...to this:

This (parent reception):

...to this:This (2nd floor classroom):

...to this:

And this (3rd floor classroom):

...to this:

I'm not totally happy with every aspect of what we've done -- cost too much, there are a lot of little details that could be hugely improved -- but it's amazing how much we've accomplished in a very short time. We opened for a trial run on sales this past weekend (sadly I wasn't there) and got our first three signups -- a good start!

People sleeping outside

We were fascinated by the numbers of Chinese people sleeping outside in lawn chairs. Even inside Yu Yuan market, which was nearly deserted, there were men sleeping shirtless on lawn chairs. Our guide said they might have been security guards?

Midnight Bike Ride

Inspired by our midnight bike ride in Paris in October, which was a highlight of our trip there, Eric and I signed up for the midnight bike ride in Shanghai through the American Women's Club. It was rained out the first time and rescheduled for our final weekend in Shanghai. We were amazed to see the city's sights at night from bikes. We started out in Hengshan Park area (west edge of downtown) and rode through the old part of the city (streets around Yu Yuan Garden) to the river. We then took the ferry with our bikes to Pudong. We rode around Pudong (the Pearl tower, Jinmao Tower, and Super Brand Mall).




We stopped and enjoyed the beautiful view of the Huangpu River and the Bund.
We took the ferry back to Puxi and rode through the actual Yu Yuan Gardens, right across the Bridge of 9 Turns. It was fascinating to see the city at night. We then rode back through many neighborhoods.


The city was so lively. At around 1 in the morning, there were many street vendors selling noodles. The noodle restaurants were packed. The nightclubs were hopping. We were amazed that different parts of the city that always seem so spread out were so accessible by bike at night when there was little traffic.

Sunday School Awards/End of Year

Here are the kids with their Sunday School classes demonstrating what they learned, which was actually quite a bit!

Rebecca's party still

We managed to find a chocolate ice cream cake in Shanghai!




Breakfast with the girls.

We're pleased Rebecca has made such a nice group of friends and they're all coming back in the fall.

More Party Photos

Miraculously, they cleaned up pretty well!

More Rebecca's Party

The girls had a blast in the mud (unplanned).

Rebecca's early 9th birthday celebration in Shanghai

Rebecca had a small party with her 4 best Shanghai friends and Allison at the Emerald.

Rebecca finishes up her soccer season

Our dancers

We never got a photo of Rebecca in her costume because she changed backstage and then had to return it!

Dance Recital

Allison and Rebecca had their first Shanghai dance recital in early June. They both did a fabulous job. Allison was one of the fairies in the Sleeping Beauty Dance and Rebecca performed in the Romanian Dance. We were really proud of them. I was equally proud of myself for successfully sewing the plastic flowers I bought on long stems at B & Q (the Home Depot-like store) onto Allison's tutu.

We're still trying to figure out how to post the video.

June happenings

Dragon boat Festival was a new national holiday this year. Okay, we did nothing specifically related to the holiday, but this photo I got of a dragon boat at Yu Yuan a couple of days before the holiday looked cool. Eric had the day off work (while the kids had school) so we spent the day in the rain walking around the boutiques near the site of the first Disney ELL school, which was a lot of fun. The kids had field day at their school and I assisted.