Even my Parents Enjoyed Custom clothing at the fabric market

Here they are with their leather jackets!


After shopping, we reverted to a lunch of my old childhood favorite, McDonald's. Sadly they do not have Diet Coke at fast food restaurants in China.

Mao Ming school site in process

My parents and I also got a little tour of the school construction site. It's quite exciting to see the project that Eric has been working on (for several years if you count the time he worked on it in his DCP strategy role) coming to fruition.

Over the rest of the week, my parents did a great variety of activities, some with me and some without, while the kids were in school and Eric worked. They went on the Jewish historical tour, a tour of the French concession, Gang Feng Wang's Lane Walk through the American Women's Club (which I had done in February). I went with them on an art gallery tour at Moganshen through the community center and also on a tour of the urban planning museum through the Shanghai Expat Association. They had a great massage at our favorite spa.

Here we are in front of the urban planning museum (I'm in my new leather jacket from the fabric market!).

The urban planning museum has a huge model of the city. Plans are underway for Shanghai to become even more massive over the next 5 years.

Ma and Poppy's visit to Shanghai

On Sunday we took Ma and Poppy to brunch in Jinqiao and then to the Pearl Tower, the most distinctive building on the Shanghai skyline. We rode to the top for the view and then enjoyed the museum of Shanghai history in the basement. We capped off the day with xiao long bao at din tai fung.

This Year in Shanghai: Ma and Poppy come for Passover

I met them at the airport.

Here's the table set for Passover. We did pretty well. I never could find onion soup mix for the apricot chicken, but was able to find a recipe for an adequate subsitute on the internet (thank god for the internet). The desserts all turned out wrong because my oven is not very good, but all in all, it was a success!
It was the first time that everyone was able to fully participate in the service now that Allison is reading.
Henry and Allison did the 4 questions together. (Rebecca was a little behind after taking time from Sunday School to focus on basketball.)

China Mobile Office

Henry and I stopped in at the China Mobile Office and while they couldn't help me with any of my telephone issues, we got some good Olympic photos!


For my job with Parkway Health, I had quite a lot of visits to their Human Resources department. Since this is an official job, they had to get me a work permit and my visa was changed from a family visa to a working visa. I just got everything finalized this week.

Rebecca was extremely happy to check out the Italian restaurant adjacent to the Emerald (MJs) and have some ravioli!

Matzah

The Chabad of Pudong had a matzah making event for Passover. Allison and Henry attended. Rebecca went to her basketball game.

The kids made their own matzah.



The rabbi did the baking. Then various Passover items that had been imported by container were for sale (kosher wine, matzah, etc.). No gefilte fish or horse radish, however! My parents brought matzah ball mix and I managed to find horse radish at the super store. We had to live without gefilte fish!