Bye Bye Shanghai

I am writing what is likely my last blog entry in China. We still have another week in Shanghai, but the movers are coming to pick up my computer on Monday so my access to the internet will be very limited until our shipment arrives in Japan in January.

As I am packing up our things I am starting to feel a little sad. I will miss it here. I love the view from our apartment at night as well as the night views the rest of the city has to offer. I will miss our apartment, the food, and my very cheap bubble milk tea. I will miss the exercise, but I am sure not for long. On average I walk about 1 hour a day. Not for fun, mind you, for transportation to subways, class, restaurants, etc. I will miss the amazing history that China has to offer. But, most of all I will miss the pleasure I had to spend a couple of months just living here.

Goodbye Shanghai!

Home Sweet Shimao

I know I have made an entry about what our apartment looks like, but I wanted to add to it. Our building is 1 of 8 (building 4 was not built for superstitious reasons). We live in building 6. The entire Shimao Rivera Garden area takes up 2 city blocks. This turns out to be about 4 blocks long and 2 blocks wide by Minnesota standards. The entire area is enclosed to provide you with a sense of calm in a very busy city. We often walk inside the complex to avoid streets filled with shops, food (on the ground), hair (they have barbers on the street), tons of people, garbage (you don’t want to know), and water whose contents could require (in our eyes) a hazmat team.

In addition to the 7 buildings there are 2 large gyms, one of which has an outdoor beach pool. Next to the other gym is a large outdoor pool, which despite common knowledge is not used for swimming. There are 2 tennis courts and one very expensive restaurant. There are also several areas that have stone, metal, water, or plant sculptures. Just out our window are 2 hedge mazes. One for the kids with plants only 3 feet high and one for the adults with plants 8 feet high. There is also an open area where we watched the Mooncake Festival. As a whole it has been a very pleasant place to live.

Xintiandi

Xintiandi is one of Shanghai’s more famous western areas. It consists of a 2 block area near downtown Puxi. This area has several western bars and restaurants and is very pretty in a stone building and cobblestone kind of way. Anne and I have only been there a couple of times for various reasons, but we were told we had to check out the Christmas decorations that were recently set up. We stopped by for brunch and a hot chocolate (Shanghai is experiencing an unusual cold stretch). It was interesting to learn that Santa’s Elves in Shanghai have purple uniforms compared with those in the states that tend to keep to green and red.

Like father like son?

Most of you probably don’t know, but my father started his career teaching English. I recall this vividly as I was (and still would be) corrected if I said something like “me and Mike”. My father would say “Mike and who”. To which I would reply “yeah, yeah, Mike and I”. Baring this in mind I promised myself at a young age I would never be an English teacher. As it turns out that was one promise I was destine to break.

As a brilliant idea (mostly attributed to my wife) I decided to learn Chinese through the aid of a teacher instead of through a book or CD. Crazy idea right? So long story short, I found a Chinese teacher who would teach me for free if I volunteered to teach English for free. Having free time and wanting some work experience in a foreign country I agreed.

So starting in October (yes, yes… I have been procrastinating this blog entry) through December I have been attending Chinese class in exchange from teaching English. In defense of my childhood promise I am not teaching grammar, just the very basics.

My teacher is Sabrina Liu. Note the non-scary English name followed by the scary Chinese one. Many Chinese people have English first names they use around English speaking people. But, don’t kid yourself there real name is not English. My fellow student is Martina who was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, but lived 9 of the last 10 years in Memphis. My English students are Mào Huī Huī and Lín Hăi Píng. For my convienence, and their convienence, I gave then English names – Mike and Sean. They work at the lujia bang road fabric markets. These markets make everything from business suits to Chinese dresses tailored to you.

My Chinese teacher says that I am a great English teacher and wishes I didn’t have to leave for Japan so soon. So in return….Thank you Dad for all of your English lessons!

Ode to the Ayi

Oh Goushan Wu and Fang Wang
We thank you for every thang

For 6 months you cleaned our room
While we forgot how to use a broom

To the states, we would like to take you there
But, I am certain the cold would give you a scare.

Okay, if you can’t tell by now, my poems suck! Sorry Anne, but you will have to look elsewhere for a romantic poem writer. So I won’t torture you anymore with my elementary skills. But, I do want to show you our 2 ayi’s. They come 3 times a week to clean our apartment. Usually between 8:50am-9:50am which means they are usually my wake up call. I try to teach them some English and they try to teach me some Chinese. This is usually very comical for the 3 of us. They are very motherly to me and are always telling me to eat breakfast and go outside. I will miss them a lot.

Super Brand Mall

Located in the Lujiazui area (good luck pronouncing that one Mark) the Super Brand Mall is one of our regular hangouts. It is across the street from the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and also across the street from the Pudong Bund. This mall is huge. It has 7 shopping floors and I think the eighth floor is the movie theater and ice skating rink (yep, you don’t need glasses, I did write ice skating rink). There are tons of shops and restaurants. Watami is one of them (see the blog below). There is even a large grocery store on the second basement level. They have the best chicken leg/thigh there. I say leg/thigh because unlike the US where you can only buy the leg, you get the thigh part here too. It is almost big enough to make a full meal out of. It is cheap and they come preseasoned (spicy) and precooked.

They just opened up a Best Buy in the mall this week. They have been working on it before Anne arrived in Shanghai. We thought we would miss the opening. Sorry movie and music lovers… Best Buy does not sell those items in Shanghai. They also set up a Santa’s Village in the mall for us foreigners.

If you even plan to visit this mall be mindful of these five things. One, there are always LOTS of people there. Think of a busy mall and triple the people and cut the size of the mall by two thirds or think of your worst black Friday. Second, they only open 4 of the 12 doors to let you in so you will always get bottle necked as you enter or leave the mall. Third, the escalators go up 1 floor at a time up until the top, but most of the trip you can look straight down to the 2nd basement floor. So if you are afraid of heights… don’t look down. Fourth, mall goers often enjoy stopping in the most inconvenient places. Like right at the top or bottom of the escalators, so you have to squish them to get on or off. And the final tip is true for most of the groceries stores we have been to in China. Bring a bag with you or pay for you bag at the check out. Bags are not for free here.

Billy Likes It!

For those of you that are old enough to remember the Life cereal commercial - Mikey likes it!, this post is about Bill's bravery in trying all the foods in the past 6 months. I'm sure you've read about his love for bubble milk tea, scorpions and sparrows (previous posts), well the list continues!

Last night, we went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants - Watami. They call it Japanese Casual - I would probably say it's like a Japanese TGI Fridays? We always order our favorite pizza - Smoke salmon w/ egg salad. I know what you're thinking - ewww! I'm not a big fan of egg salad but it's really good! We also decided to try sukiyaki- meat and veggies served in a hot pot and cooked at your table. They brought out the meat and veggies, in the hot pot, along w/ an egg. Initially, I thought we would crack it and put it in the boiling soup base. Nope. Our server specifically said, "once the meat is cooked, dip it in the raw egg and eat". OK... First, eggs are not refrigerated here. Second, eggs should be cooked to a certain degree (like hamburgers). Third, it's raw! I think I'll pass.

Not Bill! You should've seen the excitement on his face. Knowing that I would not go near the egg, he cracked it, scrambled it and put it right next to him - no need to share. Kudos to Billy - he'll like it!

Times Square

Times Square is located on the Pudong side of Shanghai. It is an area full of malls filled with shops and restaurants. It is about a 20 minute walk from our apartment. I say walk because it is too short for most cab drivers to drive there and that leaves only our feet as transportation options. Trust me, I would not recommend biking here. As you can see from my pictures they made the area feel more like home for us by adding Christmas decorations. They don’t say happy holidays here so if you are not Christian you are out of luck. Truth to be told, the vast majority of China does not celebrate Christmas either. The decorations are just for us foreigners so we feel more at home and spend more money at their shops.

One of our local hangouts at Time Square is the Shanghai Bay. We originally called it the skateboard, because from a distance the roof looks like a very large skateboard. It is an indoor outdoor mall meaning that there are planned sections where there is no roof and other parts where a wall was removed. The roof is also elevated from the walls so there are some gaps between the two. The area was recently built and is lit up at night as well. It is home to several restaurants and shops.

The Bund

No, this isn’t a blog about what you put a hot dog or burger in. This is a popular area in Shanghai for locals and tourists. Basically it is a great picture place, though they do have restaurants, bars, boat rides, and bunch of other things to do. There are 2 Bunds which are separated by the Huangpu river. One is on the Puxi (downtown) side and the other is on the Pudong side. Both are always full of people, enjoying the view and selling foods and souvenirs. The Chinese really enjoy brightly lit buildings at night.

SWFC

The Shanghai World Financial Center is the tallest building in Shanghai at 1,614.2 ft (492.0m) high. As a reference point for those of you how live in Minnesota or went to our wedding, The IDS Center is only 792 feet (241.4 m) high. For those of you whose math skills have deteriorated like mine, that means that the SWFC is over twice the height of the IDS Center. We have officially given it the nickname as the bottle opener as that is we both thought of went we try to explain it to people. Anne and I decided to visit this building on 11/18. We briefly thought about taking the stairs to the top, but unfortunately that wasn’t an option. Ok, that though never crossed either of our minds but, I wanted you to think we were active (or psychotic) for a second. The center has 3 observation areas. The highest one is on the 100th floor and is 1,555 ft (474m) high. To add to the scariness, the floor has sections of glass where you can see down to the street. We had the pleasure of watching one Chinese women stomp on the glass a couple of times to see if it would break. I guess she didn’t realize that she was STANDING on the glass and would have fallen long enough to write a small essay on why it was a dumb idea to stomp on the glass floor that you're standing on. We were also lucky enough to make our visit when Coca Cola was shooting a commercial using 3 very overdressed people.

Look up in the sky. Is it a bird? A plane? Nope, it’s smog. Believe it or not we went to the SWFC on one of the clearest days we have had in Shanghai. There was not a cloud in the blue sky and if you looked up from the observation area the sky looked as clear blue as it does in Minnesota. Unfortunately the smog never clears below building level which happens to be about 2,000 ft and below. As a result we could only see about 2-5 miles before the smog blocked our views.

Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is not celebrated here so I woke up to a day of work, meetings, presentations and a work-related dinner event. I felt a little homesick today because I miss being with family, friends and eating turkey until I go into a food-induced coma. Bill was over at the other side of town today teaching English. We connected around 9:30pm and watched TV while eating desserts from Bakerzin. YUMMY.

Although we weren't able to celebrate Thanksgiving, we're looking forward to coming home for the holidays. To slowly adjust ourselves to December in Minnesota, we try to keep the thermostat low and incorporated some more cheese in our meals. Hopefully, this will do the trick.

While reading Mark's blog today, I realized that I've completely overlooked the purpose of Thanksgiving. Every year, I think of Thanksgiving as: a few days off work, stuffing my face, baking something yummy, taking a nap while everyone else watches football and shopping for the rest of the week. Reflecting back on the past year, I am thankful for a lot of things, both big (family, friends, good health and happiness) and small (fountain beverages, tacos, dryers, full size ovens and inside voices). When we're taken out of our element and comfort zone, all the little things that I take for granted gets noticed and missed.

As for the time being, Bill and I will probably hit up the City Diner, where I can order quesadillas, mash potatoes and eggs benedict - it's amazing and the food is awesome.

Hong Kong Day 3

Once again Anne had to work and left me on my own. Having decided on previous trips that it is much more fun to take a half day tour than to watch TV in the hotel room all day, I set up a tour of the city.

Before the tour actually began we stopped at the Golden Bauhinia Square. The Golden Bauhinia was a gift to Hong Kong from Mainland China. It was here that the tour buses come to divvy out people for the various tours throughout the Island.

The first stop of the tour was the Man Mo Temple. It was built in 1847 and is dedicated to the gods of literature (Man) and martial arts (Mo). The temple is almost hazy due to the large amount of incense that is burned there. The coil looking things are large coils of incense.

The next stop on the tour was once again Victoria’s Peak. It was nice feeling like a local for a couple of minutes and showing people around. I also took some of the time others were using to sight see to enjoy lunch. I added another notch into my fork with a stop to McDonalds. The local food item was fish sandwiches with wasabi and clam chowder. I can honestly say it was the best view I have ever had at McDonalds.

We then went to Aberdeen fishing village. Aberdeen is a bay on the south end of Hong Kong Island. It is a typhoon shelter where many people live and work on their boats. It is also home to the Jumbo Kingdom. The Jumbo Kingdom is basically a huge floating tourist trap with a couple restaurants. It was at this point that we enjoyed a sampan boat ride of the area. It was a very interest ride and it was very similar to an ocean parking lot.

We were then taken to a jewelry factory. This was our mandatory stop were you are informed what good jewelry is and how it is made. You then have to stand around for at least ½ hour to make sure you had plenty of time to buy something.

After our fun at the jewelry factory we drove by Repulse Bay. This is the most visited beach on the southern part of Hong Kong. It is also the home of Jackie Chan. Unfortunately, his home was on too big of a slope for me to see it but, I was able to get a picture of his house address.

The last stop on the tour was the Stanley Market. This is a street market where you can buy a variety of clothes, toys, and Chinese items. Not being much of a shopper I made my way through the maze of shops to the beach. It was very pretty and much more relaxing than the chaos of the street market.

Hong Kong Day 2

Our first stop of the day was at the Ngong Ping 360. This is a 25 minute cable car ride that starts on the north end of Lantau Island which is to the west of Hong Kong. The cable car takes you over a large portion of the Lantau Island and drops you off at the Ngong Ping Village. This village was likely created solely for tourists. It is one street that extends two blocks filled with restaurants and souvenir shops. We proceeded to the Tian Tan Buddha. This is the largest bronze seated Buddha in the world. It is on top of a hill, which is quite a hike up a long set of stairs. Like all things Chinese it was huge and it was tough to imagine someone hauling the materials up the steep hill to create something so large and detailed. After taking a few pictures and several minutes to catch our breath we went back to Ngong Ping Village to grab some lunch.

After lunch we took the Cable Cars back and preceded to the Hong Kong Macau shuttles (fast boats that take you from Hong Kong to Macau). For those of you who may not be familiar with Macau it is know as the Vegas of Asian. It was after arriving at the Hong Kong Shuttle Station that I found out that you need your passport to enter Macau (as it is a different country). We headed back to the hotel and I felt like an idiot because we missed our 4pm Cirque Du Soleil show at the Venetian (which is exactly the same as the one in Vegas) in Macau. Our tickets were not refundable or transferable. We picked up our passports and headed back to the shuttles to check out Macau anyway. It is a really strange feeling traveling in a boat that is large enough to remind you of an airplane since it has similar seating. The ride was very rough; we must have been driving through waves over 10 feet high at high speeds. After arriving in Macau we decided to see if we could still get into the ZAIA show. It took a little fast talking but we were able to see the show with similar seats without buying new tickets and getting a 10% discount on our current tickets. The show was amazing, absolutely amazing. After the show we headed back to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Day 1

On 11/08 we went to Hong Kong. After a quick 2 ½ hour flight from Shanghai we made our way to the hotel to begin yet another adventure. Our first stop was to Ocean Park. It is an amusement park/zoo on the southern end of Hong Kong Island. The northern portion is currently undergoing construction to compete with Hong Kong’s Disney Land. The park has a panda exhibit originally featuring 4 panda bears. Unfortunately all of the pandas were just lying around when we were there. A cable car connects the north side of the park to the south side. The south side has a number of amusement rides and a jelly fish spectacular. We went on the world’s second largest outdoor escalator and enjoyed a ride on the mine train roller coaster.

The next stop was to Victoria’s peak. It is the highest section of Hong Kong and affords visitors with some of the best views of the Island. The Peak (as the locals call it) has a 3 story mall and the 7 story Peak Tower which is home to the peak tram. The peak tram is a San Francisco style cable car that ascends from the bottom of the mountain up to the peak. It is a very steep 8 minute trip. The Peak Tower also houses a wax museum and an EA video game floor. As I am sure you may have guessed I spent a bit of time playing video games for free. After Anne grew bored of my video gaming we enjoyed a nice dinner in the mall and then went to the top of the Peak Tower to see some great night views of the city. We then took the peak tram back down to the city.

Taipei Day 4

Anne had to work today so I was on my own. This left me with 2 options. Stay in a small hotel room and watch one of the 3 English channels all day or set out on an adventure to explore Taipei and its surrounding areas. It was a tough choice but after hours of thought and some pro and con comparisons I decided on the latter. I set up a half day tour from the hotel actually beginning my day before Anne did.

The first stop on the tour (after a delicious complimentary breakfast buffet) was Hollywood… er Keelung (pronounced Jee Long). It was kind of weird seeing a white sign on a mountain like the Hollywood sign for a city just north of Taipei. Here is an interesting weather effect for those of you meteorologists out there. A number of the roads out of Taipei take you through tunnels drilled into the mountains. It is sunny when you enter the tunnels and raining when you leave it. This is a common occurrence and is typical more often than not (or so I am told). After arriving in Keelung, we went to see their large Buddha. She (though in most other places it would be a he) is located on top of a mountain and is tall enough for you to ascend up on a couple very narrow and steep flights of stairs. There is also a large bell you can ring. This bell likely has some significance, but I was too busy taking pictures to listen to what the tour guide was saying. Unlike the Xian Bell Tower this bell was free to ring. I am sure there was also some relevance to the large golden dogs on both sides of the Buddha, but I wasn’t paying attention to that part either.

The next stop was to a small ocean village. It is said to rain most of the day almost every day all year round. This seasonally depressive town is the home of the Yehliu Geopark. Basically it is a large rock beach that has been shaped by time, wind, and water to resemble a variety of everyday items. Their most famous rock is the Queen’s head. It is a little weird walking through the park. It almost feels like you are walking on a foreign planet as the rocks are like nothing I have ever seen before.

The last stop on the tour was, as always, to a highly recommended (by the tour guide) souvenir shop. They profess to have one of a kind items at a low cost. What this really means is that you are a silly tourist who is too lazy to go to a local market and find everything they have there at less than a quarter of the price of what you will find at the tour stop.

After the tour ended I took a short walk to a near by restaurant. As a self professed connoisseur of McDonalds around the world I had to add one more to the ever growing list. Do you frequent Mickey D’s? Think you know the McDonalds menu pretty well? Are you sure… I don’t think you recall seeing a taro cake on the menu do you. I know I didn’t. On my way back from McDonalds I took a couple pictures of a temple on the side of the road. This was the second on I saw in Taipei and I just couldn’t pass it up again.




After work Anne and I went to dinner with some more of her family and later we went to a place in Taipei call Lover’s Lane. It is a small area which would be good place to take a date.