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!