Xiao Zhang left the "green" stuff on the stove when she left yesterday. I was not sure what I should do with it so I put it in the refrigerator for safe keeping until she comes tomorrow. FYI....it looks like split pea soup...and it is very green... Suddenly my cold is feeling much better!!

Tucker and I went to two fabric markets today...one inside where it was air conditioned and the other outside where it was just hot and muggy. I am pretty sure it is now "2 shower a day" season.

This evening we went to the German restaurant on the river front. Tucker has a new camera so he took some pictures.....he might let me share them later.

I took a picture of Tucker taking a picture......

Abi's Africa mission trip is in full swing. If you would like to read about their adventures check out the blog at http://www.vanfumc.org/YouthBlog/index.php

This quote popped up on my computer screen today....

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and closed mindedness- Mark Twain

Tim's plans were changed so he and Tucker will not be able to see each other at the airport. Darn!! Tim just left for the airport and I will be on my way to get Tucker in about 1/2 hour.

In the last two days I have gotten a summer cold......you know the one...sore throat...runny nose...hard to sleep because stuff keeps running out of your nose...Okay...I know...too much information. Anyway Xiao Zhang is making a Chinese remedy for my cold. She called it cold green bean soup. I am a little nervous about this because it involves green beans (that look like mini peas), water, ice sugar (fancy name for sugar crystals), boiling, straining, refrigerating, and then drinking. See why I am a little nervous? Maybe I can convince her to add some ice cream and we could call it a smoothy. Green bean smoothy....sounds yummy doesn't it?

My ride is here so I am off to the airport.

Oh my gosh!!! We had a very bizarro storm today. At about 3:00 the sky across the river got very dark. The storm moved in quickly and everything was black. No kidding....at 3:00 in the afternoon the cars had to turn their lights on. It was like a scene from a movie showing the end of the world. There was an extreme amount of rain coming down and it was moving sideways because of the wind. The sky continued to stay blackish green for about 1/2 hour. There was a little bit of lightning but it was in the distance. Wow!!! Lucky for me Tim took the day off work so he was home to hold my hand while the storm passed. It was cool and a little scary all at the same time. Tim and I had been out riding our scooters about 35 minutes before the storm appeared.

After the storm we went outside expecting the air to be refreshed and cool. But....Noooooooo...it was muggy and hot. I guess that's summer in Shanghai.

Abi made it to Nairobi and will be meeting up with the rest of the group in about 1/2 hour. Let the fun begin!!!

Tim wrote the following:

Standing in line at the Pudong Airport in Shanghai last night at 10:00pm, Abi called and talked with the mission team in Portland as they prepared to leave early Tuesday morning PDT. Technology is amazing. Half a world apart Abi was able to share in the team’s departure. Abi’s flight takes her from Shanghai to Dubai and then on to Nairobi. She will arrive in Nairobi a few hours ahead of the team.

Abi called from Dubai this morning. She had about 6 hours to burn at the Dubai airport. She was excited to get reacquainted with Roundtable pizza, Cinnibon, and Dunkin Doughnuts. She was also excited that she could order in English and get exactly what she ordered.

It’s funny how she went on the mission trip to gain new experiences yet along the way got to find something familiar and comfortable.

We are leaving in one hour to take Abi to the airport. The maglev train stops running at 10:00pm so we have to take the "slow" road to the airport. At dinner tonight we were reminiscing about our move to Shanghai and exactly 5 months ago at this time we arrived at our temporary house...The Ascott. We remembered how hard it was to find food that was familiar and how we struggled to order food when we found it. I guess we have come a long way in 5 months. Tonight we had dinner at home and Xiao Zhang made tacos. Our tacos were seasoned with the official "Taco Bell" seasoning (thank you Michelle Mehl!!!!) that Tim brought back in his suitcase. Abi made strange sounds all during dinner as she savored the taste of Taco Bell. I guess that is the best send off we could give her for her trip to Africa. Xiao Zhang also made rice crispy cookies for her to take on the plane.....how spoiled is that????

Tim started his Birthday at 6:00am with a conference call......yuk!! We fed him fresh baked, warm from the oven ,chocolate cake for breakfast and took him out lunch. He choose The City Diner which by it's name you can imagine is an American restaurant. Tim wanted a BLT sandwich and a diet coke with ice. He is an easy man to please!

Tim and Tucker will be crossing paths at the airport on Friday. Tim will be leaving and Tucker will be arriving. Tim's trip had a last minute change so we are hoping they are still leaving and arriving at the same airport.

Okay...we need to leave for the airport....Abi said there could be no "bubbling". I am not sure I can be held to this....I think I better take some tissues just in case...

Today was another very lazy day for Abi. I think she got out of bed around 1:30 after eating pizza in bed. I really love summer!!! Jet lagged Tim went to work this morning at 7:10 and I had a Chinese lesson. The language school called today to say that I have used up my first 60 hours of instruction. Yikes.....so many hours....so little progress.....so many hours to go.

My big accomplishment for this week....I finished a quilt!!

I am calling this my 20 foot quilt. As long as you stand 20 feet away....it looks pretty good. I could also call this the "what I learned about quilting" quilting. Many lessons and many things not to do with the next quilt.

Tomorrow is Tim's birthday.....Happy Birthday Tim

Today is Sunday and we are enjoying the air conditioning after our scooter ride this afternoon. Summer arrived two days ago......and just like they said.....the humidity come over night. It is now hot and humid. This is Abi and Tim on their scooters. We are on our way to Century Park. We have passed by this park several times and Tim wanted explore it today.

This is a small lake inside Century Park

Tim and Abi in the park. We did not stay at the park very long because it was too hot.

Abi at the Science and Technology Park

This is a sculpture in front of the Technology Center. We are not sure what it is exactly but it is an interesting landmark.

On our way back to the air conditioning.

Tim arrived back in Shanghai today. We went to dinner and now we are sitting in our living room watching an amazing lightning storm. A few minutes ago we were walking down by the river and just about 1/2 hour later a huge storm rolled in and we can see the lightning strikes just outside our window. It is raining sideways and the thunder is booming. Wow!!! Double Wow!!! Oh my gosh!!!!!! I have never seen anything like this. Flash Boom Flash Boom..... I am soooooooooooo happy Tim is home!!!!

Tim will be home tomorrow afternoon and we are counting the hours. Abi and I are watching the second season of Lost. We did not watch Lost when we were in the US but the television is so bad here we have resorted to watching TV shows on DVS's. We have been watching shows by the "season". Each evening while Tim has been gone we watch one episode of Lost and then one of Gilmore Girls. We have to watch Gilmore Girls last so we can go to sleep with Happy thoughts. Last night Abi spent the night at a friends home so I worked on my quilt, studied Chinese, and did not watch Lost. No Lost for me when I am by myself!!! I am such a big chicken.

We went to Puxi today to the fabric market.....more pick up and drop off. As we were driving back Abi said that she has not seen anyone lately with their bicycle loaded with a large volume of "stuff". When we first moved here we saw them all the time. I wonder if it is because it seems normal now so we don't notice it. Weird!!! I know that I do not notice laundry hanging everywhere as much. But....it is still there!!! Lots of it.....everywhere!!!!

On Saturday evening Abi and I ate dinner at Burger King in the Super Brand Mall. We needed fries. We sat in the food court area and enjoyed our whoppers and cola with ice. In our hasty clean up and desire to get home after a hard day of shopping we accidentally left one of our shopping bags in a chair. This particular shopping bag had the majority of our purchases in it for the day. We did not discover that we were missing the bag until the next morning. We were sure that it would be gone by then but we went to the mall anyway to see if we could find it. First we went to the customer service. We had a note that we wrote with Xiao Zhangs help to explain what we were looking for. The note was no help...they did not understand what happened. So....we went to BK and waited in line. The person at the counter did not understand what we were looking for ....(partly because I told her in my best Chinese that this happened tomorrow instead of yesterday.....oops...I can't imagine why she was confused) but she got the manager and he spoke English. Yippee!!! I explained what happened, he said describe the bag, I did, he went in the back room and came back with our shopping bag. I could not believe it!!!!!!!!!!!! We have been very lucky in a city of millions of people to get our "stuff" back. Remember Abi's wallet that she left in the taxi? Amazing.

My email has been down for the past few days so if I did not respond to an email it was because I did not get it. Aaaarrrrrggggg!!! Technology....I love it and hate it all at the same time.

It did not seem like Fathers Day to Abi and I because we were away from all of our fathers this year. But.....we celebrated vicariously through Tim as he was with our fathers on Sunday. Happy Fathers Day everyone!!!!

Abi and I have been shopping shopping shopping. We have been to many places in the past few days from the trendiest streets to the back alley markets. Yesterday was a mega shopping day at the newly named "far away market". It got it's name because it is on the opposite side of Shanghai from our home. It is really not far in distance but you have to go through 17 million people to get there so the speed in which you travel is a little slow. This is a local market and they are very curious about foreigners. At one point we had a group of people following us through the market. Abi drew a crowd of about 15 people all trying to guess how old she was. Shirley was with us so she could understand what they were saying. They asked her how old Abi was and she said guess....so they started a little betting game to see who could guess her age. Very funny.....sort of.........a little unnerving but they were all very nice. I finally told them how old she was (in my best Chinese) and they stopped following us. We made many exciting purchases at the market .... my favorite "find" was a source for large spools of cotton thread. I bought 34 large spools (a life time supply) of basic colors. I also found cotton fabric for less than $1.50 per yard which will soon be made into a quilt. The fabrics are all striped shirt fabrics. Abi wants a "shirt and tie" quilt....who would guess that one? Now we are in search of interesting ties.I bought this rack on Monday (at Wal-Mart...more about Chinese Wal-Mart later) to store my button jars and it looked a little empty. Good thing I found all that thread to keep the buttons company and fill up that empty space!!!
Abi's favorite "find" were two pairs of long shorts each cost about $2.50. We would have purchased more clothing.....but.....they have very small sizes here. I should say small and short!!! If we find something that fits it is almost always too short. Ahhhh....but it is the hunt that is exciting!!! We are so easily entertained. In contrast to our bargain shopping we stopped at a "new to me" City Shop. City shop is an import market. I found Fiber One cereal for the first time but it was no bargain. One box of Fiber One was Y78. That is almost $10. Wow!!!!

Now more about Wal-Mart in Shanghai. Tim and I were hoping to live in Shanghai for 2.5 years and never go to Wal-Mart. Xiao Zhang likes to shop there so I thought it would be a good idea to see what they sell so I could help her with the shopping list....and...I am all about happy shoppers especially when I do not have to do it!!!! So......Abi and I went to Wal-Mart on Monday to do some "research". Our mission was to find American brands that we recognized. It is a "super store" so they carry groceries in addition to "other stuff". We went in search for things like Cheerios, pancake mix, Jiff peanut butter, diet sprite....etc. Well....guess what? It was the same as all the other grocery stores in Shanghai. They had a small import section with a few brands that we recognized and that was all. What a bummer!!! The good news is....it was the cleanest grocery store that I have been in in Shanghai.
Abi and I saw these "statues" at Super Brand Mall. They really looked like they were made of bronze but they were real people standing very very still.


Another funny sign for your entertainment...this one was in our building today. For some reason the elevator next to ours needs a lot of repairs. In the past month I think it has been "under adjusting" more than it has been adjusted. I wonder if we should be worried???

This is Abi and Kari on the well celebrated and looked forward too last day of school. Abi has enjoyed sleeping in for a few days....however today she was up early baking cookies. She commented at lunch how long the day was when you get up early. I laughed and said "That is so true!!!

I started my first volunteer job yesterday morning. I am helping with the Summer Connection program at the Community Center. We have an informal coffee time and then a speaker every Friday morning. My job is to greet people and help answer questions about Shanghai. It is such a tough job!!! I am almost feeling like a veteran "Shanghai-er" now with my expansive 4.5 months experience livng here. The latest count for new families arriving in Shanghai that will have children attending Abi's school is 170. That is families not children and that is just Abi's school and it is one of the smallest International Schools in Shanghai. Wow!!! The migration to Shanghai is incredible. I met two women yesterday that were on their "preview" trip and will be coming back in July and August. They are from the states and both have children that will attending Concordia.

Tim arrived safely in the US and is on his way to Bellingham with his Dad to help Tucker pack up his "stuff" and move out of the dorm. It will be apartment living for Tucker next year.

Today Abi and I are off on an adventure....not sure where we will end up but I know it will be interesting!!!

Today was The Good, The Sad, and The crying.
We sent Abi to school (last day!!!!) this morning and then Tim and I went out to breakfast. (this is The Good) After breakfast I took him to the Maglev station so he could "levitate" to the airport. Tim is on his way back to Vancouver today. (this is The Sad) As soon as I said goodbye I started to cry. I think it was harder to say goodbye to Tim this time because he is going back to our home for the first time since we moved to China. The tears sort of snuck up on me. I hate it when that happens. I got in the car and Mr. Zhang said something in Chinese and handed me the box of tissues. (this is The Crying)
I thought a little shopping would be a good distraction so I went to Metro.....looked around a few minutes and started crying again.....aaahhhhh!!!....back to the car.....Mr. Zhang handed me more tissues. I cried all the way home. I guess it was time for a good cry....who knew? I got home...read some email, pulled myself together, and called our church office in Vancouver to talk with our youth director about Abi's trip to Africa. By this time it is 8:30 on a Wednesday evening in Vancouver....I am thinking that no one will answer.....I am surprised when our friend Steve answers the phone....I get to chat with him for a minute and then on the speaker phone with John (youth director) and Kate and Becki. God is soooooo good!!!! My spirits are lifted.

After my telephone call I fixed my "crying face" and went to lunch with my quilting group. Many of the expats are getting ready to leave Shanghai for the summer so this was our "pre-summer" gathering. We had a great lunch and "show and tell" time.....these ladies are very talented quilters!!!!!.......I enjoyed every minute of the afternoon. Again...God is good to provide such nice people to "hang out" with in Shanghai.

Abi is spending the night with a friend, I sent Mr. Zhang home early, Xiao Zhang is making cookies and will soon go home as well....and I am going to practice some machine quilting techniques, eat too many cookies, and then go to bed early and read my book. Life is good again!

Hello from Shanghai. Sorry no blog for a while.....it has been a crazy week for the Spoffords. Abi has been very overwhelmed preparing for finals and Tim is leaving tomorrow morning for the US. This school term has been very challenging for Abi. Moving from a public school to a private international school has proven to be a big jump. Much higher expectations and much more work. So....Abi was very stressed last week and this week. One evening at 9:00 we were all having a melt down....so being the "good parents" that we are....we told Abi to stop studying...we all snuggled up on the sofa, watched an episode of Lost and then told her to go to bed and get some rest. We are all happy she took her last final yesterday and tomorrow is her last day of school. It is nice to put this term behind us and move into the summer. I was so excited that Abi was finished with school that I forgot I still have Chinese school. So...this morning it occurred to me that my teacher would be arriving soon and that was the end of my dreamed of "leisure morning".

Tucker will finish his final week of school on Friday. Yippee!!! Now I think.....Where did this school year go? Oh yeah....I remember we moved to China. It still seems surreal.

Abi did not have an exam today so she only had to go to school for a few minutes to turn in a few books. So....we spent part of the day shopping. On the way to IKEA Abi and I were thinking about Tim going back to Vancouver and we were talking about all the things that we would do if it were us.

Top of the list.....visit family, friends, and go to church

Next on the list were things related to food. Abi's list was Mucho Gracias, Taco Bell, and Fresh Mex. Do you see a theme in this? One does not find a lot of Mexican food in Shanghai. My food items were shredded beef taco from El Tapatios, artichoke, black olive, and pesto pizza from Vancouver Pizza Company, and maple bars and other assorted doughnuts from Albertsons.

Third on our list was a long visit to Target. I would like to spend several hours just wondering around....I would get a Venti ice tea....and walk the isles, check out the clearance items and breath in the smell of the store. That is really weird isn't it? Stores do not smell the same in China as they do in the US.

Fourth on my list was walk around our back yard to see the flowers and trees that we planted last spring.

And last but not least.....sit in the drivers seat in the car, drive ourselves anywhere we want to go any time we want to go there.

Ah...it is good to daydream sometimes.

My first home visit will be the last week of August through the first week of September. I am coming home to help Tucker move into his apartment and get him settled into school. Abi starts school on the 15th of August so by that time she will be back in school......aaaaahhhhhh I don't want to thank about that again for a while...

As I was feeling Abi's stress this week I found relief in working on my quilts. I have three ready for quilting plus one more that I brought with me that is 1/2 quilted. I am teaching myself to machine quilt, learning a quilt design program on the computer, and taking Chinese lessons. Wow!! That is about all the "new" stuff I can put into my brain.

Abi will be leaving on the 26th for a mission trip Kenya. She will be gone for about three weeks and Tucker will be coming to Shanghai on the 28th. Tim will be home from the US and leaves on the 29th for another week in Singapore. And....somewhere in there he has a trip to Vietnam. I will be here holding down the fort and anxiously awaiting our first guests!!!! Our friends, Norma and Laura, Merrett will be visiting us in July and we are counting the days until they arrive. In August, Tucker's girlfriend Kim will be visiting also for a couple of weeks. Yippee.....I love summer!

Today is one of threes "Black Days" in China. This is the first of three days of national college entrance examinations. This is a really really really big deal in China. The entire education system leads to these three days and the pressure on these kids is intense. All high school graduates will take the exam to determine their future. The exams start on Thursday and end on Saturday. The highest scoring students will be given places at the Universities. If the student passes the exam with a high enough score to be placed in a University the education is basically free. My friend Jane will graduate this month from Tongji University in Shanghai and said that she paid Y500 for her room per year plus her food. Y500 is equal to 65 US dollars. If the student does not pass the exam they have two options. Option A...they can take another year of high school...grade 13....and retake the exam the following year. By the way....grade 13 is not free and the parents are required to pay for this year of school. Option B...they choose a vocation. I am not sure about the specifics of the vocational training...free or not free?

During the cultural revolution these exams were abolished. For 11 years starting in 1966 the tests were cancelled and no one went to university. I found two different reasons for this....one said that universities were "fertile breeding grounds for capitalism" and the other said universities were "nurturing elitism". You can take your pick of reasons but I find this very interesting.....no higher education for 11 years. That is your history lesson for today.... :) There will be a test so I hope you were taking notes.....

Abi is in the last few days of school and she is feeling a bit overwhelmed....and so are her parents!!!! I am knee deep in color coordinated vocab flash cards. I had to make flash cards out of cardstock that I brought from my studio. We can not find index cards anywhere in Shanghai. (Note to self...put index cards on the "buy while in the US" list) Abi has finals on Monday and Tuesday....then they have a day out of school and then they go back to school on Thursday for 1/2 day. I think it would be better to have a day off school between test days but what do I know....and they did not ask me what I thought. We will all be happy when this semester is over and she can have a break from school for a while. Abi says Hi

Tim and I just got back from the pool. We have been swimming in the evenings and sometimes in the morning before work. We usually go right after dinner while Xiao Zhang is doing the dishes.....Okay we are really spoiled!! It is really easy to go to the pool....we just get off the elevator, walk across a sidewalk to the pool and jump in. How hard can that be??? Well...we have lived here for 4 months and we are just now taking advantage of the pool. As soon as we got back to the apartment I put on my pajamas and ate two chocolate chip cookies. Good thing I went swimming!! I made cookies again yesterday with Xiao Zhang and she did a great job. This afternoon when I came home she was baking the rest of the dough so our house smelled like fresh baked cookies.

Xiao Zhang is learning how to cook western style food.....she learns very fast. I show her how to make something, we take a picture of it when it is done, and then I print the picture and put it in a binder. I write instructions in English and she writes them in Chinese. I only have to show her once and the next time she can make it without my help. I am very impressed. We also have a cookbook that has recipes in English and Chinese. We made cashew chicken tonight with a recipe from that book. I use the word "we" loosely here because all I did was make the marinade for the chicken. Xiao cooked the chicken, made a green salad, blueberry muffins, and steamed rice. Did I mention that we are spoiled? I have been "outsourced" and I am very happy about this. When Abi and Tim come home I can visit with them without being preoccupied with preparing dinner. Love that!!! As of tonight we have hired Xiao Zhang permanently and hope she will stay with us for the time we are in Shanghai. She was very happy to know that she has long term employment. Her smile was priceless.

Chinese Proverb for today: The eyes are wide but the stomach is narrow. Think about this as you see some of the meals that we have been eating. You will see why we need to go swimming!!

Black Bean Pasta

Cashew Chicken with rice

Lasagna

Chicken with red chili sauce

Chicken Parmigiana

I bought two books this week. The first one is titled "The Nature of the Chinese Character" and the second one is "Chinese Proverbs". I bought the first one because I thought it would be fun to learn a few common Chinese characters so I could recognize them on street signs....and...I might want to work some of these characters into one of my quilts. Hold that thought...

We hosted one of Tim's work groups at our house last night. This is our second "hosting" event since we moved to Shanghai. Our apartment is very "minimalist" in the fact that we do not have a lot of "stuff". Some days I miss my "stuff" but I have to say that it has been very few days. With the minimalistic approach we have very few plates, glasses, utensils etc... So...last night I discovered that we do not have a single "cheese spreader". Do you know the kind I am talking about? The ones that are about 5 inches long with the cute handles that have bagels or flowers or pineapples on them. There is really no substitute for the "cheese spreader". I searched through all of our kitchen utensils looking for a substitute and could not find one. We have forks, spoons, knives,and spatulas all of which looked huge next to the pesto cheese ball. So as I was placing the large table knife on the cheese plate I wondered if it is even possible to find a "cheese spreader" in Shanghai. I don't think that pesto cheese balls are commonly on the menu in China. This has peeked my curiosity and now I will be watching for the allusive "cheese spreader".

Now back to the Chinese characters. I showed the book to some of or guests last night to see if they were "authentic" Chinese characters. They said that they are "traditional" characters and now they use "Simplified" characters. I am all for simplified!!! They might be easier to applique on a quilt. I guess I will be going back to the book store.

The second book is full of Chinese proverbs and the illustrations in the book captured my attention. The artist name is Hu Yong Yi. Here is a Chinese proverb for the day.... "Better to do without books than to believe everything they say".

It is Sunday evening and after a rainy cloudy weekend the sun has come out and we can see three + bridges. Abi was busy last night with a birthday party sleepover so Tim and I once again had a date night. We went to a new restaurant on the water front a short distance from our apartment. We were not impressed with the food (too bad because it is so convenient) but the location and building was good. After dinner we walked to our massage place and had a 90 minute full body massage. Life is hard in China!!

On Saturday I took Abi and a friend to my newly found fabric and clothes shopping area. I think they both experienced a bit of culture shock but seemed to handle it well. We stopped counting people in their pajamas after 35 and that was just in the first few blocks. My Chinese teacher said that the "pajama thing" is an "only in Shanghai" experience. She is from Xian and she had never seen this before she moved to Shanghai.

Interesting thing: In the local shopping areas they they have started to sell straw mats that look like floor covers with fabric borders. I discovered that these are actually pillows. The mats look very uncomfortable to sleep on (I think I would have a strange design imprinted on my face when I woke up) but apparently they are very cool during the summer months. There is a zipper on one end of the mat that can be opened and filled with batting or buckwheat.

Tim and Abi scootered down to the river front to make a dinner reservation for Tim's work group tomorrow. We are hosting them at our home for wine and cheese before dinner so I will be busy polishing my hostessing skills tomorrow....it has been a while. A small group will be from the US and the rest are Chinese locals. Entertaining people in your home is not a custom in the Chinese culture. All entertaining and gatherings are held in restaurants so this will be a cross cultural experience. I guess I better practice my Chinese greetings tomorrow during my lesson.

News in Shanghai:
The newspaper said that this summer is going to be a very bad "weather" summer for Shanghai. We should expect floods, typhoons, tornadoes, and lighting storms in August and September. Yikes!!!

Lots of people in China are putting money into the stock market because of the impressive gains during the last 18 months.

Toothpaste made in China has been turned away from several countries because it contains a chemical used to make antifreeze. China has 30% - 40% of the toothpaste market. Better check your toothpaste and see where it was made. We brought ours with us and the boxes say it was made in Mexico.