Today I STRONGLY DISLIKE (we try to say "strongly dislike" instead of "hate") taking Mandarin Lessons!!! I walked to my class....very nice because the weather is "fall-ish", I stopped at Starbucks on the way for nourishment, I arrived early instead of 20 minutes late, AND I had all my homework done. End of "happy blissful" morning. My lesson was hard, I did not understand half of what the teacher said, the other student is much more advanced than I am, AND I think my brain stayed at Starbucks because it showed no signs of participation. At the end of class the teacher wanted me to repeat a story about Beijing that was very long.....it was so long I couldn't even repeat it in English. I actually "bubbled" after my class today........I can't believe I cried over Chinese lessons.....I am rolling my eyes as I type this....

The "internet man" came to our apartment today. He was supposed to have an interpreter with him but he arrived much earlier than scheduled. I do not know any Chinese words that relate to unstable internet connections and wireless routers....this is what they should teach in Mandarin class...who cares about the weather in Beijing!!! Back to "internet man"......If you could see our "cord situation" relating to our telephone, internet, wireless, printer, and computer you would freak. It looks like spaghetti....it comes off our desk oozes onto the floor and then splits in all directions. On the other side of the room is the same situation...some of it is hidden inside a bookcase but it also looks like spaghetti. Those wires are connected to the IP telephone, the router, and a bunch of other stuff. In walks "internet man".....he is overwhelmed....then he starts pulling wires out and unplugging things and I am having a heart attack because I have not idea what cord goes where. Tim is the mastermind behind all the spaghetti and keeps it running......he is not home. "Internet man" speaks as much English as I speak Chinese. He replugs some things.....gets on my computer....types a bunch of stuff...watches a black and white screen say blah blah blah timed out. The "timed out" line gets his attention and he stands up and leaves the building. Meanwhile...we have cords strung across our room with a box thing hanging out of our bookcase. Xiao Zhang says "internet man" will be back. Then...."interpreter girl" arrives.....Yeah!!!....we wait for "internet man"......and wait.....and wait.....finally after all small talk has dried up with "interpreter girl" "internet man" returns. They have a long discussion.....he gets on my computer again....watches the black and white writing....gets excited about "timed out" lines.....has more animated discussion with "interpreter girl". After several minutes of this I ask "Well....what did he say?". She said (and I am not kidding) "he said it is a router problem". No wonder I am not "getting" Mandarin!!! It takes an entire 8 minutes to say "It is a router problem". Okay...a router problem.....I am happy we have identified the problem (although I am still skeptical)...I say "how do we fix it?". He does not know because "internet man" does not fix "router problems". We have to call "router man". So..."Internet man" plugs everything back in and stuffs the spaghetti back into its places and leaves with "interpreter girl". This evening...Tim comes into the office and says...."The IP phone is not working". I am shocked!!!!

My Chinese lesson on Monday was about the weather....so...Tianqi yubao shuo jintian yao xiayu. This translates to "The weather forecast today said it will be rainy." The weather forecast was correct. It was cloudy with scattered rain. Tim went golfing.....I took a taxi to the Community Center and then went on a tour with some ladies from South Africa, India, France, England, and America. We toured a Flower and Plant market, a Wet Market (where they sell veggies, fruits, fish, and meat), and a small candle factory.

First stop....the flower market....

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One side of the building is flowers....the other side is plants. You can buy any plant, any size and have it put into a container of your choice. AND they deliver.....most likely on the back of a bicycle. I wish I could keep a plant alive longer than a few days.....hhhhmmmmm I wonder how Xiao Zhang is with plants????

Outside garden decorations....there might be a few of these in our shipping container when we leave China

Water fountains everywhere!!!

This is the cleanest wet market I have been to in Shanghai. AND it is in Pudong....we don't even have to cross the river. They call this a "wet market" because they do not have air conditioning so in the summer they spray everything with water to keep it fresh.

This is ........ stuff

This is stinky tofu.....when you smell this cooking on the street it is really really disgusting!!

Eggs anyone???

Lots of greens that I can not identify.....The standard answer for "What do you do with this?" is......"Stir fry it with garlic".

These are soooo pretty.

More eggs? The small ones in the front are quail eggs.

More beautiful veggies

Notice the pig feet in the front? The butcher is shaving one of them....I guess you really don't want your pig feet to be hairy.

Fish everywhere.....Is a squid considered a fish? Hmmmm.....

More fish
How about some fish heads? As I walked past this vendor the shop keeper poked the fish head and it moved... I said AAAHHHHHH!!!!.....and he laughed really hard.

This is the fish head guy....He wanted me to take his picture. Just as I was taking the picture the fish he was holding flipped out of his hand and splashed back into the tank. Water went everywhere including all over me.....we laughed again and I showed him the picture which made him laugh even more. This was a very fun "fish" experience.

After the wet market we went to a small candle factory. It is somewhere towards the Pudong airport.

This was my "picture of the day". This is outside the factory door. These are thermoses. The factory workers fill them up and take them home. Most of them do not have hot water (some have no running water) in their homes.

Large wax heaters

Candle molds on the edges....water in the middle for cooling the molds.

Candle molds...water troth at the top of the photo

Candles in progress

Everything in this factory is hand made. They use this drill to put holes in the top of the candles so they can had small votives.


The tea pot contains hot wax....the burner in the back is used to heat the candle so they can add Asian hardware. The hardware sticks to the melted wax.

Candle with metal hardware added. These are really beautiful and made very well.

More candles


More candles

Oops!!! I think someone had a "melt down"!


The show room was a very different environment than the factory. The factory has no heat or air conditioning.... yikes!!!


I love these!!!!

I also like the very "funky" shapes.

After the tour I came home and took a nap.....it seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do on a rainy day!!

Abi's school is having spirit week so she does not have to wear her uniform all week. Today was "fashion disaster day". She was definitely a disaster. I missed getting a picture....darn!!!

After Tim's early morning call he went to the golf course for a "work" meeting. He was a "happy camper" when he got home this evening.

Well....that's another day in Shanghai.

It has been another full day in Shanghai. This is how the day went.....

7:30 Parent, teacher, student conference before school
8:00 deliver Tim to his office along with a couple dozen Halloween cookies
8:10 very fast breakfast at East West
9:20 arrive at the China Bank building for Chinese lessons (20 minutes late because of traffic)
12:10 leave Chinese class and catch at cab to Yu Yuan Garden (not really a garden but a shopping heaven for craft and quilting crazy people)
12:35 arrive at Yu Garden and walk to McDonald's (yep...big mac and fries for lunch today)
12:50 call Jan and arrange a "drop off location" in Yu Garden (I had too much stuff to carry around Yu Garden....including two Chinese books, two boxes of flash cards, an extra pair of shoes, a novel, and three quilting magazines)
12:52 change shoes (tall boots are not comfortable on long expeditions in the "Garden")
12:55 use the bathroom at McDonald's (they have "Western" style toilets)
1:00 meet friends at the taxi station in Yu Garden
1:03 meet Jan and unload my backpack into the car (must have room for purchases in the backpack)
1:05 proceed to the "bead/bag/tassel building to search for all things interesting
2:00ish leave the bead/bag/tassel building and go to the "strong and stretchy fish line" building and search for a specific fish line
2:30ish leave the "fish line" building and stumble into the bulk bead shop where you can order bags and bags of beads
2:35 commence negotiations for a "joint venture" bead purchase
3:30 finish bead order and proceed to the Costco for Crafts building (I think this is what heaven is going to be like)
3:45 talk to Abi about her after school plans
3:47 talk to Tim about Abi's after school plans
4:00 leave Costco for crafts and proceed to "the ribbon street"
4:05 get called back to the bead store because they changed their mind about the price of our "joint venture" beads (not kidding!!!)
4:10 stop at the ribbon store on the way back to the bead store and buy several yangs of ribbon ( a yang is 91cm....we do not know why they sell it in yangs but one yang is .995 of one yard so I am just going to call it a yard)
4:15 text message Xiao Zhang about dinner
4:20 talk to Tim about transportation
4:21 send Jan to pick up Tim and Abi
4:30 leave ribbon store and walk back to bead store
4:32 discuss bead prices as we prepared to renegotiate with the bead store
4:35 listen to my friend (with a very English accent) tell the bead clerk (through an interpreter) about poor business practices of reneging on a deal while myself and our other two friends tried to keep a straight face
4:40 cancelled the bead order due to inflated prices and the "you can't changing your mind after the deal is done" principle
4:43 arrive at Starbucks for a much needed caffeine fix
4:50 say goodbye to friends and walk to the ferry station
5:00 ride the ferry to Pudong and walk to our apartment
5:30 check on dinner and Xiao Zhang
5:45 greet Abi and Tim
6:00 read email
6:30 eat dinner
7:00ish start Chinese home work
9:30ish finish Chinese homework
10:00 check on Abi and get her some tea and a few Advil (homework causes headaches)
10:30 blog blog blog
11:04 say good night


PS: While Tim and I were on a walk yesterday a young couple came up to me and asked if I would take a picture. I thought they wanted me to take a picture of them....nope! They both wanted their picture taken WITH me. How weird is that??? This is not the first time this has happened. I said okay and they took the pictures. As we were walking home Tim and I both wondered where those pictures might turn up. That is a scary thought. So......if you see my picture on the internet in some strange place.....possibly with someone else's body.....just remember it's fake!!!

Happy Halloween

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!

I am having so much fun learning new crafts.....On Friday I went to another class. This time we made Christmas napkin rings with stretchy fishing line and beads that look like leaves. Tomorrow after my Chinese lesson I am going to Yu Yuan Garden with two other ladies to look for beads to make more napkin rings.

This is from the silver clay class....

Krista....this is not a great picture but you might be able to get the idea....

Tim and I went on a walk today....I wanted to see how long it would take me to walk to my new Chinese school. I took this picture along the way....My lessons will be on the 35th floor of the China Bank Building....that is the building on the left. You can see from this photo that it was a little smoggy today......cough cough cough!!! It took us about 25 minutes to reach the bank from our apartment. Tomorrow I will adjust my route to include a stop at Starbucks.

I'm back online!!!! You may have heard my...WHA-WHOOOOO all the way in the US. I find it very therapeutic to write about our experiences in Shanghai and it's free!!!! Think of all the money we are saving on counseling fees... ha ha.

Our weekend was consumed by volleyball again. Abi's team was in another tournament....this one the last of the season with kids from all over China and Mongolia. The tournament started Thursday evening. Abi's game was delayed by four hours because the team they were supposed to play late because of fog conditions in GuangZhou. Abi's team lost one game but held the number one seat going into the final game. They played against the other Shanghai school for 1st place. These two teams are evenly matched so it was a very exciting final match.

Photos from the weekend...

Abi and team at the opening ceremonies....Lauren (team captain) on the right

Abi's team....starters ready for the game

The "other" Abby (AKA "Puckett") ready to serve. With two Abigales on the team there was a little bit of confussion....So.......One is "Puckett" and our Abi is "A-B-I". A-B-I is playing middle.

A-B-I and Puckett give each other 5 after a great set and score

Some times is hard to sit on the bench....but A-B-I is the best bench sitter EVER!!!

Banquet for the players after the championship game .... have to love the Asian fingers!

Ah....it is nice to sit down after a very busy weekend....

Tim and I took a break from volleyball on Saturday to join his work team on an "outing". Our plan was to go on the outing and be back to Shanghai to watch Abi's final game. It is crab season at a lake near Kunshan and apparently these are very famous crab. We met part of Tim's team at his office....took a bus to Puxi.....picked up the rest of the group and headed out of town. The drive to Kunshan should take about 1.5 hours......it took 3 hours because of traffic. AAAHHHHH!!!! We met some more people at a restaurant when we arrived at Kunshan. We had a full Chinese banquet and then the crabs were served. The crabs were very small and did not have much meat on them.....

Meet my crab....Hairy. This is the "before" picture

This is the after picture....

According to Chinese tradition....we Westerners waste a lot of the "good parts" of the crab. I could not bring myself to eat the "yellow" stuff. It took me a long time to crack this thing open and it was a lot of work to get the very small amount of meat out of the legs.

More food

Tim's work team

This was the table with all the very cute babies......I wanted to sit at this table.

More of the team.....

I got a glimpse into Tim's world.....I can see why he feels isolated. We spent three hours on a bus and about another 1.5 hours at lunch. Most of the time everyone spoke Mandarin.....I understood very little of the conversation and after a while it became very weird because they can all speak English too. I had been looking forward to meeting and getting to know the group. As it turned out ....I felt very much like an outsider. Tim and I might as well have been in the restaurant by ourselves because we were not included in the majority of the conversation. I would have to say it was very disappointing and frustrating.

After lunch we "raced" back to Shanghai and walked into the gym at exactly 5:00. Tim's work driver, Mr Pan, got us back to the school just in time for the game. I do not know how he did it because I had my eyes closed most of the way.........some times it's good to just "be in the dark".

Wednesday

I spent all morning and part of the afternoon trying to get my embroidery sewing machine to work. Last week it worked great....this week we are having a battle of wills. It is winning.

This afternoon I went to the Chinese school and taught English. Again I was overwhelmed by the excitement of the students. Before my second class started....there was a "song sort of thing" that played over the loud speaker. All the kids closed their eyes, got very quiet and massaged their temples, eyes and cheeks to the rhythm of the music. It was the most interesting thing. When they started this activity I thought they were praying....then I figured out that it was a relaxation exercise and I was impressed how fast the kids settled down after recess. I want to learn how to do this. I think it would be a good wrinkle reducing technique......I am telling you none of these kids have wrinkles....ha ha. I will not go back to the school for two weeks...next week they have a field trip and the following week they have mid term exams.

Yesterday after my jewelry class I went looking for a couple of small furniture accessories and some fall decorations. I found a few fun things and had a great time exploring the flower market and furniture alley.

This is "The ladder". Our driver can not figure out why I would want a ladder. She also had a fit when I asked about an old bench at one of the furniture stores.....She said.."Madam, why do you want that old thing....it is so common". Ah....one mans "common" is another mans treasure!!! I did not get the bench because it was priced like a "treasure".

I found some "fall looking" candles at the flower market. They are green with orange leaves stamped in them. I put them on our bench last night and stunk up the whole apartment. They were very fragrant and it was not good. They sort of smell like watermelon???? I thought I was going to through them out today but the smell went away....thank goodness!!!

I could not find any interesting candle holders for the "smelly" candles so I got some wooden Asian vase stands. They make great candle holders. I also found some better pumpkins. These do not look as "plastic" as the ones I bought a couple of weeks ago.

This is the bird house candle holder that Tim and Abi gave me for my birthday.....I brought the twiggy beaded wreath from the US in September.

That is the extent of our "Fall" environment in Shanghai.

I finally finished my "experiment" quilt this week. I added some Chinese coins, beads, and buttons in random places and then sewed several tassels to the bottom edge. The wall that the quilt is hanging on still needs a short bench to sit under the quilt.....I guess the bench I want is a "common" thing so I hope I can find one for a "common" price.

Things to look forward too.....

Yesterday our driver asked me if I liked crab. I thought it was strange that she asked because I had just come back from a walk and had noticed lots of crab for sale on the street. This is something that I have not seen before. Jan explained that there is a lake outside of Shanghai that is famous for it's crab. And guess what???.....it is crab season!!!! Several months ago Tim's work group planned another "outing". Now I understand why they choose the activity....they (we...spouses were invited this time) are going "crabbing" at the famous lake on Saturday. I wonder what parts of a crab are generally eaten in China? Yikes.....I don't really want to think about that tonight.......