Wow! Another week has passed and I am not sure where the time has gone. Tim has been very busy this week hosting people from around the world and he is well into his second work week.... if you count hours...before Friday even started. Poor Guy!

We all went to breakfast this morning at East West....even Tucker got up early for this event. It was fun to have the whole family together as we have been spread thinly this week. (Is thinly a word?) Dinner has been "eat when you can" at all different times of the evening. Abi had volleyball two nights this week...one game with the Middle school kids and one community practice game. Tim had dinner meetings and Tucker gets home late...usually 7:30.

And for me....just when I think I have a handle on the whole "living in China" thing it jumps up and bites me without warning. I was feeling pretty smug thinking...Hey...I lived here for a year...I have a handle on this...I know how to get things done!!! Okay....let me just say it....I melted into tears on Wednesday and Thursday. Most of the tears were brought on by frustration and lack of independence...I really miss driving myself!!! I know it sounds very glamorous to have a "driver" but it is not always as wonderful as it sounds. Just for a second imagine these things...
1. You must explain every place and reason you are going somewhere.
2. There is always someone in the car with you and they have control of the heat, music, and speed in which the car moves.
3. Opinions are offered about everything you do.
4. Someone else has control of your time.
5. You can never have a private conversation in the car.

Okay....maybe this is a control thing....maybe this is an Independence thing....maybe I am just tired of the hassle and lack of privacy. And....of course the straw that broke the camels back this week....a charger for our IP phone line. Go figure!!! All I needed to do...find a new charger...seems like a very simple task.....right? Well....It is a long boring story and seems very trivial but between the language barrier and lack of control of my transportation....and too much "help".....it was more than I wanted to deal with. So....I melted into tears....abandoned the mission and went home and spent the rest of Wednesday afternoon hiding from the world and playing the song ..."So you had a bad day....over and over in my head. This was not one of my finest moments! Thursday morning after everyone left for school and work I just wanted to go back to bed, pull the covers over my head and pretend I was anywhere except China. Instead...I took a shower, got dressed, and drove (actually I rode..no driving allowed!) one hour to a quilting meeting on the other side of town. And...of course after I got there I was glad I went and I had a good time. The day was salvaged and I can say I made it through another day in China. I consider that a success and now I will stop whining....at least for a few days!!
Ah....the ups and downs of living in China....they call these Shang-hi's and Shang-low's.

Thursday was the last day of Chinese New Year...AKA...Spring Festvial...AKA...Chun Jie. The Lantern Festival is part of the celebration and is always on the last day of the long holiday. Tim and I walked to Yu Garden this afternoon and took these pictures. The lanterns are very beautiful.

Lanterns and people everywhere!!!

Lanterns in the shape of the zodiac animals.

This is the year of the rat....the rat is standing on top of a gold nugget.

It seems a little nostalgic posting these pictures and feels that we have come full circle. This is our second Chinese New Year as residents of China. The excitement has faded and things that amazed us one year ago now seem ordinary. I feel a little sad about this because we are settling into a comfortable routine (I'm not complaining...I like comfortable!) but the rush of adventure has been taken over by life. It is becoming harder to find interesting things to blog about because it feels a little like "do overs". Part of me wants to turn the clock back and see everything new again and part of me is very happy to be "comfortable". Several of my friends heard this week that they will be repatriating or moving to a different country in April and June and another friend returned to New Zealand last week. Ahhh...this is life in the expat community....constant coming and going.....constant change.

Speaking of constant change.....remember Abi's favorite Japanese restaurant where we celebrated her birthday last year? Well it is now a pile of rubble. One day it was there....the next day....rubble. One of our other favorite restaurants...City Diner....has changed. It is under new management and they have changed their menu. And...we are not happy about it!! A funny thing has happen the last two times we have been there.....they are out of more than 50% of what we want to order. Last night....Abi and Tim wanted BBQ ribs....this should have been a safe choice because the "Friday night special" is....ribs!!! Abi also wanted a chocolate milk shake....note the restaurant's name...City Diner....if anyone in town should have milk shakes it should be them.....but noooo.....they were out of chocolate ice cream!! Tucker and I decided to share a black bean quesadilla...good news they had that! And.....brace yourselves for this one....my soda looked like ice tea....I guessed they ran out of syrup in their coke machine. I showed our waiter my soda and this is what he did.....He pick up my glass in one hand, held the end of my straw with his finger so some of the soda stayed in the straw.....lifted the straw so it would drip into his mouth....and said..."Oh, I see". We were all stunned into silence and then we started laughing and could not stop! The waiter returned with a new soda and I am pretty sure it was in the same glass and had the same straw. And the final blow....we got a chicken quesadilla instead of black bean...I think he was afraid to tell us that they were out of black beans and insisted that we should take the chicken! Needless to say....the City Diner is now our ex-favorite restaurant!

It is Saturday morning...Tim is on a conference call, Tucker and Abi are sleeping and I am attempting to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast. The dough is rising in the "incubator" that I created in our laundry room. I have never had much success with anything that requires yeast so I am giving this project a 50/50 chance.

The past week has zipped by very fast with everyone at school and work. Tim is getting ready for a big meeting that will be hosted in Shanghai.....Tucker is designing a really sleek looking sled thingy at work....Abi is building a miniature Ford Theater, doing homework, rearranging her bedroom (third time in three weeks), and helping couch the Middle School volleyball team....

Big news for Tim.....he got his China drivers licence yesterday!!! I am not sure if I am happy about this or not....but...I think I might get mine too...just for fun! We are hoping that Tim can drive our car on Sundays when Jan has the day off. Our car company may not like this idea so it is still a bit "iffy". Tim had to make two trips (about 1.5 hours one way) to the licence office. Yesterday was his second trip and he had to take a written test.....100 questions...and had to get 95 correct.

Here are couple of my favorite questions from the exam:

Driving on a road covered with ice or snow, try your best not to turn the steering wheel lest the vehicle should_____.
A. skid
B. slide
C. slip

The correct answer is A.


I. When another vehicle suddenly overtakes and takes your lane, you had better_____?
A. stop at once
B. signal it with light to give way
C. try your best to keep to the right and give way to it.

The correct answer is C.

This explains a lot....it appears more responsibility rests on the person to get out of the way then on the person that is "getting in your space".


II. If the vehicle ahead won't slow down and let you overtake, you should______?
A. follow it closely
B. stop overtaking or change to another lane
C. sound the horn continuously and overtake it anyway.

The correct answer is of course B.

However...I think most of the drivers behave more in the order of C.

III. When passing a zebra crossing_____.
A. vehicles must slow down or stop to avoid the pedestrians.
B. vehicles should closely follow the vehicle ahead and pass quickly.
C. pedestrians must avoid the vehicles.

The correct answer is A.

I have never seen this happen!!! The true answer is C.

Fireworks continued all last week with the final "blast" on Thursday which is the Lantern Festival. Today we are going to Yu Garden to look at the Lantern display....thought we would wait for the "crowd" to dissipate.

I am back to Chinese lessons, quilting class, and general adventure in Shanghai. My quilting students started sewing this week and will have their quilt tops finished by Monday. My Chinese teacher came back from Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) and told me she is leaving to take a different job!!! I think this is a sign!!! I am not sure I can start again with teacher #6. My lesson this week was "how to order home delivery from McDonald's". The kids were pretty excited about this because they wanted to do this last week but did not know the right words...Now they can master this task! Life is Good!

My friend Shelly is thinking about teaching cooking classes in Shanghai and she invited us to her house so she could "practice". It was great fun and the food was wonderful!

Chef Shelly with her students....notice all the students wore black shirts....this was not planned...we thought it was very funny!!

Shelly in action! Watch the fingers!

The rest of my week has been quilting....I have several UFO's (unfinished objects) that I am determined to finish before I start any more.....And...I really want to start some more so this is highly motivating! Yesterday I finished the "flip flop" quilt...this was my first attempt at "hand quilting"....I am not a fan of this very slow process!!!

Flip Flop Quilt

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Virtual Valentine greetings from the Spoffords

Yesterday our "gang" gathered at our house to make valentine cards....

Interesting fact....all things that are "made in China" can not be purchased in China. Here are a few things that would be very easy to find in the US but are not available here...

• blank note cards
• envelops for note cards...(side note: I finally found some envelopes at a Japanese store in the mall on Sunday...I went back to buy them on Monday...they were all gone. Poof!
• pads of decorative papers for scrapbooking and card making....the package I brought from the US says MADE IN CHINA...but I can not find a single one for purchase in Shanghai

Sights from Shanghai.... Decorations for Chinese New Year...aka Spring Festival

Tim, Abi and I went for a walk on Sunday morning....these pictures were taken just a few steps from our building.....We call Shanghai the "city of contradictions" and I think these pictures show a small part of the contradictions....
the new Shanghai

The old Shanghai
6000 years of tradition and history Shanghai

Chinese New Year Decorations at the Portman Hotel

Abi spent most of Saturday working on her physics project. She had to make a Rube Goldberg style invention. She was required to create a series of energy

transfers that end in a "useful" task.

Her energy series starts when she calls her cell phone which vibrates and falls onto a lever that spins a wheel that drops a marble that slides down a ramp that hits dominos that fall onto a chopstick that flips a rubber band that makes a lego car move forward that knocks over a tack that holds a weight that drops onto a small pair of scissors that cuts fabric. Wow!!!

The final project.....

More quilts from the Tokyo Quilt festival.....

Last night and this morning we celebrated the New Year with friends....the fireworks were indescribable....everywhere you looked there were huge explosions of color. The fireworks started at 7:30 and continued until the "real" fireworks at midnight. They went full "Blast" (ha ha) until 1:00am.

Our friend sent us a notice posted in their housing compound regarding fireworks... thought I would share it with you... this is exactly as printed...

Notification
Dear Sir or Madam:

The holiday is coming, we wish you Spring Festival to be joyful!
Management office for better enhancement to plot safety control, asks repectfully each owner and the renter when egresses turns off the windows and doors, if has the unusual situation prompt and the management office relation. Special remind: when sets off the fireworks firecracker, Please easy not to cause the fireworks injection orifice alignment the fire place to set off, do not have to extend the forehead after the fireworks firecracker place above ignites the fireworks firecracker which or the examination lights extinguishes. When sets off the fireworks firecracker, please nurse good oneself dog, in order to avoid causes frightens.
Thanks your coordination!

I especially like..."not to cause the fireworks injection orifice alignment". I wonder what they mean by this?????

Watching fireworks

Tuckers friends from work

The teens and tweens making lucky dragons, "year of the rat" posters, and phone charms

Fireworks

A little poker while they waited for midnight

and of course...food and drink....

The younger ones watching a movie...

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year Eve....
For the next 5 days Xiao Zhang and Jan will be on vacation.....What will we do??? I know....take taxis, do the dishes, wash the clothes and make our own beds. We are all a bit anxious about this...I hope we remember how to do these things....ha ha!

Yesterday Xiao Zhang made us a traditional Shanghai New Year dinner....

New Year Dinner
Beef, rice, garlic greens, dumplings,
and warm rice ball soup dessert (obviously not is not the official name for the dessert)

Egg dumplings with tomato

Tim and I spent the day running errands....us and 20 million of our closest friends. I think half of the population of Shanghai were in Carrafour this afternoon.....

Carrafour today.....People everywhere....!

The check out lanes....

Standing in line to check out....

Tim guessed from this spot it would be 10 minutes....I said he was very optimistic....it took us 20 minutes.

While we were in the US at Christmas time Abi bought a "how to make sushi" book. Tucker and Abi have been collecting supplies and tools to try out their skills. Tonight they finally had time to put it all together. I think they decided that it is harder than it looks.....They practiced with cucumber rolls...don't you love the goofy bandanas?

Sushi Kids

Not bad...

Love the presentation!!!

Lounging on the couch....enjoying the day off work and school