I visited Tongji University today with Jane. She will graduate in June from this School. I learned a lot about the Chinese education system and the process the kids have to go through to get placed in a University. Her school is celebrating the 100th anniversary in May.

This school has a partnership with a University in Germany. I had to take a picture of the VW sign for Tucker.









There are water ways through out the campus and they reminded me of the city we visited last weekend.











The trees are blooming here which added to the beauty.

Bikes, bikes, and more bikes.

Part of the gardens on the campus.

Fun facts about the Jane's experience...

She lived in a small dorm room with 5 other girls and had one very small cubby to put her stuff. She took one plastic tub with her that fit under the beds. There were two bathrooms for the entire dorm and none of the bathrooms had hot water. They could take a cold shower or they could go to a special building on campus and pay for a hot shower. Her dorm cost only 500 yuan for one year. That is about $65. Girls and boys have separate dorms. The ratio of girls to boys at this University is 1 girl for every 7 boys. She sort of liked that ratio.

I started to write about our trip last weekend several times and either my brain was dead or I got interrupted by something. I loaded the pictures on Sunday and they have been sitting in my drafts since then. So...I hope to get them published soon.

I have six hours of Chinese instruction a week and so far putting the book under my pillow at night is not helping me. So....I have been studying...not that that is helping either but at least I am making an effort. Something that I learned this week I find amusing. When I introduce Tim to someone I can call him Old Mr. Xi. (Xi is pronounced She...this is our Chinese surname) Tim does not find this quite as amusing as I do. Old in this case does not mean age it means the patriarch of the family or the oldest Mr. in our house. When Tim's parents visit he will give up this title to his Dad. Tucker would be the youngest Mr in the house so he is called Xiao Xi . Xiao (pronounced Shaow) means little or small. Little Tucker is sort of a oxymoron especially in China. I thought I was doing pretty well with the Chinese thing. Today I had to greet my teacher, welcome her into our home, introduce myself and my family to her and ask her what her name was. Well...I practiced and practiced and did fairly well and was feeling pretty smug. Then, on our way home from Tim's office this evening we were practicing our Chinese. Our driver said....Tim Chinese good....Abi Chinese good....Debbie Chinese no good. Very funny!!! Tim and Abi enjoyed this way too much. I think Mr. Zhang might only get a half hour lunch tomorrow!!

This has been a tough week. Nothing really specific just some more culture shock experiences and feeling home sick. According to what I read about Culture shock, month 3, this is very typical. However typical does not really make it any easier. Month 3-6 are supposed to be the hardest...Oh goodie!! It is good to know there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Here are some random thoughts and tidbits from Shanghai

Tim's work group often go to a nice Chinese restaurant within walking distance of our apartment. Part of the menu has English translations....here are some of the items on the menu
Cow Stomach
Chicken palms and Chicken feet (Chicken feet are very common and you can buy these in the market)
Turtle
Dog (yes it really says this...I am hoping something got lost in translation)
Bull Penis (nothing goes to waste here)
By the way...Tim has not eaten any of the above named items

Spitting and picking your nose are acceptable behaviors and are not considered bad manners. Abi has a name for the nose picking thing.......pick and flick

Peeing on the sidewalk is very common and the other day during my walk I almost bumped into a pee-er. This totally grossed me out and I could not wait to get home and take a hot shower.

Toddlers often have bare bums showing because their pants are split in the bottom making it easy to .....you know what. This is actually sort of cute

Cars are very expensive, drivers are very inexpensive

Pedestrians do not have the right away even if the "walk" light is green

People eat whole cucumbers like a snack...sort of like we eat apples


Okay that is all I can think of for now......

Most of this was written yesterday
It is Tuesday evening in Shanghai. Tim is at a dinner meeting and Abi is working on homework and assuring me she can "multi task" which means she wants the TV on while she works on Chinese. I should be working on my Chinese but instead I feel an urgent need to post my blog.

We went to Suzhou (pronounced Sue-joe) and Tongli (pronounced Tong-Lee) last weekend. All the tour books said that Suzhou was one hour drive from Shanghai. So....after about 2 hours in the car I started wondering why it was taking so long. I looked at the map and found that had gone south, then west, then north and then south again into Suzhou. So.....a trip that was supposed to take one hour took us 2.5 hours.

Immediately upon arriving in Suzhou, Mr. Zhong pulled into a city bus stop lane, parked the car, and went to get directions to our hotel. While we were waiting for him to come back, two men started fighting right beside our van. They were yelling at each other.....then pushing.....more yelling...more pushing......and a crowd gathering and we were starting to get very nervous....finally Zhong came back and we left before the first punch was thrown. As we drove away I wondered how these men can "save face". One of the mysteries of the culture.

To make a long storey short, we found our hotel after two more stops to get directions. No wonder it took this many directions because the entrance to the hotel was in an alley. This did not look good. We went into the hotel and discovered it was a very old old hotel. It was sort of an interesting place in a sort of rustic antique way. But...not exactly what we were looking for on our "get away" weekend. So.....we found another hotel that was very Western style and it felt like home. We enjoyed the weekend that ended with a wonderful outdoor Easter Brunch. Beautiful weather, wonderful western food, and amazing Chinese gardens.

The Pearl Pagoda Garden. This picture was taken from the top of the Pagoda. We climbed seven stories up a very steep skinny stair way.

Abi and Deb in front of the Pagoda

Very tall Pagoda

In the garden

Abi and Tim inside the Pagoda

Dragons in the bushes

The trees were in bloom in the gardens....very beautiful

Walk way in the garden. Each of these little stones are placed by hand.

Antique furniture in one of the homes in Tongli.

More gardens

Tim and Abi feeding the fish.

This sign was hanging on the wall in Tongli. Apparently they have a reception for all tourist complainers.

More antique furniture. This is almost exactly what our first hotel looked like. We really did not mind the bed in a box but we could not imagine curling up in the straight back wooden chairs to read a book.

This is in Tongli. Many of the Chinese painting have these bridges in them. This town is called the "Venice of Asia".

This is our boat driver. Do boats have drivers? I guess you steer a boat but boat steerer just sounds strange.

Behind the waterfall

This guy was so cute. I think he was about a million years old and he was asleep on the handle of the oar. When we got closer he opened his eyes and smiled really big.

Tim and Abi in the boat.

We bought a painting from one of the artist in the market. It was really heavy so Tim go a cart for Abi and I to ride in and carry the picture. Tim ran along beside us as we rode...poor guy...I think it might have been easier to carry the heavy picture.

The Artist

The art studio

Happy Easter Brunchers. The weather was beautiful so we sat outside in the garden.

3/4ths of the family Easter Morning. The hotel had an Easter egg hunt for the little kids. The eggs were very cute because they were quail eggs.

The past two days have been very nice clear sunny days. The view from our house is a little deceiving however because it is still chilly outside. I went for a long walk along the water front yesterday. It was wonderful and I really missed my walking buddies from our marathon training days.

Jane helped us again yesterday with our new phone. We purchased two new wireless phones that have message capabilities. And....of course we could not read the instructions so Jane helped us figure out how hear our messages and how to put a greeting on the answering machine. Simple things......much effort!!

It is really hard for us to think that Easter is this Sunday. We are feeling very removed from our normal Lenten activities and spiritual connection to this celebration. We have not been drawn to the Churches here and are finding it a challenge to attend. I brought a few Easter eggs with us and they are in a bowl on our coffee table. This is our simple reminder that it is Easter. Speaking of spiritual connection.....we would love to hear how God is working in your life. We are all feeling a little spriturally empty. Abi is out of school on Good Friday so we are planning an overnight trip to a small town about 1 hour outside of Shanghai.

This is the view from our window yesterday. It was a three bridge day...if you look really hard you can see Nanpu (most obvious), the Lupu bridge (worlds longest arch bridge....white arch off to the right of Lupu and through the buildings), and the Shupu (look in the far distance between the poles of the Nanpu bridge. Also notice the number of ships on the river.....they are really fun to watch.

This is a picture looking to the right of or front windows. This is a good view of The Bund which is a famous place in Shanghai. The architecture is very English.....because......the English occupied this area of Shanghai a long time ago.

This is another funny sign that was hanging in the women's bathroom in JinQiao. I think it is supposed to say....Please Keep Clean. Instead....once you go into the bathroom you can never leave because you have to "keep Cleaning"????

Sunset on Tuesday

Today was a pretty quiet day. Tim went back to work, Abi went back to school and Tucker was back in Bellingham and I missed them all. My teacher did not show up for my language lesson today......I did not run her off I swear! I am really trying to be a good student. She actually got a new job at the University so she no longer has time to teach for Mandarin Today. Mandarin Today is the name of our language school. There are many other schools in Shanghai...like IMandarin, Easy Mandarin, which should not to be confused with Ease Mandarin, (both of these are very misleading!!) there is also Mandarin House, Just Mandarin and one that left out the word Mandarin and just advertises as i Speak (I guess lower case i is more important than telling potential students what they will be speaking) I think there is a lot of room for additional schools such as Mandarin Yesterday, Mandarin Tomorrow, and my favorite.....Don't fool yourself Mandarin is really hard but we will try not to laugh while you give it a try!" At least they would not be misleading any hopeful students. I really was supposed to have a new teacher today...but after waiting 25 minutes I decided that she/he was not going to show up. So...I went to Carrafour to get eggs and milk. You would think after living here for 2 months and one week (I was a little off on my previous 2 month calculation....it just seemed like 2 months at the time) that I would be able to run into the store...grab some milk and eggs and be out of there in a few minutes... Oh...contriar.....It took me 45 minutes to get milk and eggs. I finally found the unrefrigerated eggs on the back shelves of the bread isle. Of course...how silly of me not to look there first. ???? Note to self....make sure that anything with eggs in it is cooked beyond recognition. There will be no runny eggs at the Spoffords. Oh....FYI...the milk is located on an unrefrigerated shelf also. It can last up to 2 months in your pantry without spoiling. It must be refrigerated after you open it and then is is good for an additional 7 days. Who knew? We were buying fresh milk from the dairy case (looked like what we buy at home) and after talking to a few people here I learned that is really not a good idea....and I don't think I want to know the details. In fact Delia was sick last week and the doctor said she had food poisoning and they are pretty sure it was from "fresh" milk. Lucky for us it was not milk from our refrigerator. She is feeling much better this week but will not be drinking milk any time soon.

After my extended stay at the grocery store I came back to the apartment to do "more tax work". So.......I called a friend......down loaded some music to my computer from Itunes (this was a pressing matter because I got a Christmas gift certificate (without an expiration date)from the kids and I was pretty sure I needed to use it today)....made a list of things to do tomorrow.....cleaned off our desk....hung a world map on the wall in our office....researched some travel destinations....spent some time trying to hear my newly downloaded music on my desk computer........realized the computer does not have speakers.....No Wonder...I can't hear the music.....talked to Tim on the phone.....learned that I could plug head phones into the computer and hear said newly downloaded music....eat lunch......read some email.....wrote some email.....sang out loud really badly to the music blasting from the headphones.....(poor Delia had to listen....she should get hazard pay)......got ready to work on the taxes.......could not find a pencil....found a pencil in the bottom of my language lesson bag....Oh yeah...I have a new really cute bag to carry my school books ...Tucker bought it for me while he was here.....he is a really good bargainer....(can you tell I was having a little focusing issue today)......went back to the taxes....and about two hours later...I was done with my part of the taxes!!!!! Wow...What a job.....it took me all day!

Doing taxes and watching season 1 and 2 of Veronica Mars. Life is pretty boring today....

More pictures from the gardens by our apartment.

After we took Tucker to the airport we needed some comfort....so I am embarrassed to admit it... but.... we went to Burger King for lunch. Hey...a little bit of home can go a long way! There are only two BK's in Shanghai and one of them just happens to be in a shopping mall close to our apartment.

After a Jr. Whopper meal (only $2.00 in Shanghai) Tim and I walked back to the apartment via the river front. It was warm and muggy but the walk was great. Abi took a cab back because she has a 10 page paper due on Monday and she wanted to finish it today so she can have Sunday to play.

On our way back to the apartment we walked through the gardens in the back of our apartments. We drive by them sometimes several times a day and have never stopped to see what they looked like. Wow!!! It was a really fun discovery as you will see from the pictures that we took.

This is at the exit of the drive way.

This is a little water way that runs through the grounds.

This was the best discovery...there is a restaurant in the middle of a large Chinese garden. We can see this garden from our guest room window but did not realize it was so beautiful.


More Inspiration


I told Tim and Abi that I was not sure what I was going to do now that my play mate went back to Bellingham......Tim said....taxes!

Today was a sad day for all of us as we took Tucker to the airport. Spring break is over and I can't believe how fast this week flew by. So...it's goodbye Shanghai....hello Bellingham for Tucker.

We decided to take the Maglev (Magnetic Levitation)train to the airport because it is much faster. In fact the drive to the airport always reminds us of the drive from Boise to Mountain Home.....it just never ends!

Tim, Tucker, and Abi buying tickets for the train.

This is the inside of the maglev station. We got to the platform just as the train was leaving the station. Darn!!!

Waiting for the next train.....waiting....waiting....

While we were waiting a nice man offered to take a family picture for us. I feel so short in this crowd.

Here comes the train!!!!

Enjoying the ride.......all 8 minutes of it.

This is why the ride is only 8 minutes....the train goes 431 km per hour....see the sign above Tucker's head. 431 km equates to about 268 miles per hour. Time really flies when you are on this train.

We got Tucker checked into his flight....he was able to change his seat to the bulk head so he would have more leg room. While we were in the airport we met three HP guys that were on their way back to Houston on the same flight as Tucker. All three of them were in meetings with Tim this week. They graciously offered to take Tucker with them to the "special lounge" while they waited for their flight. We said goodbye, I cried , and Abi said..."Moms bubbling" again.

The train goes the same speed in the opposite direction....Very very fast!

It seems that we have been doing a lot of eating while Tucker has been here. Tim and Tucker ordered egg rolls and the yellow stuff on the table is what they got....literally eggs rolled up in a loaf and then sliced. They were really good sports and eat it anyway!!










Abi and I went for a more traditional fare....white rice and noodles.













Tucker in one of his new suits. He is not one to get dressed up just for fun so it was nice that he humored me and let me take a picture.