I am very far behind on my "blogging"......so many activities.....so little writing time!!! I am going to be on a train to Beijing for the next 12 hours so I might get some more pictures up soon.. This is a finished version that I started a few days ago.....in this case...."yesterday" was Wednesday...

Yesterday was another full day. We started off the day by picking up two friends and going to Puxi for a meeting. The Shanghai American Women's Club was hosting a "membership" day and I needed to sign up and pay for a dinner that we will be attending. Again my Dad was the only man there....go figure?....(he is going to need some serious "male bonding time" when he goes home) and we only stayed long enough to turn in some forms. Oops!!! I was supposed to have my passport with me....it seems I never have that thing when I need it.....

Our next stop was the Shanghai Art museum. It is small but had an interesting exhibit about a boy that found an extraordinary birds egg. When the egg hatched a beautiful red bird emerged. The exhibit was a "walk through" and all the art work that told the story of the bird was made out of silk scarves.

The story was translated in English....thank goodness!!!...

The whole exhibit tells about the journey of the red bird....

All of these lanterns are made out of silk scarves.

A feather from the bird

The birds destiny was to travel around the world to help mankind understand each other.....(I think that was a very big job!!!...I don't even understand myself some times!!!)

In the end the bird dies and his feathers are turned into a piece of red silk that can not harmed by any "blade". In this display the silk ribbon was being magically pulled through the sword blades without being cut.

After the art museum we needed a cold drink. Starbucks was just around the corner....Thank God for Starbucks when you are in a far away land!!!! Behind Starbucks was a beautiful park....surprise!!! So......we wandered around the park for a while and were thoroughly entertained. So many things going on in the park....people exercising, playing cards, napping

People's Park

Seniors in the park playing cards

Mom and Dad standing in front of some very very tall water lilys

Rock formations at the park

Shanghai has very interesting architecture...here are some buildings that we could see from the park

More architecture

Water lily bloom....this was a very large bloom......I think it was about 10 inches wide

We had two interesting encounters in the park.....one was really fun and the other was a surprise....The fun encounter was with an older couple. They were walking through the park and the women was very curious about moms cane. They stopped to talk with us.....with my best Chinese (and the help of two college boys) we communicated with them...they wanted to know where we were from and how old my parents were.....it turns out they were the same age. I asked if we could take their picture...

Friends from the park

The second encounter in the park was very interesting....two girls approached us and wanted to know where we were from and how long we had been in Shanghai. They said they were college students. They asked what we had been doing and asked if we had been to a tea ceremony. They knew a great place and wondered if we would like to go with them.......ding ding ding....my "scam alarm" went off.....about two months about they arrested several people for the "tea scam". People were making friends with foreigners and then inviting them to a "special" tea ceremony.....then when the bill came it was outrageously expensive. One guy paid Y7000 and then went to the police......it turned out there were three tea houses at The Bund that were running this scam.......I guess there are a few more???

Next we were off to the hotel restaurant supply stores.......

Mom used to decorate wedding cakes so she was fascinated with these very tall wedding cake stands...10 layers anyone???

Shopping at the hotel restaurant supply store

Then we were off to Abi's volleyball game..... Abi is getting more playing time than she expected. She is improving everyday and we are having a lot of fun going to the games.

Abi at the net...

Great picture of Abi serving don't you think???? I think I need a high speed camera...

Yesterday we went to a cooking class. I heard about the class through a friend and thought it would be an interesting cultural experience for my parents. The class was held at a restaurant in Puxi and we learned how to make two Chinese dishes and then had lunch in the restaurant.

The eager students before the class....Let me just throw in here that my Dad was the only man at the "party". He was a really good sport and even got an honourable mention from the owner of the restaurant for being brave enough to attend such an event.

The class was presented by the owner of the restaurant and his wife. The instructions were given in both Mandarin and English. The participants of the class were from all over the world...mostly other Asian countries and one from Germany.
The first dish presented was a cold dish (Xiang Cai Luo Bo Qiu) and is usually served as the first course of a traditional Chinese meal. We would call this dish a salad. It had simple ingredients of radishes and coriander with a soy sauce-vinegar dressing. Note: the radishes are smashed instead of cut. This allows the dressing to soak into to body of the radish.

Xiang Cai Luo Bo Qiu

Next we learned how to make spare ribs. Pork ribs were cut into small pieces with the bone still attached and then mixed with garlic, red bell pepper and some sauces.

The ribs were then deep fried in very hot oil.

And....this is what they looked like when they were done. They were very tasty!!!

This is one of the sauces.....see if you can find this in Fred Meyer...

This is two different types of soy sauce...one light and one dark

These are dishes from our lunch. This one is "Prawns in a bird nest". I made up that name but it was very fitting. The nest is made out of deep fried sweet potatos. This dish was pretty good but a little slimy...

Mom and Dad at the banquet table. Did I mention that Dad was the only man? Well here he is with all the ladies....Our lunch was a feast!! We lost count how many dishes were presented...I think somewhere between 18 and 24...we were stuffed

Mom practicing her chopstick skills.....our host found some forks and brought them to the table for Wo de Mama and Wo de Baba

Beautiful fruit dish......fresh fruit is a very common dessert in China

This is one of the other "desserts". It is pieces of fried pumpkin and pieces of corn on the cob.... I don't think that it is really dessert if it has vegetables in it...

While we were at the cooking class I met a new friend. She told me about a little shop that sells pieces of embroidered cloth from the Yunan Province. This is close to the Tibetan boarder. So....on the way home we stopped by the shop to take a look. The owner was a young women from a small village in Yunan Province and said her name is long and hard to pronounce so she is called "the village girl". That is the name of her shop. She showed us beautiful pieces of clothing that had been embroidered and worn by people from her village and surrounding areas. She goes to her home town once or twice a year and collects old pieces of clothing and sells them in the city. I think these would make very interesting art quilts so I will be returning to the shop again. Dad is modeling a pair of pants with bright colored embroidery designs on the legs. They were just a little short for him or I am sure he would have bought them to wear back in the US.

Sending birthday wishes to Arivn Spofford (father and grandfather) from all the Spoffords and Fitchs in Shanghai!!! Hope you have a great one!!!

Friday evening we walked down to the river front for dinner. The weather has improved soooooo much we could sit outside and watch the river.

The happy walkers.....down by the river.

The restaurant was a combination of different cuisine...pasta, chicken, and spring rolls. Abi's dinner came with a salad and since it had "green things" in it she was more than happy to give it away to her mother.... I thought is was very pretty!!!


The round ball between the buildings is the sun....hmmmm might be a little smoggy today??? We watched the sun set after it disappear behind an interesting cloud.

River front walking area....

There were many families out enjoying the nice weather. Two little boys came over where we were eating and tried very hard to communicate with us in English...they were sooo cute!!

Monday we were off to the pearl market. The ground floor is a "fake market" with lots of vendors saying "Hey lady.... you want to buy a watch". The second floor is all jewelry. Mom found a silk hand bag and .....of course....pearls!!!

Next we went to a furniture market. Mom and Dad were amazed at the location. The market is located down a gravel alley in an abandoned warehouse area. Six different businesses are located in this area. We met the owner of Hu & Hu and she gave us a personal tour of her store and answered all our questions. She is Irish/Chinese/American and is a really fun person. She will be giving a talk to expats about her business and Chinese antiques later in the month.

This is the alley where the antique furniture market is located. When I stopped to take a picture of the alley I left the door open and the car filled with the worst smell you can imagine.....it was really stinko!! Next time I will be more careful where we stop to take pictures.

Our third stop was the HongQiao Flower Market. There are many little shops around the outside of the market......so much shopping....so little time!!!

This plant was in the flower market....notice the curly fern leaves. They are growing out of a big "trunk". The leaves are curled by hand to make them have this shape.

HongQiao Flower Market

More shops outside the flower market

I am still catching up from my activities in Vancouver......Remember the Java Jewels from a few blogs ago....well here they are. Our reunion was in Portland...I don't think we stopped talking for half a second....it was soooooooo much fun seeing everyone again. What a fantastic group of ladies!!!!

The queen birthday girl sitting among her loyal court.
Happy birthday Penny!!!!!

Tucker will be on his way back to Bellingham tomorrow morning.
His new address is:
600 Lincoln Street Number 106
Bellingham, WA 98229

Phone: 360 521-0911
email: tuckers@gmail.com

News from Shanghai...
Yesterday was a pretty full day.....started by saying good bye to Tim and dropping Abi at school so she could get warmed up for volleyball. I took Mom and Dad to our favorite breakfast spot...best french toast in town!! Then it was back to school to watch volleyball. Abi's team played two games (or is that matches?) one in the AM and the second at noon. They started off the season with a bang....winning both games/matches.

Breakfast at East West before Abi's volleyball game

Abi warming up for the game

Abi cheering from the side lines

Check out all the scooters....from here to as far as you can see.

This is outside the shopping center...we found a place to fix Mom's glasses and took a tour of the grocery store.


Sights from the food court in the Carrafour shopping area

Fish heads anyone???

Mom and Dad in JinQiao


Today we went to the fabric market....Dad ordered a suit, and sport coat and Mom ordered three jackets....

Having fun at the fabric market

Behind curtain number one......Dad trying on pants at the fabric market

We made it to Shanghai last night and got through customs in record time. Tim and I got to spend about 12 hours together before he left for the airport. He will be in Houston all this week.

Abi had two volleyball games this morning and between games I took my mom and dad to Carrafour (grocery store) for a little tour. My mom had a rough start to the day.... at breakfast she discovered that her sunglasses were broken and while we were at the grocery store she took a bad fall. She gracefully recovered from the fall....nothing broken....although she may have a few bruises tomorrow. We got her sunglasses fixed......they just needed a new screw. This evening we went on a walking tour of the gardens around our apartment and managed to fend off jet lag until all most 9:00. And now it is time to go to bed....

I am on the plane heading back to Shanghai. The past two weeks went by really fast….I am feeling renewed and ready to return to my “real” life. Tucker took me to the airport very very early this morning. We left the house at 3:30am. My bags were over stuffed and over weight. It turns out that one bag was 16 lbs over weight and the other was 6 lbs overweight…..Oops!!! Originally I was going to pay the extra fee for heavy weight bags but the lady at the United counter said the fee for overweight “international” bags is three times the normal fee. The fee would be $300.….Yikes!!!! I don’t think so!!!! Lucky for me my parents’ bags were underweight so in the middle of the airport I had to open the bags and adjust the extra weight evenly between six bags…..a little embarrassing…but better than paying $300. I felt like I was on the Oregon trail and had to throw grandmas china off the wagon. Keep the fish crackers or the paperback novels?? Do you know how much peanut butter M&M’s and scone mix weigh? Not to mention 15 yards of quilting fabric. The scone mix was about to hit the trash can but was saved by my parents’ very empty carry on bags…..I should take a lesson from them on “stream line packing”. I was very happy to see those bags disappear into the x-ray machine.

The eager travelers…. I am impressed they are smiling at this time of the morning.

It is 2:00pm Shanghai time and my buns are numb….we have been traveling for 14.5 hours and up for 17 hours. We had a long layover in San Francisco. Only 3.5 hours until we land in Shanghai….but…who’s counting???? I finished reading my book, played Suduko, watched part of a movie, ate airplane food, and took a nap. The goods news….we all got to upgrade to Economy Plus so the seat in front of me is more than 3 inches from my nose and I have room to type on my computer. Tim is picking us up at the airport and we are all meeting Abi for Chinese food. Go figure! Welcome to Shanghai Mom and Dad.