Today's blog has nothing to do with Shanghai except that the subject was inspired because we are packing to travel from Shanghai to the US.

This is one of those Venus vs Mars things.

Abi and I have been packing for two days....we are going on a cruise that requires "dressing" for dinner. This is our first experience on a cruise ship so we had to read the "expectations". Dinner attire is described as "Casual", "Informal", and "Formal". None of these include jeans! Hey....we are from the Pacific Northwest..."Casual" and "Informal" are almost synonymous with JEANS! We are going to be on this cruise ship for 7 days....this means....6 dinners...two are "formal" and the rest are "casual" or "informal"...which does not mater because.....you can't wear jeans!!! We really want to pack light because we want to have room in our suit cases to bring "stuff " (like taco seasoning) back to Shanghai......BUT.....I am sure all of you Venuses out there can relate to this scenario....

Fancy dress must have fancy shoes, handbag, and jewelry.
#1 fancy dress is a different color than #2 fancy dress so the first pair of shoes can not be worn with dress #2. Brown pants require brown flat-heel shoes....black pants require black high-heel shoes.....Then.....there is the day wear, the cool weather gear, the exercise wear (which I always have good intentions to use but will probably never get out of the suit case) the sleep wear, and the "oh my gosh...I better pack this just in case" wear.
And....all this "wear" must be tried on to make sure it still fits!!! By the time the "trying on" is over our room looks like a tornado plowed through it.
And finally there is the very important accessories selection process!!! Belts, hose, jewelry, handbags, beige bra, white bra, black bra...etc. All this takes planning and a great deal of thought! Right???

Tim.....Mr. Mars....packed in less than 45 minutes...AND....commented about how long it took! He did not try anything on....He mentioned he would bring his tuxedo and two ties...one for each of the formal nights....and went out the door to play golf!!!!! How can this be?????

Xiao Zhang continues to amaze us with her cooking skills. Tonight she made our favorite cabbage salad and salmon. It was delicious and cooked just right. A few nights ago she made a noodle dish with chicken from a weight watchers cook book.


I am afraid that our table manners have slipped while living in China. We have adapted some of the local manners like eating off others plates and slurping our noodles.

And...eating with our fingers!!! Oh my...we have a lot of re-training to do!Abi has been busy with "Yeah! School is out parties" and movies and lunches. This morning she and I went to breakfast and then got our "services". We each had a pedicure and a manicure, did some shopping, and then took Tim to lunch. Ah...such an exhausting morning!

Just one more day until we get on the plane for home! We are all very ready to be back in America and experience some "normality".....or at least what we think to be "normality". I am sitting in the window of our living room tonight and the smog has cleared and the city lights are all on. Even the bridges are lit tonight....who knows why....(this is Monday night....I am not sure what is special about Monday...but who cares!)...it is really beautiful. It is like the city is trying to seduce us into returning after our home visit! I think it will be fairly easy to return after we are renewed this summer knowing that we are on the down hill slide. We have exactly one year remaining in our commitment to China. And...I know this next year will go by very quickly as Abi finishes her senior year of high school. There are many things on our "to do while in China" list and now that I think about it....I feel there might not be enough time to get it all done. Ah....What an adventure we have been on!

Today was Abi's last day of school.....so Summer has officially started in Shanghai!

Six days until we transport ourselves to a different world!

We got caught in a huge rain storm yesterday. We were shopping at an outdoor market and suddenly the sky opened up and dumped a ton of water on Shanghai. We made a run for the car and got completely soaked. Here are some pictures of the car trip home....

Waterfall off the Nanpu bridge...
The wind was blowing like crazy and there were hail balls the size of marbles. We called them smog balls!
The bridge was a river....Yikes!!
The streets were flooded
Mr. Zheng drove through the storm like a pro...it was not easy because visibility was nil.
There is a sidewalk under all that water!

These are pictures from Tim's trip to WuYi with his work group .....

Tim narrated the pictures for me...

Rafting down the river under WuYi Mountain. I didn't ever learn the name of the River. The rafts are made from large bamboo poles that are bent up at the end and lashed together. We actually sat on bamboo lawn chairs that were tied to the raft. We had a person on the front and the rear of the boat that guided us with long bamboo poles.
These temples were scattered throughout the mountains. We walked to several but this picture was taken from the raft.
This is WuYi mountain or WuYi Shang. There is a trail up to the top that consists of a couple of thousand granite steps.
As you can see we were clearly not alone on our hike. We spent the entire hike shoulder to shoulder with a few thousand Chinese friends.
Another picture of all the people on the trail... I was in WuYi for 3 days and I didn't see a single other westerner and other than the people I was traveling with I didn't find anyone that spoke English including our tour guide. It is amazing the difference just a few hundred kilometers inland from Shanghai.

Congratulations to Tucker!!!!

He has worked really hard during this school term to prepare for this review and he made the cut!!! So....he will continue his studies at Western Washington in the ID (industrial design) program. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers! We are all very excited for him.

Friday night was Abi last internship night at Jean George. So...several of her friends, her volleyball coach, her assistant principal, and some friends of ours went to the restaurant for coffee and dessert. We got to see the kitchen...it is open to the restaurant and you walk by it on the way to the dinning room.....it is very nice! The girls all said it looked just like the kitchen in the movie Ratatouille.

Abi in the center......

Oh my gosh....the desserts were so good!!!! We ordered our drinks and then the desserts just started flowing out of the kitchen.....Chefs choice! We sampled many different ones...some that were fruity, some that were chocolaty (my favorites!) and some with citrus whip cream that went "WOW" in your mouth after you swallowed. They were all presented beautifully with chocolate dots and cookie garnishes and chocolate crumbles.

Abi worked until 11:00pm and then the staff wanted her to say and have a drink in the bar! Yikes! Only in China! Fortunately she could not stay because she had to take the SAT exam this morning. I think she might have slept through part of the test.

So....four half days of school, the weekend and then four more days until we are home! But....who's counting?

Spofford count down....

1.5 days until Tuckers ID review

2 days of internship and 4 days of school for Abi

14 days until home leave!!!

18 days until Alaska vacation

But who is counting???? We are!!!

Today I bring you miscellaneous happenings in Shanghai....

Internship

Abi continues her two week internship at Jean George Three on the Bund. This week she is working in the pastry kitchen and likes it much better. Yesterday however she was not feeling well and called to say she thought she fainted! She said she was feeling dizzy and then she did not remember much except someone telling her she should go home. We brought her home, put her in bed, and filled her with lots and lots of fluids. I think she was dehydrated and that was causing her to be dizzy. Today she went to work and the assistant pastry chef said..."You are the one that fell down yesterday".....so I guess she really did faint! Yikes! The chef also said "You should eat something sweet if you feel dizzy again....like chocolate!" Abi's thinks this a great idea!!! Today Abi cut up fruit, plated chocolate, and watched them make ice cream. Sounds like a fun day to me!

Prom Night

Girls just want to have fun!!

Dress from Hong Kong purchased far in advance of the event!!! No overnight dress making this time! 25 new gray hair avoided!!!

AAAAhhhhh!!! Where did my baby go?

Girls just want to have.....dinner! They had dinner at Yi Bin Jiang (One by the River)

Fabric Market

I went to the fabric market today and this is what I found!!! Isn't she cute! She came right over to me and said "hello". I said hello back to her and she just laughed. Then I said hello in Mandarin and she repeated it back to me.....then I taught her how to blow kisses. Forget shopping....I would rather play with the babies!!!

Abi and I found a place that will custom make tote bags....Choose fabrics from their selection or bring your own fabrics. Over the past couple of weeks I have taken several friends to the "bag maker". A total of 70 bags have been ordered!!!

Interesting factoid

China has banded the use of plastic shopping bags. So....as of June 1st you must BYOB (bring your own bag). I think this is a good idea.....but..... so far I keep forgetting to BYOB. Today I left City Shop with both arms full of grocery items...but no bag!!!

Quilting class

Yesterday was our last quilting class for this session. Usually we work right through lunch but we decided since it was our last day we would order lunch and take a break from sewing. We were laughing and having a great time talking about some crazy thing that happened in Shanghai. Tim was working from home and came in while we were eating lunch to say this was just how he envisioned "quilting class". Lots of talking ..... not much quilting!

Some of the quilts are still "works in progress" but here are the results from all that "talking"!

Kathy's black, white, and red, quilt....

and here's Beth's color combination ... purples and greens

and...this is the teacher's quilt....brights, brights, brights!!

Yesterday we hosted a group of kids from one of our previous hometowns...Corvallis, Oregon!

Go Beavers!

This group of kids have been studying Mandarin for several years and spent the last three weeks touring and attending Chinese school. They are headed home on Saturday and are at the end of their trip. I took them on the ferry tour to Puxi and then they came back to our apartment and swam for about 2 hours. We fed them pizza and home made chocolate chip cookies....and soda....with ice!!! Then we all sat in the big window and watched the night time city view. They were so happy to have a little taste of home and a place to "hang out" for the evening.

Corvallis kids at the wave pool

Last week I mentioned the adorable baby that my quilting friend is caring for.....well....here she is...Baby Bing...

She came to quilting today and I got to hold her....she is soooooooo cute and soooooo tiny. My handbag weighs more than she does!
Baby Bing has about 15 new quilting "aunties" and we all stood in line to hold her. I don't think I should show these pictures to Abi....

Another quilt finished!!!!

I am calling this one Redwork with a Twist.

I embroidered the block designs with my embroidery machine and then HAND QUILTED the entire quilt! That is a first for me......probably the last too....ha ha.

Today is day four of Abi's "Life as Culinary Arts Intern". It has been a bit of a slow start but I think everything is on track now. She called me while I was at quilting to say that she was going shopping to buy corn. I have never heard anyone so excited about buying corn before. Anyway....they are developing a new recipe and she was put in charge of shopping for the ingredients which required going to three different import stores by taxi. She is getting to be such a "city girl".

She has some great stories about the characters that work in the kitchen. Abi is the only female and the only non-Asian (go figure!) in the kitchen except when the head chef is there...he is a New Yorker. The first day Abi was at work there was a parade of people wandering through the kitchen to see the "blond girl" intern.

Tucker has a big design deadline tomorrow at 9:00am. Keep him in your prayers as he is still in high stress mode and counting the days until his review......June 5 at 10:00am.

We continue to hear heart warming and heart breaking stories about the earthquake victims in Western China. The last report that I heard was that 5 million people are homeless. As a quick reference point....that is about 1 million less people than the entire population of the state of Washington. I have to say that I have been a bit anxious about living in a high rise apartment now and have had a few sleepless nights of worry. They say that all the buildings in Pudong are built to withstand a 5.7 quake and there has never been an earthquake in Shanghai.....well.....until a few weeks ago as we felt the ripple of the quake in Chengdu.

It is hard to know what to do for the quake victims....so......we are going to follow the Community Center lead and donate money to buy tents. We have been assured that these tents will be taken directly to the areas in need.

On a brighter note....one of my quilting friends is a nurse and has volunteered to be on a team to help children recovering from surgeries. Yesterday I got to see a tiny baby that she is helping....oh.....my gosh!!!! She is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo cute. She is a newborn and was left at a hospital in Hainan because her parents could not take care of her. She was born with a spinal cord defect which has now been corrected. She came on a train with a nurse from Hainan and the doctors in Shanghai did the operation. She is a tiny little thing...weighing just about 5 pounds. They call her Bing and she is now thriving!!! My friend will take care of her until she has recovered from the surgery and they find a family who will adopt her.


To change the subject again....there is a group of kids in Shanghai from Corvallis! They have been studying Chinese for several years and are here on a three week cultural experience. We met some of their parents on Tuesday evening and we will see the kids next Wednesday. Domino's pizza just opened in our neighborhood so I think these kids will be ready for some good American junk food by Wednesday!

Quilting...
I am determined to finish all the quilting projects that I have started before we go home for the summer. Part of me wants to finish them so they are.....well...finished....and the other part of me wants to finish them so I can.....start some more!!!!! Here are three that I finished in the last couple of days.....All of these are more art quilts for the walls....Abi's comments...."Why would you want to put tassels on a quilt...you can't snuggle with tassels!" She has a point but our walls like to snuggle with them!!!

All is well in Shanghai tonight. Xiao Zhangs family members are all okay. There was no damage to her parents home but some damage to her sisters home.

I spent most of the day in a box making workshop.

It was a lot of work but very fun!

and.....it has already been put to work!

Earthquake in China today....

At about 2:45 today our building started swaying. Three of my quilting students were still in our apartment when one of them said..."I think the building is moving". And...it was! The light fixture over the sofa was swaying back and forth and it felt really weird. Our entry door was open and it started making a strange sound against the door frame and the whole room was rocking. We were not shaking....just rocking. The rocking/swaying lasted much longer than a normal earthquake. ....So....at the time this was happening we were not sure if it really was an earthquake or some other strange thing happening to the building. Yikes!!! We decided we should get out of the building so we rushed into the stairway and walk down 36 floors.

The stairway exits to the driveway at the front of our building so we asked the security guards what was happening....they thought we were nuts and had a great laugh. "Crazy Westerners!"

Then....a few minutes later they said all the buildings were shaking....then a little later they said there had been an earthquake in western China.

The earthquake center is the province where Xiao Zhangs parents live. Please keep them in your prayers.

After Abi left for school this morning I went for a walk.....I took my camera with me to keep me entertained....this is what I saw...

Out the elevator and into the lobby...
Past the mail boxes....ours is on the right on the top row
out the back door....
to the walking path that connects our buildings...
this path goes past three buildings...
drivers lined up waiting for passengers....
bikes bikes and more bikes....

Ah...we are now on the street...
walking toward the ferry station and the river front...
entrance to the river park....


path to the river park...
basketball court on the river....not much basketball being played today....mostly just sitting..
ah....the river...

the view from the river....
people excercising and visiting....

This guy is popping up all over town...he is the mascot for the world expo that will be held in Shanghai in 2010..

more river...

river park with the city scape behind...
in the park....
big ships passing....

axelias blooming....makes me a bit home sick...
back on the street....the river walkway is not finished so you have to exit several times along the way....
back to the river walk....

trees are very pretty.....
workmen on the river walk..
more green things...

park decorations....
a lighthouse.....
metal trees with feet...

exit the walk way again onto "pee street"....this is our nick name for this section of street because the taxi drivers like to stop here and use the bushes.....gross!!!!
on the street again...
construction work on the new tunnel....

bus station....

construction work around the bus station...

more work....
more construction....
second ferry station....people getting ready to board...

more buses...
floating restaurant...
city scape....

pedestrian walkway....
City shop....our import grocery store...
back side of the river park...

on the street for a while longer....
up the stairs....
ah....the river again.......with a huge white ship passing a smaller red ship...

watching the river...
resturants and ....coffee shops!!..do you recogonize those green umberllias?
STARBUCKS!....no time to stop today....

More resturants....
and.....a very small McDonalds...
outdoor seating for ice cream.....

this is the newest section of the river front walkway...
more outdoor seating...
view of The Bund.....

more green space....
the world globe building....
the river bend.....

the end of the walk way.....time to turn around....
Wow!...there are a lot of tall buildings here....
more of the river....

looks very different going this direction...
ah....almost home....these are our buildings in the background...
more green space...

back on the road again.....
our street.....
more of our street....and now back to the lobby....