Take me out to the ball game!

We are very fortunate to have two satellite tv boxes in our house - one is Chinese and only broadcasts Chinese programs and the other is Phillipino and broadcasts all American programs. During the day I am able to watch re-plays of Ellen and the Today Show (taped the prior day). Last night I watched Flip This House and America's Got Talent. Rich is excited that we get CNBC so he can catch up on all the market news during the night. This is a bit dangerous considering the market at home is open during the evening here so he can 'day trade' all night long if he wants. Ang apparently loves CNBC - every time it is on she stares at the screen (I think she likes the ticker that constantly moves along the bottom of the screen). She will also be a very happy child here as we get Nickolodeon and Cartoon Network.

This morning we received the ultimate surprise with our Phillipino Satellite - we are watching the Yankees / Red Sox game that is currently being played in Boston. Unfortunately Boston is losing and Rich is using this as a chance to encourage Ang to cheer for the Yankees. Even though we are watching the game with coffee and bagels instead of beer and nachos, it definitely makes it feel like we aren't so far away from America.

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning - watching good ol' American baseball!

Ang was more into trying to get this block into her mouth than watching the game.

Ang is a star!

Warning, this is a long post. We have done so much since I last updated and I don't want to leave anything out! Hopefully you have the patience to get through it all :)

It is very hard to believe, but our little baby girl is five months old today! I find it amazing to look back at all that has happened since March and to see how much she has grown. We had some very difficult months with her early on (mostly sleep related) and now sleep is the least of our worries most nights. Last night we put her in her crib awake at about 7:15 and she was asleep about 5 minutes later without a single tear. She woke up about 4:30am and nursed for 15 minutes and then went back down until 9am!! When she was only a few months old and was screaming all night long, I never would have imagined things being this easy at night! We have started to think about introducing solids (mostly just rice cereal) but are probably going to wait a few more weeks. The pediatrician told me that we could start anywhere between four and six months, but from what I read a breastfed baby doesn't really need to be started until six months. I have also started to think about how long I will breastfeed her for but for now am taking it a day at a time. We did try to introduce a bottle of formula a few weeks ago and she took it without a problem. Unfortunately she had a bad reaction to the formula and ended up getting very sick. So we will stick to breast milk for now!!

Nothing but mommy's milk for this little girl!

We spent the past few days doing a lot of sightseeing and realized that our baby girl is a little star! He skin color and cute smile attracts a lot of attention and people are constantly trying to take her picture and touch her hands or feet. We quickly learned that people tend to go for her hands first (and not many people actually ask if they can touch her) so we find that we tend to keep her hands covered in our hands whenever we are in crowded areas (she is almost always strapped to me or Rich in the Baby Bjorn). Everywhere we go people stop and stare and giggle or talk to her. It is entertaining to see but I can see how this may become annoying very quickly.

Our little star!

Colleen has been visiting the past few weeks which has been really great. Rich had a business trip to New York a few weeks ago so she arrived while he was away to keep Ang and I company. Rich and I were able to enjoy a very nice dinner out on Friday night and got all dressed up to go to Jade on 36 (on top of the Shangri-La hotel with an amazing view). All dressed up for a great night out!

We were able to fit in quite a bit of sightseeing this weekend and have had so much fun exploring new areas of the city. Friday afternoon we went to the fake markets where you can find knock-off purses, watches, movies, etc. The market was not very busy so we attracted a lot of attention as foreigners (especially with the cute little baby that everybody wanted to check out). We took the subway there and back - it was my first time on the Shanghai metro system and I was impressed. It was very easy to navigate and was so much cleaner and quieter than the NYC subway I'm accustomed to! The market was interesting but was a little too overwhelming for me. You definitely need energy to deal with all of the sales people that are constantly trying to get you into their shops and patience to keep going back and forth on price.

We decided that Saturday would be our big tour day so we hired a driver and asked Rich's assistant to help map out a few nice places to stop. Although taxi's are very easy to use in Shanghai, they do not always have seat belts in the back seat so it is not an easy way to get around with a baby. There is no law requiring car seats in China (which I find amazing) and the locals are very lax about safety on the roads. On many occasions I have seen multiple people, children included, crammed onto an electric scooter with no helmets. We have decided that we do not have the need for a full time driver but have found a few drivers that we can hire by the hour if needed. All of them are very safe and speak enough English that we can get by. They all have vans and we are able to buckle the car seat in. On Saturday we picked out four spots to visit but only made it to three of them. We started out at Yu Yuan Garden which is an old market area where you can find all things Asian inspired (chopsticks, fans, clothing, etc). There are also more of the fake handbag and watch shops but not as many as the area we visited on Friday. There is a park area that you can pay an entrance fee to walk through. It started raining while we were there so we decided to skip the park (it was also very crowded). A few photo's from Yu Yuan:



Our next stop was Xin Tian Di which is a very popular area for ex-pats. There is one main walkway that runs through this area and there are bars, restaurants and a few shops along with a decent sized park. When walking through Xin Tian Di it feels more like you are in a European city than in China. We visited a few of the shops (high-end, non knock off and expensive) and had lunch at an outdoor cafe.

We were then on our way to Tai Kang Lu. This is the one area that I knew nothing about - one of Rich's co-workers had highly recommended it and I really had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that people described it as an "art street". This ended up being my favorite stop of the day. There are multiple alley's off of one main little street full of art galleries, clothing shops (and designers), and cafes. It was so much fun exploring the little alley ways and looking at the galleries full of photography and art. I think we will definitely spend a fair amount of time in this area while we are in Shanghai. By the time we finished walking around here we were all pretty exhausted and Ang seemed to be at the end of her rope (but she was a champ the entire day). We decided to skip the fourth stop we had planned (the Bund) and head home.

This morning we all slept in (yes, even Ang) and then headed out for brunch at the Shangri-La hotel. Many of the nice hotels in Shanghai offer an elaborate brunch on Sunday afternoon. The Shangri-La brunch is one of the top-rated ones and we were very excited to check it out. The menu is very Asian inspired (dim sum, noodles, Chinese food, Indian food, sushi, etc) but there was a huge variety and everything was incredible.









After brunch we walked over to the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC) to check out the observatory. We refer to this building as the bottle opener because there is a rectangle section cut out at the top of the building which gives it the appearance of a bottle opener (see picture on left - the 'bottle opener' is the tall building on the right, in the fog. The SWFC was opened in 2008 and is one of two giant towers on the Pudong side of Shanghai. The other tower is Jin Mao (where Rich works). There is a third tower that is currently under construction and is planned to be taller than the SWFC. It is very strange that we live only two blocks away from these massive buildings. The observatory at the SWFC is on the 100th floor and consists of a glass walkway that spreads across the span of the upper part of the 'bottle opener' on top of the building. The pictures we took don't do it justice, it was an incredible view.

Looking down over Jin Mao

The glass floor

We have definitely been having fun exploring the city and are really looking forward to all the fun we can have here. We are almost all settled into our apartment - there are still a few things that I think would help make it feel a bit more 'home-y' here, but I'll find those things over time. I have met a few more neighbors (one with a 3 month old daughter) and have found a few areas of the city that are a bit more residential and have some great shopping and restaurants without the hustle and bustle of the city traffic.

Before I forget, a few people have asked for email notification when I post updates here. I'm going to set up an email list so if you want to be added just drop me an email and I will add you. I'm really going to try to start posting updates more regularly, so hopefully future updates aren't as long as this one :)

Love
Meg

updates galore

Ayi Bonnie
In China, the term Ayi is loosely translated to 'auntie'. Most families hire one or more Ayi's to help with everyday household activities. They help with the cleaning, laundry, cooking, errands, childcare, etc. And if you are lucky to find an Ayi that speaks English, they also become your translator. We knew very early on that we wanted to hire somebody that would help our family and give me a little flexibility. There is a large supply of labor in Shanghai but it is sometimes difficult to find somebody with the right skills. Rich was in touch with a family that recently moved back to New York and they were helping their Ayi find a new family in Shanghai. They gave their Ayi an amazing recommendation and were eager to help her find another great family to work for (some families do not treat the Ayi so well). We interviewed Bonnie this morning and have now hired her!! She will be starting with us on Tuesday and we are really looking forward to her helping us. We were both very impressed with her English skills, her personality and her eagerness to help and learn. She has already committed to helping both Ang and I learn Mandarin!

Communication
We have finally figured out the ideal phone situation (for those not on Skype). We have a US number that will ring to a Skype phone in our house. Since it is a US number, you pay no extra charge for the call (only long distance for those that still use a land line). If we don't answer at home, the call will automatically forward to my mobile phone. I am not going to publish the phone number here since this is a public blog but please email me if you would like the number. Also, a friendly reminder that we are 12 hours ahead of New York. So if you decide to call us from NY at 2pm, it will be 2am here and we probably won't answer.

Life as an Ex-pat
Now that I am feeling much more settled here, I can admit that I was feeling pretty overwhelmed our first week here and had started questioning if this was the right thing for our family. I think this is a normal response for any family that makes a move this big, so I wasn't all that worried that I would end up regretting any of this. We are settling into a routine here and I have to say that I am loving it. I know that having Bonnie here will give me the ability to explore a bit more (I don't want to bring Ang to the big crowded markets) and I am looking forward to that. We got out this weekend to explore a bit more. There is one street in Shanghai that is well known for its shopping. We walked down this street on Saturday and passed 3 malls within a 5 block distance. Oh, passed is the wrong word. We walked through two of them. One of these malls has every top name designer you could possibly want (the real thing and the real price). I'm looking forward to getting back to this area to do some shopping for sure! We also went to the 'food street' which is where there are lots of little shops that offer a variety of local foods for a very small price. We had some amazing dumplings and a meat filled pastry type thing that was yummy. Rich and I both love trying new foods and I'm sure we will visit this street often.

Life as a parent
Angela has been amazing at adjusting to the new time zone, new home and new city. Rich has been awesome at helping out with the diapers and with keeping Ang happy. Her face lights up when she see's him come home from work and I just love seeing that reaction. Last night I left the two of them home alone and went out to the mall for a while. Rich gave Ang a bottle and put her to bed (and of course takes full credit for her sleeping so great last night - she slept 12 hours straight!). Last week I mentioned that Ang was rolling from her back to her belly. Well, she quickly learned how to flip back to her back and now keeps herself very entertained rolling around on her gym mat.

Pictures
Uploading pictures is still slow going, but I've managed to remain patient enough for these to load. Enjoy!

Ang helping daddy check his email

Our new favorite thing to suck on - toes!

The view from our living room - just past the trees is the river that divides Puxi and Pudong (the two sides of Shanghai - we live in Pudong)

Our dining room table seats ten people. I'm still amazed at the size of this place.

This is actually from Rich's last trip to Malaysia. I'm glad I wasn't there for this photo and actually get creeped out just looking at it.

Getting Settled

We have been in China a week now and I figured it would be a good time to post an update on how life has been so far.  Sorry for the lack of photos on this post – the Internet is slow and I'm inpatient.  I've uploaded a few at the bottom of this post and will try for more soon.  Also, I will apologize for any formatting issues in this post.  The Internet crashed a few times while drafting this and I kept losing my drafts.  I ended up copying and pasting from Word and it made my formatting all funky.  Sorry!  I tried fixing it, but its Saturday night, Ang is asleep and Rich and I are enjoying a movie and a glass of wine.  So I'm giving up on the formatting and posting as is!

Our new neighborhood is great.  Within 5 to 10 minutes walking there is a giant shopping mall, a nice park along the river (actually 2 parks, we just visited another one Friday night), a city foods grocery store (with all imported brands) and plenty of coffee shops.  Rich's office is very close by as well.  This works out great because he is able to spend quite a bit of time with us in the morning before heading off to work for the day.  The shopping mall nearby really is huge and has almost everything you could need (Best Buy, Toys r Us, grocery store, etc).  It is probably dangerously close - especially considering everybody here delivers for a very small fee.  Unfortunately all of the entrances have stairways so it is not very stroller friendly.  Luckily Ang has taken well to the Baby Bjorn!!

Wednesday morning we witnessed a pretty cool event - there was a total solar eclipse that left Shanghai completely dark for about 5 minutes.  Unfortunately the sky was very cloudy that morning so you couldn't actually see the eclipse (and I didn't have a pair of special glasses to view it with anyways).  However, around 9:15am the sky started turning very gray.  By 9:30 it was completely dark out, it looked like it was the middle of the night.  Within ten minutes it was light out again.  They say that this was the longest solar eclipse of our lifetime!

I am really enjoying our new home.  It is so big!!  It has been over two months since they packed up our apartment in New York and I'm having fun sorting through the boxes finding things that I had forgotten about.  It is great that we have so much space for everything (I was feeling a bit claustrophobic in our New Rochelle apartment).  A few fun facts about our home: 

·         No keys required!  The entrance is password/handprint driven.  There is a special code for the elevator that will get you to our floor and the elevator opens directly to our entryway.  There is then another code/handprint for the door. 

·         Our washer and drier have Chinese on the dials.  I had to pull out the guide book for the English translations.  I still have no idea if I'm using them right.  So far I haven't ruined any of our laundry. 

·         We have an awesome spa tub in our bathroom.  I haven't tried it out yet because I haven't found the time to read the 360 page manual that describes how to use it.  Yes, 360 pages of instruction on how to use a bathtub. 

Angela is still working on adjusting to the new time zone and new bed.  We have had a few rough nights with her but it hasn't been nearly as rough as I expected.  Last night and tonight were significantly better so I'm pretty optimistic that we will have her back on schedule by the time this weekend is over.  We did reach a new milestone this week - she rolled!!  She went from her back to her front and seemed very surprised once she got there.  Of course, she is not the biggest fan of tummy time so after resting for a few minutes she started getting pretty upset about being stuck there.  Now we will just have to work on getting her to go front to back!

So far things are going great in Shanghai.  Rich and I are so happy to be back living under the same roof and we are very optimistic that our time in China will be wonderful.  I've managed to get a few pictures uploaded and will hopefully get more up here soon! 

Miss you all!

Getting Settled pics

Rich works in this tower - on the 9th floor

Random street cleaning - there is no shortage of manual labor here

The washer - makes doing laundry quite the experiment.

The view from our bedroom balcony - it was rainy out the day I took this hence the foggy look

Ang - shortly after she rolled for the first time

We have arrived...

It took me a little while but I finally managed to connect to blogger so that I can post an update about our trip. Apparently this is one of the sites that is still censored in China. It seems that Facebook is currently blocked too. Thanks to Google and some articles written be other ex-pats I'm now back up and running in the social networking world!

Angela was a great little travel buddy and the trip here was so much easier than I anticipated. Security in Raleigh was a breeze, they have a special family lane and offered assistance with getting the stroller and car seat through the x-ray machine. We were able to board our first flight early and the flight attendant was incredibly helpful with getting the car seat and all of our belongings situated. I nursed Angela during take off and landing and the flight didn't seem to bother her one bit. We had a few hours to kill in Chicago so we found a nice quiet spot, set up a blanket on the floor, and played for a bit. It was an easy boarding process in Chicago and once again the flight attendants offered a lot of help with the baby. The flight from Chicago to Shanghai is a little over 14 hours. Angela was awake for about the first 8 hours (napped off and on for a little bit) and then slept pretty well for the end of the flight. There were not many passengers on the plane which made it easy to walk up and down the aisles to keep Ang from fussing too much. The flight attendants were more than happy to hold her anytime I had to use the restroom.

Ang was sound asleep when we landed in Shanghai and didn't wake up for the health check, immigration, baggage claim or customs. Two things impressed me when we arrived in Shanghai:
1. Express Lane! One of the immigration workers saw me with the stroller and motioned for me to follow her. Rather than wait in the long line that was forming, she opened a special gate that sent me directly to the next open agent. Normally I don't like to take advantage of special services like this just because I have a baby, but I was pretty happy that I could expedite getting through immigration (because I knew once Ang woke up she was not going to be happy sitting in the car seat any longer).
2. After loading up a cart with our four checked bags (we don't pack lightly) I had to push the cart and stroller through customs and out to the greeting hall. One of the customs agents saw me and pushed the stroller for me!! I didn't expect this offer of help and was very surprised to see it.

Rich was waiting for us when we exited customs (luckily he made it in time, our flight was almost an hour early and we were pretty quick getting through the airport). The trip from the airport to our apartment was interesting. Car seats are not required in China and many of the traditional taxis don't even have seat belts. The driver that picked us up at the airport had seat belts so Ang was strapped in. From what I have read, its only the taxi cabs that do not have seat belts so we will just have to steer clear of those! There is construction on the roads everywhere and the drivers are crazy! It took about 30 minutes to get to our apartment and when we arrived we were greeted very kindly by the building manager and concierge.

It was such a great feeling to finally arrive here in Shanghai and be "home" with Rich. The trip really was much easier than I anticipated although I'm not sure I would want to do that flight too often (and give Rich lots of credit for already having done it so many times this year). Ang and I are struggling a little bit with jet lag but had a pretty good first night last night (she slept off and on all night) and Rich is struggling with 'baby schedule' (she was wide awake and ready to play at 5:30 thsi morning). We made it out to the grocery store and the mall today - both within 5 minutes walking of the apartment. Its nice to know I can head over to the mall easily and get home very quickly if Ang gets fussy.

First impressions, our apartment is wonderful. It's huge and has many great amenities. The view is awesome and I think the location will suit us well. I will start taking some pictures and will post an update about the apartment later. For now, I'm going to log off and try to unpack a bit!

Four months!

Angela will be four months on Thursday and we went for her well being visit with the pediatrician this morning. Her stats:

Weight - 10lb 5oz (3rd percentile)
Length - 24 inches (45th percentile)
Head - 16.5 (80th percentile)...a true Bozzuto!!

She is a skinny little thing but the pediatrician is not concerned with her weight. She has continued to grow and that is the important part. She is meeting all of the important milestones and it has been so much fun watching her as she starts to explore new things. She is so close to rolling over on her own!!

Only a few more days in North Carolina - we leave for Shanghai first thing Friday morning!! I am a little anxious about the flight, but feel pretty confident that Ang will be easy to travel with. We are really looking forward to seeing Rich and can't wait to settle into our new home.

Some recent pictures