Problem Solved!!

I know you were all worried, so I figured an update was needed. Thanks to Electrolux, our coffee issues at home have been solved. I should have elaborated a bit in my last post about the selection of coffee at the local supermarket. There is a huge variety of coffee beans and plenty of brands that we will do just fine with. However, the selection of ground coffee is very limited. We hadn't been able to find a coffee grinder and therefore were stuck buying ground coffee. Well, yesterday I searched around a few stores at the mall and found a coffee grinder. So now we are back to being happy morning people without having to leave the house to visit a nearby Starbucks. Whew!!

Since I know you are more interested in Angela than our coffee issues, I have posted a new video. Angela has started blowing raspberries (or trying to anyways) and I was able to capture it this morning. If you turn the volume up high enough you can hear it in between the noises from the toy she is playing with. Too cute!

Better City, Better Life

We had a very quiet and relaxed weekend at home and definitely enjoyed it. Rich surprised me with an appointment for a massage on Saturday morning which was fantastic. It was a combo foot / head, neck & shoulder massage that was done by two people at the same time. I can't believe I have been here over a month and am just now getting around to a massage. The prices are incredible compared to the US and I think this may become a weekly habit for me!

When Rich was in New York last month he picked up a couple bags of Dunkin' Donuts coffee so that we could make it at home. Sadly we brewed the last pot yesterday and today we had to resort to using coffee that I bought at the market nearby. After only a few sips we decided to head to Starbucks for something stronger. This week I am going to go searching for better coffee beans and if I don't find anything we may be calling home for a care package!!! We can buy beans at Starbucks but neither of us enjoy their coffee as much as Dunkin'....

It seems that almost everywhere we go in Shanghai there is construction. There are new buildings going up, subway entrances being re-designed and sidewalks being ripped up and then re-paved. The construction workers work non-stop, all hours of the day, all days of the week. Fortunately for us, the majority of this work should be finished by May 1, 2010. That is when the 2010 World Expo opens in Shanghai!!

The motto for the Expo is 'Better City, Better Life' and they have appointed this funny looking blue guy as the Expo mascot. The little blue guy (Haibao) is plastered all over the city. You can find key chains, stuffed animals, post cards and any other souvenir item with his picture on it. There is a giant statue of him outside the mall and all of the visitors are constantly stopping to take a picture with him.


While we were out and about today we were looking at some of the signs advertising the Expo. The translation from Chinese to English isn't always accurate and can be a little entertaining!

And finally, a few pictures of Ang...

She has gotten quite good at the rolling - I walked into the kitchen to refill my coffee cup and returned 30 seconds later to find her here (she was on the mat when I left her)!!

Goofy faces

Sitting like a big girl at lunch - not quite sitting on her own but getting very close!

How much do plants cost?

I feel like I got a good deal yesterday - but those that know plants better than me (mom) could probably tell me for sure. Even if I didn't such a great deal I definitely hit the shopping jackpot. Ang, Bonnie, and I headed to the plant market yesterday. I had heard of this place through a few online forums and was told that its "the place to go" to find plants for our house. There was also mention of a baby store in the same area but I didn't pay much attention to that, I was going for the plants.

We found our way into the market which seemed to be mostly fake plants and flowers - not quite what I was thinking. But, then we happened upon a little corner where they had all sorts of live plants and pots. I selected 4 potted plants and Bonnie spoke to the shop owner in Chinese and got them to throw in a hose, plant sprayer and three stems of a flower that we liked. The woman typed a bunch of stuff into the calculator and showed the total to Bonnie - 675RMB. We ended up paying 600RMB (about 85USD - and I should also mention that this price included delivery and setup). There are pictures included below - you can decide if you agree about this being a good deal or not. Maybe we should wait a month to see if they are all still alive before deciding?

The shopping adventure story doesn't end there. Of course we had to check out the baby store - its hard to find decent baby stuff in Shanghai so I'll always stop to look when I see baby gear. JACKPOT!!! We made our way up to the third floor of this market to find a very clean, well organized, quiet baby store that had EVERYTHING you could possibly need for a baby. Ok, maybe saying EVERYTHING is a bit of an overstatement. Baby toys in America are way cooler than the toys you find here (even though it is very likely that the toys back home were actually made in China). In addition to baby toys, diapers, formula, clothing, shoes, baby food, cribs and more toys they had a baby gym and a baby spa (where they let babies float in little bath-like pools of water and give them massage afterward - don't worry, I will never let Ang near these as I'm sure I'm not the only person who's first thought had to do with worrying about how sanitary this could possibly be). We looked around and bought a few toys but decided to head home because it was time to try to get Ang down for a nap. I am so happy to know about this store though - it definitely beats going to the over-crowded crazy Toys R Us down the street from us!

In Ang news...
We have teeth!! I feel like these have been a long time coming but noticed an insane increase in the amount of drool, chewing and crankiness in the past week. Sure enough, yesterday she got ahold of my finger and bit me!! I immediately opened her mouth to find two white edges peeping through her gums. Yesterday I found that she had moved herself into a position on her playmat so that she could get the bar on the side into her mouth (its foam on the inside and I bet it felt great for her to chew on!)



Ok, I'm off to the kitchen to help Bonnie cook. She is making us her famous dumplings tonight so I'm helping so that I can try to learn how to make them myself!! We have been so impressed with all of the Chinese meals she had made us in our home, but her dumplings are definitely our favorite!!

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!