Week 2: September 10-16

sorry this is long, but apparently a lot happened this week...

settling in our new home and meeting neighbors
It seems that our miles of walking and exploring continue. We’re very close to the point where we are “completely” settled into our new homes considering what we want to accomplish in the next 3 months. We’ve also started to spend a little more time exploring beyond the 2 mile radius that surrounds our home and school. This included meeting up with Kien’s friend, Rita, for some very good, but very expensive dim sum at Din Tai Feng(?) followed by a visit to her penthouse. Oh my goodness... a gorgeous view of the Huangpu River and some coal piles. A “beach” including a wave pool and sand, an indoor lap pool, a few tennis courts, a private elevator entrance (so there’s an inner door and an outer entrance, a huge living room with floor to ceiling windows, 3 big bedrooms and a den, a large kitchen, and a driver. And although their aiyi (aunty, cleaning lady, baby sitter, etc) didn’t live with them, she could in the built-in “room,” basically a 3’x4’ closet with a bathroom where the shower head is over the sink. I’m not exactly sure where you would stand to take a shower. On the other hand, they do have at least some rules to these women are treated with some respect. The aiyi room is required to include a window. Amazing.

We also met with Dorette, the daughter of Popo Young’s friend that just passed away. Very smart lady with lots of international experience ranging from international business to technology to real estate to finance. She was based in New York for 15 years while focusing on Latin and South America; lived in Singapore, Beijing, and now Shanghai. She now does consulting and was very nice to meet with us and share some tips and information on getting settled in Shanghai. She is definitely a wealth of information and a wonderful resource.

Matt, Jerri and I confirmed the awareness of our new home as we wandered down Nanjing Lu, which is filled with neon lights, tourists, hawkers, beggars, and just a whole lot of people and noise. Compared to our neighborhood, it was overwhelming to walk down the pedestrian street and be bombarded by everything and everyone each step of the way. After finding a local shop off the main road for a really good dinner, we were happy to go home.

veggies galore
Mmmm... so ono! Long beans, various choys, yam leaves, cucumbers, bamboo shoots... Steamed, stir fried, boiled in soup, pickled... Hot, cold, spicy, and more... They all beat the same salad I was having every day at Pi Phi.

Suzhou
A quick 30 minute express train ride West of Shanghai is the little suburb of Suzhou, home to about 6 million people. Once a favorite of stomping ground of emperors, it is filled with many gardens and history. The grand canal also runs through the city so it is often referred to as the Venice of China. And although they try to follow the old architecture when constructing new buildings in the area, there is a clear distinction between new Suzhou and old Suzhou. With one glance, you know which dwellings are for the expats and which ones are for the country people.

Also, thanks to Jerri’s friend of a friend, we stayed at a nice hotel for less than a third of the listed price... China at work. Xiao Qi was also kind enough to take half a day off from his government tax job to treat us to a very tasty, very large lunch and show us around the city in his new Toyota Camry. It was weird though because he hardly ate even though he ordered about 12 dishes and there were only five of us. To say the least, we ate a lot and left the restaurant stuffed. He then continued to show us around new Suzhou, the Lion’s garden and a boat ride. On our own the next day, we went on another boat ride and climbed up a pagoda for a wonderful view.

Our visit to Suzhou commenced with our hired car dropping us off across the bridge from the train station. With about 45 minutes to kill before we really had to be at the train station, we decided to wander down a side street in search of food. And that is what we found in an old building with just a little sign. We followed the guy in through a maze of construction to their restaurant, which they had just bought, so the menu that was visible did not apply. It was a small restaurant, so we just go into their kitchen and start pointing to different foods they currently have available not knowing exactly what we would be getting in a few minutes. Of course, there was a lot of picture taking and coughing caused by some mysterious spice. In the end, we had some ice cold beer (the coldest we’ve found in China thus far), soy beans something, tofu something, shrimp, and some other veggie with meat. All delicious and scarfed down in the few minutes we had before our return to Shanghai.

Ellie’s Visit
Ellie from Korea, Kien’s first of many visitors, arrived on Wednesday and will be here through the weekend... very nice, very cute, very cheery. She made a couple of the masseurs very happy as well since two of them commented on how pretty Korean girls are.

Her Uncle was also very kind to us and invited us to join him at the Shanghai Circus, basically an acrobat show in a circus arena. Yet, these acrobats never cease to amaze me with what they can do. Their pure athleticism mixed in with grace, humor and style is a sight to behold. In this show, there were balancing acts, vases being juggled, contortion, seesaws, trapezes and motorcycles in a cage.

We did learn, however, that the metro does not run every 2-3 minutes to all areas of the city and that it shuts down at 11 pm, even on a Friday night. After that, good luck trying to find a taxi, especially one that does not completely rip you off.

In our neighborhood, we have been finding more and more perks. This includes cheap, 24-hour massage places as we tried a couple of different places with Ellie. While not to be done every day, there will be many more visits so we can get a hour foot massage for less than $5. Our other discovery was the noodle shop right around the corner from Kien’s house. We’ve eyed this place several times as we’ve walked passed it, but it was finally time to give it a try. Absolutely delicious hand-made or shaven noodles in soup and some really good other dishes as well. We’ll definitely be returning there.

bad news
(1) We had our first bad meal. I guess it wasn’t totally horrible, but it just did not come near the quality of so many of our other meals. So many times, we’ve said the food is so good it makes our expanding list of our top ten... but not this one. So sad.
(2) School starts tomorrow. Can we say - not ready?