So we have begun the process of getting Danny into the American school here that is down the block. He will start preschool there in the fall. The school can be summarized as just down right amazing. Think your closest ivy league private school near you and the school here is probably very similar. (Of course the price tag is as well. Yet as all the schools here are private so there is little choice in this matter). The fascinating part in this all of course is the application process. Back home, unless trying to get into some ivy league preschool--which we would not be trying to do, you simply choose the one you want and they begin at the beginning of the school year. Here there is a booklet application. Plus referrals from Danny's current preschool teacher. They also wanted to see his performance review from the school (yes, I had a parent teacher conference this past fall--it said things like--can spell his name, colors within the lines most of the time, has trouble jumping over a six inch Kleenex box--we hope the Kleenex box jumping won't be black mark against him :) ). After this process was completed, Danny and I (Dustin had to work) were invited to attend a performance by current elementary school children and then take a tour of the school. I signed us up (already trying to appear interested and involved) and Danny and I went this past Thursday.
They had a nice little buffet breakfast before the performance for the perspective students, their parents and the parents of the children in the assembly. The admission staff were really nice to Danny and gave him an interesting coloring book about making the transition to Shanghai. Danny and I watched the performance and then he began to color as it was a little longer than we expected. After the performance we traveled around with two other families to look at the school. The staff was extremely informative and kind.
I did find it funny though that the one lady coming with us (turned out to be the head of the admissions department) kept taking notes throughout the tour. I did not take note of it until we saw a board, towards the end of our tour that advertised getting involved in cub scouts. Danny went over to it excitedly and I talked to him about how Dustin had been a part of this group as was his Uncle Jeff and that he could do it as well. I notice the lady began writing when Danny had gone over to the board, but did not think much of it until later I just happened to see her clipboard. Sure enough she had written down cub scouts. Thank goodness Danny had been well behaved as he and probably myself were being graded as we went along.
The good news in it all is we found out just the other day that he has been accepted, and we just await him being given a seat, as they call it, and doing his interview--yes they actually schedule a time for even the preschoolers. In all fairness at the preschool level they just invite them to the classroom and they play and they are observed while they do this. Apparently for the purpose of making sure they are ready to be in school. Whew!!! Pretty amazing stuff.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Fun Weekend of Family and Friends
This weekend was quite fun, as it was filled with a lot of time with friends and with family. We spent Saturday morning playing outside with the boys on the soccer field in front of the clubhouse. While we all left our house a little on the tired side (okay, I was exhausted and I believe Dustin would have said the same), running around in the crisp cool air (in the 40s here) really made us all feel better. I was bundled up in my fleece and my crazy guys had all stripped off their jackets but kept their hats on (the one part I made sure was required). It was so cute to watch Danny and Josh chase after their soccer balls and Danny repeating drills he learned in his class.
We all headed back home for hot cocoa--they just brought in marshmallows--a huge find, so how could we resist. We had lunch and a relaxing afternoon. Then Dustin and I got ready to head out with some of our friends. We are so blessed here now with two things--great friends, and an ayi I trust and speaks good English--thus making a night out possible.
We drove with one of our newer friends. They arrived this past fall, and are actually from southern Indiana. We arrived at a Middle Eastern restaurant with belly dancers. I would say only in Shanghai, but I think the true answer is that only in Shanghai would I ever end up at a restaurant such as this. The attitude we, and our friends have taken is that while we are on this adventure here in China, we might as well be adventuresome with our choice of restaurant as well.
The food was actually very good--lots of humus, great salads, unleavened bread and kabobs. Okay we stayed far away from the lamb testicles--you can only be so adventuresome--at least I think so. Yes, this was really on the menu. I know because thankfully the menu was in English and Chinese--if it was just pictures, as most menus in the city are, we may have ordered it by accident--meals based on just ordering from pictures is filled with prayer that you are not eating anything crazy.
So our first belly dancer came out (there actually were three of them and they did two dances and left you to eat in peace for a while. This was good as they blasted the music so loud you would not be able to carry on a conversation otherwise), and our table either paid too much attention as it being our first time, or, I will phrase it kindly as, "too polite to say no" marked on our forehead (you can fill in something else if you would like). I say this as I somehow got pulled up to dance along side our first belly dancer. So, I was beat red, completely uncomfortable, trying to follow this Chinese belly dancer, all while my friends were laughing hysterically and taking pictures and video (thanks to all the fancy phones everyone has over here). This might not have been so bad if I had the talent of being able to move my hips, but alas this is not my gift or talent. So, after what seemed like an eternity on earth, I was able to return to my seat. The great news in this all, is that we some how had been marked as a table and I got to see all my friends (minus the guys) up dancing throughout the dinner. We had a great time that evening, but I cannot say that I will be returning to that restaurant anytime soon--unless I do not make eye contact with anyone but those at our table. :)
Sunday came fast and early, with the boys being excited about our plans for the day--Disney on Ice. Our family and a group of our friends (many of those at dinner the night before) had bought tickets together and planned to go to the one English performance. We met our German friends, Markus, Danni, Angelina and Timo and headed first to Starbucks (did I mention the night before had been late?) and then onto McDonald's to pick up food for the road. We then caravaned over to the auditorium. When we got there we saw what can only be described as a good portion of the expatriate community here in Shanghai--at least those with children. It was a nice performance and all the children really enjoyed it.
After the show, we headed onto church, where I helped in the nursery and Dustin enjoyed a group of musicians from Michigan that were visiting the city and played with our praise team.
Overall, it was a great weekend, and reminded us how we are blessed.
We all headed back home for hot cocoa--they just brought in marshmallows--a huge find, so how could we resist. We had lunch and a relaxing afternoon. Then Dustin and I got ready to head out with some of our friends. We are so blessed here now with two things--great friends, and an ayi I trust and speaks good English--thus making a night out possible.
We drove with one of our newer friends. They arrived this past fall, and are actually from southern Indiana. We arrived at a Middle Eastern restaurant with belly dancers. I would say only in Shanghai, but I think the true answer is that only in Shanghai would I ever end up at a restaurant such as this. The attitude we, and our friends have taken is that while we are on this adventure here in China, we might as well be adventuresome with our choice of restaurant as well.
The food was actually very good--lots of humus, great salads, unleavened bread and kabobs. Okay we stayed far away from the lamb testicles--you can only be so adventuresome--at least I think so. Yes, this was really on the menu. I know because thankfully the menu was in English and Chinese--if it was just pictures, as most menus in the city are, we may have ordered it by accident--meals based on just ordering from pictures is filled with prayer that you are not eating anything crazy.
So our first belly dancer came out (there actually were three of them and they did two dances and left you to eat in peace for a while. This was good as they blasted the music so loud you would not be able to carry on a conversation otherwise), and our table either paid too much attention as it being our first time, or, I will phrase it kindly as, "too polite to say no" marked on our forehead (you can fill in something else if you would like). I say this as I somehow got pulled up to dance along side our first belly dancer. So, I was beat red, completely uncomfortable, trying to follow this Chinese belly dancer, all while my friends were laughing hysterically and taking pictures and video (thanks to all the fancy phones everyone has over here). This might not have been so bad if I had the talent of being able to move my hips, but alas this is not my gift or talent. So, after what seemed like an eternity on earth, I was able to return to my seat. The great news in this all, is that we some how had been marked as a table and I got to see all my friends (minus the guys) up dancing throughout the dinner. We had a great time that evening, but I cannot say that I will be returning to that restaurant anytime soon--unless I do not make eye contact with anyone but those at our table. :)
Sunday came fast and early, with the boys being excited about our plans for the day--Disney on Ice. Our family and a group of our friends (many of those at dinner the night before) had bought tickets together and planned to go to the one English performance. We met our German friends, Markus, Danni, Angelina and Timo and headed first to Starbucks (did I mention the night before had been late?) and then onto McDonald's to pick up food for the road. We then caravaned over to the auditorium. When we got there we saw what can only be described as a good portion of the expatriate community here in Shanghai--at least those with children. It was a nice performance and all the children really enjoyed it.
After the show, we headed onto church, where I helped in the nursery and Dustin enjoyed a group of musicians from Michigan that were visiting the city and played with our praise team.
Overall, it was a great weekend, and reminded us how we are blessed.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Our Unexpected yet Interesting Tour of Shanghai
Our exciting news before we left for Christmas break is that we will move from our apartment and rent a house in a neighboring subdivision. We will move at the beginning of March. We are so excited to have a free standing home with no apartment below being worked on, or neighbor's to hear, or hear us and most of all our own yard. With the new house we decided to go with an unfurnsished place. Our current one provides all the furniture, but as it is rented, it is not in great condition and it is not at all our style. We have also found that the Chinese description of things like desk and sofa bed are quite different from ours, so we are looking forward to furnishing the our new place with furniture that reflects more of us. While we are excited about this part, it is also quite an undertaking before we move in March. Dustin and I plan to, like many other expats, have some of the furniture made. It is extremely inexpensive by US standards here, so we are excited by this prospect. Today we decided to travel to three different places to compare their work and the all important aspect of cost. Dustin and I left Josh home with Hong Li, our ayi, and decided to take the metro (Shanghai's subway) to get to our destinations.
We called the farthest place located on the other side of the city, about an hour and half subway ride. They spoke excellent English, but were not open today. So we decided to still venture to the others located closer to us.
We headed out to be greeted by stand still traffic. This caused us to switch the roads we took and hence also the subway station. This therefore added 40 minutes to our first destination. We arrived at the first location and stepped out into the street. It was a typical Chinese street, which means practically chaois. Trucks were trying to back up a one way street, while pedestrians tried to get past (this was an alley type street, so no room for sidewalks) while bikes, motorcyles, scooters and electrical bikes all whizzed past us. We safely made it across the street and started looking for the store shops.
Shops here in Shanghai are these little postage size shops that hold an amazing array of items. We went along counting down to where our shop was suppose to be located and then it unexpectedly jumped in numbers. We could not find the shop to save our lives. We looked down alleys and across the street, and even relooked up the address. We finally gave up and decided to go one stop down in the subway to get lunch and look for some plastic golf clubs from Toys r us.
We got out of the subway station and went to cross the street to the mall. They are currently building a pedestrian walkway because the street is so dangerous to cross. It of course is not finished, so we will brave the street crossing with everyone else. I describe this street a little like the old game of Frogger, but a lot more dangerous as the speed of the cars, trucks, mopeds and bikes are all at different speeds that are coming at you. Of course before we got to the street we got to walk through fresh concrete. All I can say is only in China. Now they did place bamboo mats down, but the cement was still oozing through this and onto the bottom of our shoes, yet this was not really a problem compared to the fact that they did not have these mats reach all the way to the street. As Dustin said we have now made a permanent impact on Shanghai. Of course, this is only until they decide to tear it up again, which could be a soon as next week.
We made it across the street in one piece only to find the sandwich shop closed. We ate Burger King instead and then struck out at Toys r us as well. We hopped back on the subway and headed to the next stop.
This again was a cool traditional Shanghai street. We got a little turned around, but finally found the shop. We were so excited as the sign and door looked promising, until we read that it is closed until Wednesday. Strike 3, time to go home.
We called Tom to meet us a little earlier than we planned at the subway station. We rode back, sort of in utter amazement that everything we tried to do today did not work out. As Dustin noted, this is often typical here in the city. We found Tom right away and we headed back home.
Of course, typical Shanghai style we got stuck in unreal traffic. We sat for maybe thirty minutes and then Tom was able to get to a point where we could turn around. We followed this one vehicle through some streets and then ended up at the new massive Train station. This will be the hub for numerous trains coming into the city from all over the country. The funny part of this is that we had a pretty good hunch we were not suppose to continue on this route, but the security guard was sitting in his chair smoking with the gate up and obviously did not care, and the car we were following just drove straight through, so Tom just continued on as well.
What we experienced in our barely holding it together ancient minivan, I am sure should only be left for such rugged off road vehicles as a hummer, or the large dump truck we ended up following for a while, as the other more off road type car we were following literally left us in the dust. We did make it through the construction zone (and I mean literal construction zone). And as we expected when we finally arrived at the other end of the site, two security guards, who were taking their job more seriously, were stopping cars from coming in towards the site we were attempting to exit. We jut smiled and tried to look straight ahead while Tom drove us straight on.
We made it home in time to pick up Danny and marvel at our less than successful, yet quite interesting trip. We did not accomplish anything we set out to do, but it was a great picture of the city from the streets, to the massive unofficial construction site tour, and we were able to spend some time together, which in this crazy city can be hard to do at times. I guess we call it a blessing in disguise.
We called the farthest place located on the other side of the city, about an hour and half subway ride. They spoke excellent English, but were not open today. So we decided to still venture to the others located closer to us.
We headed out to be greeted by stand still traffic. This caused us to switch the roads we took and hence also the subway station. This therefore added 40 minutes to our first destination. We arrived at the first location and stepped out into the street. It was a typical Chinese street, which means practically chaois. Trucks were trying to back up a one way street, while pedestrians tried to get past (this was an alley type street, so no room for sidewalks) while bikes, motorcyles, scooters and electrical bikes all whizzed past us. We safely made it across the street and started looking for the store shops.
Shops here in Shanghai are these little postage size shops that hold an amazing array of items. We went along counting down to where our shop was suppose to be located and then it unexpectedly jumped in numbers. We could not find the shop to save our lives. We looked down alleys and across the street, and even relooked up the address. We finally gave up and decided to go one stop down in the subway to get lunch and look for some plastic golf clubs from Toys r us.
We got out of the subway station and went to cross the street to the mall. They are currently building a pedestrian walkway because the street is so dangerous to cross. It of course is not finished, so we will brave the street crossing with everyone else. I describe this street a little like the old game of Frogger, but a lot more dangerous as the speed of the cars, trucks, mopeds and bikes are all at different speeds that are coming at you. Of course before we got to the street we got to walk through fresh concrete. All I can say is only in China. Now they did place bamboo mats down, but the cement was still oozing through this and onto the bottom of our shoes, yet this was not really a problem compared to the fact that they did not have these mats reach all the way to the street. As Dustin said we have now made a permanent impact on Shanghai. Of course, this is only until they decide to tear it up again, which could be a soon as next week.
We made it across the street in one piece only to find the sandwich shop closed. We ate Burger King instead and then struck out at Toys r us as well. We hopped back on the subway and headed to the next stop.
This again was a cool traditional Shanghai street. We got a little turned around, but finally found the shop. We were so excited as the sign and door looked promising, until we read that it is closed until Wednesday. Strike 3, time to go home.
We called Tom to meet us a little earlier than we planned at the subway station. We rode back, sort of in utter amazement that everything we tried to do today did not work out. As Dustin noted, this is often typical here in the city. We found Tom right away and we headed back home.
Of course, typical Shanghai style we got stuck in unreal traffic. We sat for maybe thirty minutes and then Tom was able to get to a point where we could turn around. We followed this one vehicle through some streets and then ended up at the new massive Train station. This will be the hub for numerous trains coming into the city from all over the country. The funny part of this is that we had a pretty good hunch we were not suppose to continue on this route, but the security guard was sitting in his chair smoking with the gate up and obviously did not care, and the car we were following just drove straight through, so Tom just continued on as well.
What we experienced in our barely holding it together ancient minivan, I am sure should only be left for such rugged off road vehicles as a hummer, or the large dump truck we ended up following for a while, as the other more off road type car we were following literally left us in the dust. We did make it through the construction zone (and I mean literal construction zone). And as we expected when we finally arrived at the other end of the site, two security guards, who were taking their job more seriously, were stopping cars from coming in towards the site we were attempting to exit. We jut smiled and tried to look straight ahead while Tom drove us straight on.
We made it home in time to pick up Danny and marvel at our less than successful, yet quite interesting trip. We did not accomplish anything we set out to do, but it was a great picture of the city from the streets, to the massive unofficial construction site tour, and we were able to spend some time together, which in this crazy city can be hard to do at times. I guess we call it a blessing in disguise.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
December in Shanghai
As we all were sick for most of the month of November and December, I got really behind in blogging, so this is a recap of December activities.
Most of it was spent at the house with two sick boys. Some of it with Dustin and I sick as well. Dustin did have trips the last week of November and in December before we left, which made being sick for all of us that much more fun. :-)
The rest of the month was filled with high and low parts. The amazing part was that my little baby turned 2, yes 2 on December 1st. Where in the world did the time go? He is looking so big now and grown up, I can barely believe it. Now if we can just move past the getting into everything and throwing fits stage, and I really won't know what to do with myself.
The cutest part of the month was watching Danny in the church program (he was a shepard), and his school program (they were all reindeers and sang Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer--Danny was Blitzen). The church program he had a speaking part (along with the rest of his class) and a song. He did a great job with both. The school party was cute and Santa even stopped by the school (Santa was quite witty with a surprisingly Australian accent and had on tennis shoes--pretty fitting for being at the Racquet Club)
We decorated the house a little bit for Christmas as other people who were staying had gone all out and I could tell Danny (okay and myself as well) were missing the decorations. I went to the flower market with the girls and got a small artifical tree and some other items. They did have amazing fresh arrangements and wreaths, but I felt for two weeks it really wasn't worth it.
An unexpected highlight of our month was that my brother came in on business and we were able to pick him up and bring him to our house (i.e.--clubhouse) for dinner. It was a quick visit but so nice to have him here with us.
The low part of our month, besides the crazy colds was saying good-by to some of our friends. My good friend Kate and her family Dean, Allison and Clark headed back to Minnesota and our new friends Liam (in Danny's class) and Jamie, David and Mackenzie headed to Iowa. They will be greatly missed here, as everyone within our little group here is like part of our family. It is a hard part of living here, but we will all adjust.
We headed home for the rest of the month, and we boarded the plane pretty exhausted from all of our colds, but excited to see everyone and just be out of China for awhile.
Most of it was spent at the house with two sick boys. Some of it with Dustin and I sick as well. Dustin did have trips the last week of November and in December before we left, which made being sick for all of us that much more fun. :-)
The rest of the month was filled with high and low parts. The amazing part was that my little baby turned 2, yes 2 on December 1st. Where in the world did the time go? He is looking so big now and grown up, I can barely believe it. Now if we can just move past the getting into everything and throwing fits stage, and I really won't know what to do with myself.
The cutest part of the month was watching Danny in the church program (he was a shepard), and his school program (they were all reindeers and sang Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer--Danny was Blitzen). The church program he had a speaking part (along with the rest of his class) and a song. He did a great job with both. The school party was cute and Santa even stopped by the school (Santa was quite witty with a surprisingly Australian accent and had on tennis shoes--pretty fitting for being at the Racquet Club)
We decorated the house a little bit for Christmas as other people who were staying had gone all out and I could tell Danny (okay and myself as well) were missing the decorations. I went to the flower market with the girls and got a small artifical tree and some other items. They did have amazing fresh arrangements and wreaths, but I felt for two weeks it really wasn't worth it.
An unexpected highlight of our month was that my brother came in on business and we were able to pick him up and bring him to our house (i.e.--clubhouse) for dinner. It was a quick visit but so nice to have him here with us.
The low part of our month, besides the crazy colds was saying good-by to some of our friends. My good friend Kate and her family Dean, Allison and Clark headed back to Minnesota and our new friends Liam (in Danny's class) and Jamie, David and Mackenzie headed to Iowa. They will be greatly missed here, as everyone within our little group here is like part of our family. It is a hard part of living here, but we will all adjust.
We headed home for the rest of the month, and we boarded the plane pretty exhausted from all of our colds, but excited to see everyone and just be out of China for awhile.
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