It's beginning to feel a bit like Christmas...

Because we are leaving Shanghai to have Christmas in Melbourne in about 3 weeks, I decided that we needed to get our Christmas decorations up early, so we could enjoy a bit of festivity in our own home!  So last weekend, yes mid-November, the decorations went up in our house!  It's lovely to have our wreath on the front door and the stockings hung.  I have added Santa and snowman cushions to our lounge, much to the kids delight.

And Didi is wearing these delightful warm and toasty handmedown pyjamas - I just want to cuddle him every time I see him in them.  And the first time he wore them, he kept looking at his arms and saying 'Wow'.  I especially liked it when he teamed them with my pink ugg boots, even though it made walking a bit tricky!!

It wasn't quite so spontaneous though, as last week with my aunt and some friends we visited a Christmas market stall in the Yu Yuan Bazaar. I know it shouldn't surprise me anymore, but the amount of STUFF is incredible!!  I bought 2 cute little glittery twiggy Christmas trees (about 40cm tall), 4 Christmas pictures - cardboard cutouts and one mantle decoration (above stockings in top picture), all for less than 100RMB (AUD15).

The best bit about the decorations is we now have Santa looking down on us from a number of different spots around the house... and let me tell you - he knows when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!!

Little Girls' Dream Store

So just who are these glamorous girls?  You'd be forgiven for thinking it was a line up for some supermodel shoot, but these girls are Barbies showing off the LBD, or little black dress line!

Only in Shanghai, is there a Barbie store.  Five glorious levels of Barbie - you wouldn't think it was possible, but hey.  Top floor starts with the Barbie Cafe, a retro 50s style diner, with exquisite chocolates as well, and reasonable milkshakes.  As you work your way down, there is the spa (yes for you and your Barbie), adult sized Barbie style clothes, then down a spiral staircase lined with showcases each housing one Barbie, all dressed in pink - just like this one, and you can see how many others there are surrounding her:

Then there is the toy store, where little girls (and big girls) can ooh and aah over all the Barbies they could possibly desire - Dr Barbie, Hairdresser Barbie, Dolphin Trainer Barbie and the list goes on and on and on.  

Why were we there?  Well, remember the recent Daddy Daughter Dance, well the Shanghai Barbie Flagship Store gave all the daughters a voucher to pick up one of the Shanghai Flagship Barbies each, valued at 249RMB - pretty generous really.  So we were there to cash in!  And we were in the area to visit the French Concession with my aunt (Mum's little sister) who is visiting this week.

It really is overwhelming how many Barbies there were, and how much accessorisation is possible, both for your doll and yourself, adult or child.  I wondered whether for the next Daddy Daughter Dance we should splash out and buy Jie Jie an evening dress with a sash from the Barbie range.

Jie Jie was pretty excited by her new Shanghai Barbie - who does look a bit Chinese, with long black hair, dark eyes and carries a chihuahua in a patent silver bag, and came with a change of clothes with an I Heart Shanghai shirt!

She carried her proudly the full length of Huaihai Zhong Lu, all the way to lunch at Di Shui Dong - hot and spicy Hunan cuisine, and here is showing her off at the table!

Just to confirm that Shanghai isn't only over the top for children, the following picture is a building sized Louis Vuitton suitcase housing, you guessed it, the Louis Vuitton (originals) store!!

Daddy Daughter Dance

On Saturday night, my little Jie Jie had her first ever school dance and I was such a proud Mum! I thought she looked beautiful, and I thoroughly approved of her date, sworn protector and guardian forever - dearest Daddy!  Given that she's only three and a half, a fairy princess dress was perfect choice of couture.  She loved the little feathery butterflies on the headband and wand, and while you can't see it, she was also very excited to have glitter on her face, and LIPSTICK!!!

Now, this Dance wasn't just in the school gym... it was at the Pudong Inter Continental Hotel.  It wasn't just hot dogs and punch either, it was a full buffet dinner!  Of course Jie Jie ate nothing, and subsequently also prevented Daddy from eating by running amok.

The Daddies could all stand around and talk about sport or computers, or chase their girls to ensure good behaviour!!

There were loads of activities for all the girls to do... painting nails, temporary tattoos and of course making masks...

This is one of Jie Jie's good friends from school - don't they look cute??  And so grown up??

Where's the adventure gone?

When we first moved to Shanghai everything was different.  And by different, I mean compared to home.  We would look in amazement at food stalls, markets, 'designer' bags, T-shirts, chopsticks, activities, kites, traffic and so on, amazed at what was happening.  We would go to the supermarket, Carrefour, and be agog at the quantity of stuff, the piles of slippers, plasticware, noodles, mobile phones, TVs, soy sauces and so on; we would be a combination of fascinated and disgusted by the meat handling techniques and storage conditions.  We would try, a bit tentatively, whatever they were sampling in the supermarket that day, usually a dumpling of some description, or we would shake our head and say no.

We couldn't buy a lot of imported home comforts.  Weetabix (the UK version of Weet Bix) were incredibly overpriced.  There were only a couple of stores which were very expensive but specialised in imported food stuffs, mostly American junk food, like Goldfish.  Vegemite was not available.  But Bega cheese was.  Quality was variable.

Our first years in Shanghai meant that we branched out and tried new foods.  We cooked in a wok (before I had an ayi who cooked for us) and ate our version of stir fry and rice because that was what was available.

Now, there are imported food stores all over, and Carrefour's range of imported goods has increased out of mind - Tim Tams are almost always in stock.  Still no Vegemite though.

This week I was a bit saddened, on a quick trip to Carrefour to see that in the middle of the store there was a taste test for Barilla Pasta and Sauce - is this now mainstream Chinese cuisine?  It wasn't even in the imported goods section, it was smack bang in the middle of the Chinese groceries.  And it wasn't expensive, dollar for yuan I think it would have cost the same in Sydney!

That wasn't the end of it though... I went through the newly renovated meat section where hygiene has improved out of sight in the last two years, and into the fresh produce section.  It was there that I almost burst into tears... after 2 years of having lettuces of dubious quality, but excellent cherry tomatoes to rival Italy, I found in a REFRIGERATOR the following...

A pre-mixed salad!!
Can you read what is written in ENGLISH?  It says Baby Leaf and Ready to Eat!!!  I was sceptical, but I bought it.  Bargain selling two for the price of one - AUD$1.20 total!!  Not much to lose if no good.


When I got home I opened it up, found fresh clean lettuce, still crispy even.  Sliced red capsicum, no slimy sides, cherry tomatoes, sesame mayonnaise dressing and a little fork.

It was better than anything I've ever bought for a cheap lunch from Coles Express at Wynyard!

But I was a little sad... I want to be living in China for the experience.  I want the adventure to keep going...

Expo in Mid-Autumn

Last Wednesday was mid-Autumn festival, or Moon Cake Day!  We all had a day off school and a single day of holiday mid-week.  The Chinese do it a bit differently though, and have Wednesday off school and work too, but to make it a decent break agree to have Thursday and Friday as holidays too, and then work on the next Saturday and Sunday.  So basically, yesterday was a working day that we weren't working!  So knowing that we had 3 more visits to Expo on our 7 day pass, and that Expo is over at the end of October, we thought 'let's go today' - short notice, little preparation - excellent!!

On Wednesday (the holiday) Expo attendance had been a record high of 631,200 people!  But yesterday we were there with only 353,800 people.  The weather was perfect... we have passed our hot and sticky summer and enjoyed a comfortable day in the early 20s.  And this morning, we have woken up to pouring rain... so feel super smart!!

I packed a quick lunch, while Mike patched a puncture in the pram wheel and then grabbed other supplies for the day, and headed down to the gate, and luck was on our side, there was an Expo Taxi waiting!!  In we jumped!!

Arriving at Expo, we could sense it was going to be a nice calm day.

We then decided we were hungry, and discussed what we wanted to eat... we agreed on Mexican, but from standing here looking at the China Pavillion, the Mexico Pavillion was seriously the furthest possible pavillion away, and still on the Pudong side!  So we headed in that general direction with the intention of visiting anything we could along the way... 

First pavillion for the day was New Zealand.  We both feel a bit like honorary Kiwis at times as we both work them closely, and have loads of Kiwi neighbours here!  The queue was moving very freely, and while we were queuing, we were fortunate to be there while the Haka was performed.  Jie Jie was very taken with their tongues!  Inside the pavillion was like a tour through the cities by going through private homes and businesses, and then into the stunning countryside of NZ. 

Next we were walking past Thailand, and they had our first 'Easy Access' queue of the day... we went straight down, and bypassed most of the queue.  Aaah, the benefit of having a pram, and carrying a baby!!  We were very excited because we actually will be in Thailand this time next week!!  So thought it was a good opportunity to have a look.  Their pavillion was 3 rooms, which you were moved through methodically, because there was a film in each.  The first one was great, all pictures of the cities and the beaches (Hello Koh Samui!) and then history, and finally another tour of the country, but IN 3D!!!!  Jie Jie was so cute, and jumped about a metre when a shark suddenly swam out of the screen.  The last line, was 'Come and visit soon' - we said 'Oh, OK'.

After that we knew we had to eat, but we were still so far from Mexico... so we went to the Belgian Beer Cafe, and had a Hoegaarten and hot chips with mayonnaise.  Didi fell asleep on the way.  Jie Jie loved the hot chips so much that she said she wanted more... by this stage the queue was really long, so I gave her some money and she managed to walk right to the front of the line, hand over her money (the counter is about 6 foot high), and then be given her cone of hot chips... she had quite a crowd of admirers, and nobody seemed to object with her version of queuing.

While Didi was still asleep we went and had another look at the beautiful Little Mermaid from Denmark,  her pool is so tranquil, and Jie Jie really did love seeing her.  Then through Slovenia, which had a book theme, and softly coloured illuminated walls which changed colour gently... oh, and a 'Terracotta Warrior' of Novak Djokovich (the tennis player).

Finally we got to Mexico... another nice quick entrance opened up again because of our pram... first room had a 5 min movie showing clips around Mexico, then directed through an interesting display of art, relics and an enormous altar with a Virgin Mary in the middle.  We went to the restaurant, but not starving any more so had some corn chips with guacamole and Mike and I had a beef and tequila (what else) taco each.  We paid, got our change, left the restaurant and getting ready to leave the pavillion, when the waitress came back to us and asked us to swap the 100RMB note we had 'used' to pay for our snack... I asked why, and she showed me that the note was missing a corner.  I asked her how she knew it was ours, and why they hadn't picked it up immediately, and she assured me it was ours.  I told her she couldn't prove it was ours and it was her problem, Mike was quickly checking all his other notes to check that he didn't actually have a 'bad batch', and said sorry, there was no way we were swapping their bad note with one of our good ones.  We hadn't noticed it had a corner missing, so we hadn't tried to be deceitful, and we seriously had no proof that they hadn't swapped it anyway.  Some people I know, say Mexicans are dodgy.... maybe it's true!

After Mexico we went through the South American Countries pavillion, and visited mini-pavillions of Uruguay, Guatemala, Bolivia, Paraguay, Dominican Republic and probably a couple more.  There were stages everywhere in this big pavillion, and each time Jie Jie and Didi jumped up and started entertaining.  It really was funny, and always attracted a big crowd!  After all the dancing and performing, Jie Jie finally fell asleep in the pram!!

Second time round for me at the Australia Pavillion, and it was better than I remembered.  We completely skipped the queue, and went to the passport holders line, and in front of us were a bunch of 'Chinese' people showing Australian passports, and trying to get their extended families in, the guy supervising allowed the 6 people with passports in, but not the rest.  Then he looked at us asked where we were from, we responded, and they just waved us in, apparently didn't want or need ID, lucky as we didn't have passports with us, but I was ready to show my NSW Drivers License.  I think I wasn't very impressed the first time I was there, because it was my very first pavillion ever, and I didn't know what to expect.  This time, I was impressed with the show, and the display on the way up (I still thought the sculptures were ugly, but maybe that's just personal opinion).  There was an old guy working there, and I asked him if he knew the result of the Pies and Saints Grand Final... he said it was a draw and they were replaying it next weekend.  I said to him that he must be having me on!!  Then another staff member said the same thing... and I still didn't believe it so had to text Dad to check.

We didn't realise quite how long she was going to sleep for but we visited Finland, Greece, Norway and Australia, managed to leave Expo and catch a taxi all while she did.  We had a great day, and still have so much more to see!!!  Will we get there again?

Family Structure

One of the interesting things we experienced on our trip was when Jie Jie decided she 'needed' a family of yaks to take home.  In Shangri-La, yaks were the predominant farming animal, and indeed frequent supplier on menus - yak steak and yak yoghurt... boy, I wish we could get the yak yoghurt here - so delicious!!

Anyway, in all the souvenir shops there were these ornamental, well they weren't toys, yaks in varying sizes.  Jie Jie was insistent that she needed a yak, and after buying the first yak continued to wheedle and whine telling us she needed a whole family.  So we went forth and bought the rest of the family, in our case, 2 parent yaks and one baby brother yak, having already purchased the big sister yak.

But, have we lived in China too long?  The family apparently wasn't finished, because she also needed an ayi yak!  We opted not to buy an ayi yak as we ended up convincing her that she only needed a yak family for those who were there on holiday now and who slept at our house every day!

Back home however, she happens to have five 'Little Ponies' and subsequently I have heard her turning those into a Pony Family, complete with ayi pony!

End of the holidays

Since arriving home from holidays it has been non-stop.  Mike's parents arrived for a two and a half week stay and have loved seeing how much the kids have grown in the last year!

The summer has been really hot.  We've had a stack of days where the temperature has been over 40 - and you really just cannot move.  We've had the air conditioning pumping non-stop, and have flaked out most afternoons, or gone swimming.

I have been to the staff induction week as I am starting another student placement at my school on the first day of term, next week.  Mike has been busy getting ready for the next school year.  There's so much work for both of us, and so little time.

Jie Jie starts school again on Tuesday, and is going into Nursery.  She's three and a half, and will be at school for full days - 8.30 - 3pm.... can't believe it, such a long day for such a little person.  She has the cutest little blue and white checked uniform and navy blue sunhat.  She looks so delicious!!

Home again and name changes...

As I mentioned in my last post, we have been travelling in Yunnan for the last 3 and a half weeks... such a beautiful spot in the world!  We were so lucky to have had such an amazing holiday.  Again, I'm going to refer you to my travel blog for what we got up to... it's worth a read even if I do say so myself!!
www.aboo10.travellerspoint.com

In the blog I kept for my trip, I decided to use pseudonyms for my kids... I have decided that going forward I will do the same in this blog...
So Ellie is now going to be referred to as Jie Jie, and Jamie is now Didi - these names are the Chinese words for Big Sister and Little Brother respectively.

It was lovely travelling, but it was precious coming home again and seeing the kids check out our house just to be sure that everything was still right where it should be!!  And as comfy as ever!!

We're on holidays!

We've embarked on a mammoth adventure - we've taken the kids and are travelling through Yunnan, in south west China for nearly a month. So far we've been to Kunming, and seen the Stone Forest, caught an overnight train to Dali, where I've bought more than I probably should have, and seen the 3 pagodas, been to the top of the Cangshan Mountains in a cable car, cooled our feet in a freezing stream and wandered for hours through the old town... you can read about our adventures at my travel blog

(http://aboo10.travellerspoint.com/)

and see photos too...

We're off next to Lijiang, and hopefully up to Shangri-La too!!

When our holiday is done, I'll be back here again, hopefully regularly!!

Expo (part 2)

Welcome to Shanghai Expo 2010... well that's what I think that sign says! Not a particularly amazing guess, as I know that the first 2 characters is China, then 2010, then Shanghai... and guess what? - this is the main entrance. Mike and I arrived here at 10.30am, so not crack of dawn early, but pretty good for us having got out of the house and pacified the kids before going. In the distance is the security check before having your ticket validated... so imagine arriving and having these barriers packed, and the queues snaking along as everyone's bags go through X-ray machines, and people are skolling the illegal water trying to be smuggled in. We looked at each other, and said "How lucky are we?" We could just take our time and saunter up to the barrier and waltz straight on in to Expo!

Once through, Mike took a moment to get his bearings and become accustomed to the scale of the Expo site, and the sudden crowd. The main entrance brings you in with a prime view of the China Pavillion. It has long been said that it is nearly impossible to get into the Chinese Pavillion, yet when we arrived, the queue to the Chinese Provinces Pavillion seemed to be moving at a fairly good rate. So we decided to join it... 20 mins of slow, but constant moving we were at this entrance. We were so excited!! When I came with Mum and Dad, we asked a security guard about getting into the China Pavillion, and were told that if we wanted to go to a 'Chinese' Pavillion go to the Hong Kong or Taiwan pavillions and they would be a bit like it. We thought that was pretty funny really.

Inside the pavillion was a bit like a trade show, as each of the provinces had a display and a stand, or a mini-pavillion. We visited the pavillions for Tibet, Chongqing, Yunnan, Hunan, Hainan, Sichuan and Shaanxi - there were loads more, but some had queues, or like being in any 'museum' you can't see it all!

On my last visit, I bought the Official Expo 2010 Passport, and in this you collect stamps (visas) for each pavillion you visit. Going into the China Provinces Pavillion was a field day, because each of the regions had stamps!

It was interesting to see the things about each region that were chosen to be highlighted...

Tibet - stunning temples, and mountains (no surprise there I guess)

Hainan - beach life, tropical fruits

Chongqing - industry, particularly automotive. And we were lucky enough to be there for a dance performance.

Hunan - was like being in a park, with video projected on to a Mobius Strip, which is a twisted continuous path that has no beginning and end.

Yunnan - was really exciting, because that's where we are going for our holiday - so we were keen to see the decorated archways, a dinosaur, a jade stone collection and have a taste of Yunnan tea.

The following photos are: Hunan and Yunnan

Surprise, surprise, after all that walking, looking, listening and observing, we were starving! So when we left the Chinese Provinces Pavillion, we immediately started looking for food. We were overwhelmed with the heat and humidity when we came outside that we sat down on some seats to regroup, and look around. We were between the Pakistan and the Sri Lankan Provinces and could smell curry in the air... we found the source, coming from the kitchen and take away window of the Sri Lankan restaurant... so we thought we'd take something, eat and then work out what to see next...

The decision was made for us though as a man working there told us it was far too hot for us poor foreigners to be eating outside, so ushered us through the kitchen and into the restaurant, in the Sri Lankan Pavillion. What bliss, we were in the cool, we could eat at a table comfortably, and then we could look at the Pavillion afterwards, of course without further queuing, as we were already inside! What more could we want? Well, a Sri Lankan dance performance of course... just as we finished our lunch a performance started and went for about 15 mins, and we had prime seats, not standing room like the people not in the restaurant - it was just like a theatre restaurant!! We again acknowledged how lucky we are! The photo is of the main room of the pavillion which had a temple, an ornate ceiling, I think decorated with batik panels, a gold Boo Tree, display of the history of Sri Lanka's towns and cities, a man polishing stones to make jewellery, and lots of art and statues.

From Sri Lanka, we jumped up onto the raised walkways. We knew it was hot, but we could also imagine just how many people could have been here. Look in the photos below at the breadth of the walkway, and how many people were resting in the shade underneath.

We both wanted to go to the Spanish Pavillion, and strangely enough, it is reportedly the only pavillion that hasn't passed a fire safety check, due to the basket panels which cover it. We had a long wait to get in, but as seems to be the way, it kept on moving. The first room we were in was like a tunnel, and when we came in it sounded like we were in the middle of a crowd watching the soccer. Movies were being projected on all walls of the tunnel, and then suddenly were being trampled in the running of the bulls in Pamplona and the floor vibrated to add to the excitement. The film ended with Rafa serving along the length of the tunnel. It was really impressive. The next room we went into continued to broadcast film images, but of a more open nature, and you could pick and choose what you looked at. The last gallery contained an enormous 6.5m scale model of a baby, which was really a bit creepy as it was so lifelike (except for its size), which was all to acknowledge the children of the future, and making cities for them. It was nice though because of the light that penetrated through the basket exterior.

We had heard that having your passports may help with queue jumping into your home pavillion, and so we thought we'd try and get into the UK Pavillion, but no luck there. You can make booking THREE days in advance online. The UK Pavillion is a cube made of 60,000 acrylic rods which give it a hazy appearance. It really is impressive. It is also known as the seed cathedral, as seeds are contained in each of the rods. The rods also act as internal illumination during the day as light from the sun can penetrate inside the structure, and at night they are illuminated which makes it glow. Hope we get in to it next time!

The last pavillion for the day was Italy - the country of our spiritual honeymoon... next time we are in Europe we will definitely revisit Italy! It was a really long queue, we waited for about an hour to get in here, and it was slow. But it was my favourite pavillion so far!! It was like being in a museum. Started with an impressive welcome wall which had a greeting written in loads of different languages. There were loads of models of buildings including the Pantheon, which were incredibly detailed, a couple of Canaletto's paintings, a flash fast car (I've forgotten which type), a Ducati motorcycle, a fancy bike, a studio with a tailor in making a bespoke suit, a big shoe made of normal sized, but exquisitely beautiful shoes, a chandelier made of chairs, a wall of pasta, a wall of wine, a full set up orchestra with all the instruments, music, chairs and stands suspended on a wall, rooms and displays for each of the regions.

We had a great day, and were glad we could leave the kids at home, and see as much as we did. Mike enjoyed his first trip, and we look forward to going again! There's still so much I haven't seen - I'd love to go to the African and American Pavillions and also all the trade and industry pavillions.

Shanghai Expo 2010

Since arriving in Shanghai 2 years ago, we have watched the city prepare for this 6 month long event with construction and clean ups. There have been numerous new roads, a massively expanded metro system and of course the construction of the Expo site. And we have become very familiar with Haibao, the mascot.

Haibao is based on the Chinese character which means person, and ties in with the Expo emblem, which depicts 3 people (me, you and him/her) and is based on the Chinese character which means 'world'. This is Ellie with Haibao trying to copy his pose, when she'd just turned 2,

and giving him a big hug - yesterday!

The theme for Expo 2010 is 'Better City, Better Life' which represents the wish for better living in future urban environments, representing a central concern in the international community for urban strategies, policies and sustainable development. To that end, all the Expo buildings have been built to be energy efficient, the cars and buses which are used within the grounds are all electric and each of the countries represented are doing their bit to show their cities.

Environment, technology, innovation all seem to be key areas in each of the pavillions, although sometimes it seems like there is a display which is a bit too abstract for me at times. For example, in the Hungarian pavillion, there is a 'forest' suspended from the ceiling and a path winding through, past a big shiny rock. The 'trees' are beautiful beams of timber, just hanging, but with an LED light in the bottom which changes colour.

The Cuban Pavillion was straight forward, they have one wall which has a stunning view of Havana, as if you are standing on a terrace, and the back wall is a bar serving Mojitos and Dacquiris, and then there is a shop selling rum and cigars.

The first time I went to Expo, I didn't really know what to expect. I went with Mum, Dad and Jamie, and we went through a remote entrance gate in Lujiazui and caught a ferry up the river, this was a lovely trip, although took about half an hour. We took a bit of time on arriving at Expo proper, just taking in the size and magnitude of the site, as well as orientating ourselves. The first pavillion we went to was Australia, we queued for about an hour to get in, with Jamie asleep for most of the time in the pram, and then were a little underwhelmed. There was a nice brief display on the Aboriginal history of Australia, but then from 1770 there were these ghastly caricature-like sculptures and pictures of settlers. Then into current day Australia and there were pictures all over the walls of notable Australians, from Cathy Freeman to the Wiggles. Then we were ushered into a round theatre, which had a pretty impressive visual display of Australia, using film, models and impressive staging. The presentation is only done in Chinese, and so although I understand a bit now, because of the rapid-fire presentation technique, I found I kept getting lost even though with many of the images, I should have been on track.

Our next pavillions were chosen due to lack of queue... so we walked straight into Belarus, followed by Armenia! Both interesting, with scale models, pictures, achievements and interactive screens. One had the screen on the floor which you walked on, which entertained Jamie, and Jamie entertained the other visitors.

The second time we went, it was Mum and Dad with all their kids and grandkids (6 of us in total, Mum, Dad, Marnie, Ellie, Jamie and me). Two little kids in tow, what were we thinking? But in the course of the day, each kid had a substantial nap in the pram, a substantial run around, a substantial amount of enjoyment from the outing and a substantial amount of attention from the Chinese!

This time we visited the French, Estonian, Danish, Finnish and Hungarian Pavillions. The real winner on the day was the Danish Pavillion - not only for the delicious salmon and egg open sandwiches, and not for the hundreds of bikes available to ride up to the roof, not even for the fountain that you could stand in and not get wet, but for the starring appearance of "The Little Mermaid", all the way from Copenhagen, and a delight to all, especially to the Ariel fan in our family!

We queued for ages to get into France - but it was stunning when we did! They'd brought over a few masterpieces from the Musee d'Orsay, which were lovely to see. Had some cool visual effects which made it look like you were for example walking in the snow, or along the river, showcased a wide range of products, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, etc, had an open kitchen display which was cooking for the restaurant, a rooftop garden and of course Champagne. The pavillion's appearance reminded me of the new Macquarie building in Sydney with the criss-cross lattice.

Marnie took Ellie to play in Pippi Longstocking's house outside the Swedish Pavillion, while Mum, Dad, Jamie and I went into the Estonian Pavillion which had a strange display of piggy banks each of which was to collect votes for the best green city idea. It was interesting to learn though that Skype was invented in Estonia.

I loved the pavillion for Finland, home of Nokia, it had a bluetooth enabled display, which was pretty cool to start with, but the frequency of getting text messages, began to bug me by the end! It had a very cool display of products from Finland (other than phones) and the way of life, and then a huge film which showed life in Finland. I loved the concept, although would have been happy with 5 messages rather than 50! It was also a really slick building, and the displays were intriguing. We met Marnie and Ellie outside, who were watching a Finnish music concert, where the performers were sitting on chairs in the moat around the pavillion. Ellie was transfixed, I think she wished she had her gumboots on and could wade out to join them.

We again spent loads of time just wandering around the site. There are these enormous raised walkways which traverse the entire length of the site. We wanted to visit Germany and the UK pavillions too, but the queues were prohibitively long. The German queue was insane, it went around three sides of the pavillion, three deep, and has been each time I've been. Queuing is an art, there are barriers which snake everyone forward and back, but amazingly moving almost all the time, so you feel like you are getting somewhere. The Expo site really is built to cater for crowds. They had a record crowd last weekend with 553,500 in attendance, I think the days I've been have averaged about 400,000. To put it in perspective, that's 4 jam packed MCGs!

I feel like I'm becoming a bit of an Expo expert, I have now been three times - twice with my parents, once with Jamie, once with Ellie and Jamie and once with just Mike. With children is good, because you sometimes get priority service in queues, but then so do wheelchairs, and Expo organisers had arranged to have a huge number of prams and wheelchairs available for daily use, and in the case of the wheelchairs have had a huge number stolen, because the deposit wasn't high enough and also had people 'faking' medical conditions for priority access. But even so, they have still got to queue. This is the wheelchair queue for the French pavillion and even it doubles back a couple of times.

I'm going to leave this post here, and tell you about my day with Mike separately!

Goodbye Hannah

We have been fostering a kitten, Hannah, for the last 4 months, and unfortunately we have not found her a permanent home in that time. We were committed to looking after her until summer, or until a permanent home was found. Yesterday, we had to hand her over to her new foster mum as we are heading off for a month of travel... we were all a bit sad to say goodbye, and I was sad that she is only going to another temporary home. I think the kids have enjoyed having a cat, although our view of having an animal in a flat has been confirmed - DON'T DO IT!

As it was pouring with rain, we decided to leave the kids at home (with Ayi) and trek over to Jing'An to drop her off alone. We thought we should make the most of being kidless and enjoy a day out... but again thanks to the rain, it wasn't a great day for wandering... so we jumped in a taxi and went to "Lost Heaven" for lunch. This restaurant specialises in Yunnan Folk cuisine, which is our main destination for our imminent travels. Although I sincerely doubt we will have anything quite as exquisite on our trip, we thought it was good preparation! We had the most delicious wild vegetable cakes, Da li chicken, Lijiang beef, Miao tribe sweet and sour fish (my favourite) and Golden Triangle fried rice.

After lunch we thought a stroll along the Bund was in order. With the rain, we were quite surprised at how many others thought it was a good idea too.

This is Mike in his attractive rain coat:

Look at all the umbrellas huddling together on the Bund:

I'm still here...

Hi everyone -

So I thought I'd have all this time to blog again once getting our super special VPN, and working out how do blog by mail... pffff - I was wrong!!

We've had a busy couple of months...

We went down and checked out the sparkling new Bund.

Mum and Dad have come to stay - here for 4 weeks in total, leave in 1 more week - it's gone so quickly.

Had my little sister Marnie visit too. Was so lovely to see her and have whole family together.

Working on a couple of assignments for uni - at the end of this semester I will be HALF WAY THROUGH!!! Organising prac for August.

Planning summer holidays - going to Yunnan, staying in Lijiang, Dali City and Kunming. Promised Ellie trip to Disneyland in Hong Kong.

Busy just being mum, wife, daughter, etc.

Can't believe 2010 is half over! Hope all is going well whereever in the world you are!!

Testing blogging by email

Something random happened yesterday when I was writing about the Easter holiday - Blogger seems to have removed the ability to post photos... this is not so bad in this blog, but in my Tiger photo blog will be a BIG problem.

Then I found another function about blogging by email - so today I'm just testing it out... and adding a photo to boot so a double test... the old systems analyst in me...

If it works this will be cool as well, because we won't have to use our VPN to bypass the GFW of China!!

This photo is from the wet market we visited yesterday - these are the naked chickens (and ducks), and that opened one in the middle is to show you how fresh they are...

Easter Holiday

I love holidays! I love having all my family home all the time, and not having to rush. That's what this week has been all about. At the moment, our children are not the most reliable sleepers, and more nights than not we have 4 in the bed, so we (the big people) are often somewhat sleep deprived, and rushing to be ready for school is a struggle. So this week we have enjoyed catching up on sleep and rest and just hanging out together.

School finished on Good Friday, and Easter Monday corresponded this year with a Chinese holiday called Tomb Sweeping Day, which is when people tend to the family graves. I felt it was kind of an appropriate holiday to line up with Easter.

We celebrated Easter with a pot luck brunch at a friend's house, and of course included an Easter Egg Hunt. It was great, the variety of food everyone brought was awesome, and I was so full when we eventually went home. The kids were so excited in the search for eggs, and my friend was so organised with green and pink baskets for everyone. Funny enough Ellie had worn a green and pink dress, and looked so gorgeous!!

I had an assignment due on Friday, so a lot of our week was spent refining my essay, and Mike keeping the children away from me. And then when I needed a break getting out of the house and doing something entertaining for the kids. I think Mike is getting a bit of a refresher in the social theory of teaching, he has mentioned that he has found a number of my readings fascinating, and he gave me some good ideas for my essay.

We've done a bit of bikeriding - Jamie is a speed demon, and Ellie has taken to nodding off every time she's on the back of my bike for more than 5 mins. Makes riding so much trickier as her weight just flops to one side of the bike!

After nearly 2 years in Shanghai, we found our first wet market today. I was so excited. We didn't buy much, just some mulberries and grapes. But it was fascinating with beautiful fruit and veg, oodles of noodles, naked chickens, fish, meat, tofu, Chinese delicatessen stuff, rice, and loads more. I will start shopping there from now on - so much more appealing than Carrefour and the cling wrapped produce!

School goes back again this coming Monday, so just 5 days off, but because we didn't go away and just stayed at home it feels like it has been quite a good break. Especially because our ayi was here the whole time, and so everyday we had a clean house and dinner ready!!

St Patrick's Week

At school this term, Ellie's class are studying shapes and colours. Each week has been designated a particular shape and a corresponding colour, and parents have been asked to provide the Friday snack in that shape and colour... what was I thinking - I signed up for Green Shamrocks, and we're not even Irish!!! It was an interesting week as when Ellie first learned about Shamrocks on the Monday she came home and said: Shamrocks are green. They ring people brack. What...?

By Tuesday, she knew that tomorrow was Shamrock Day! In fact, she was talking to Grandma and said "Do you know what tomorrow is?" And Grandma, expecting her to say Daddy's birthday was most surprised when she informed her it was Shamrock Day and everyone needed to wear green or they would get pinched. What...?

On St Patrick's Day proper, she dressed in a cute green dress. And was very excited to help Daddy celebrate his birthday, but was more excited that she wasn't going to get pinched. Although she was quite keen to help him open his presents. I have to tell you, Mike got three things for his birthday from us - a new camera, a camera case and a laptop backpack and Ellie determined who would give him what - the camera itself was from her, the backpack from Jamie, and I got to give him the camera case! She’s not stupid - she knew that the camera was the best present to be giving! After school that day, Ellie could now tell us that Shamrocks were made of 3 blobs and a stick. And that they make people cluck. What...?

We went out for dinner to celebrate Mike’s birthday, and we were lucky enough to have a private fireworks display directly outside the restaurant. Because here in China anyone can set off fireworks - they are often quite small intimate displays. There is a function on our new camera... So here is a photo of the fireworks.


As Mike’s birthday is St Patrick’s Day - he traditionally likes to have a Guinness for his birthday. We were out and about the Sunday before and happened to be in a pub which had Guinness on tap... so fortunately for Mike we got his birthday Guinness in nice and early!

Having not had too much time to work out the settings etc, the next photo is of the rich chocolate birthday cake I made... but the candles are a bit flarey. I needed to go to 3 supermarkets to get an ingredient for this - each one increasing in stock of imported items! Anyway, I can now make this cake about 10 more times!!

For Friday at school I had to make our contribution to the snack... I had been working out what to make. I bought dried sliced kiwi fruit - trying to be creative. But then Mike made me a biscuit cutter out of an old formula tin... I didn’t have to be creative after all... He did!! Happy with the way they turned out, and loads for everyone. The green icing even worked a treat!!


By the way - Ellie finally worked out what Shamrocks are for... They bring people GOOD LUCK!!! And the pinching thing?? Well that’s an American tradition (according to Wikipedia) that if you didn’t wear green the leprechauns would get you...

Happy St Patrick’s Day!!!

Come on spring!!

When will this winter ever end??? It's March, and it is still cold!!! It has been forecast to be -1 degrees tomorrow and the next day... admittedly -1 is the low for each day, but I'm sure it wasn't this cold for this long last year! I thought that going back to Australia for a month was going to make winter seem really short - I was mistaken.

There are signs that it's getting warmer, like buds on the trees and some flowers blooming. And the fountains aren't freezing up anymore, but I still need to wear gloves, and mostly a hat. I've dispensed with my scarf, but somedays wish I still had it with me! We are also having a lot of rain at the moment, so it makes it hard to go out with Jamie who is learning to walk, and wants to, but all too frequently ends up suddenly sitting down.

Anyway, that's just a short rant, because my fingers are too cold to type!! Come on summer, come on spring!!

Family Bike Ride

Last Sunday, we went for a family bike ride. It sounds like an easy kind of thing, but with a 1 year old and a 3 year old actually getting out of the house is an accomplishment at times! So with helmets, jackets and layers of clothing on and tears averted after Ellie really wanted to ride her own bike, and despite having never been outside on her bike was convinced she could keep up and ride as far as she wanted, we loaded the littles into the baby seats and got outside... phew.


This was Jamie's first real trip on a bike, as although he has sat on the seat and been wheeled along (and once on a big trip in the Ergo - shh, we are responsible parents really), he proved himself to be quite the cyclist, loving the wind in his face, and especially the sound of the bell!

There's a canal not far from where we live, and we rode along it. We saw the fishermen fishing, we saw children playing, we saw other people out for rides on their bikes, we rode through some vegie patches. We rode down through the Dong Jiao Guest House gardens - this is a hotel environment for dignitaries and guests of the Government, and it is stunning. The gardens are maintained beautifully, there is a beautiful lake and with spring coming, the emerging new growth is delightful. It was interesting, or maybe what we are sadly getting used to, to see that the top 15cm is perfectly groomed, but then go any deeper and there's refuse and sodden water.


We didn't ride for very long, but we were correct in preventing Ellie from riding her own bike, because she said once "I'm feeling tired" and then boom, I felt my bike lurch to the side and Ellie had fallen asleep in the bike seat. Her dead weight on the back of the bike actually made it really tricky to keep the bike steady, so instead of continuing our cycle in the lovely crisp fresh air we headed to Face - a cocktail lounge bar in the residential section of the Dong Jiao Guest House grounds.


This turned out to be a very good choice, because it has some fantastic day beds to lounge on... So we managed to get the heavy 3 year old off the bike and into this bar and onto an elaborately decorated bed, where she slept soundly for about 45 mins while Mike and I enjoyed a cocktail each, and Jamie climbed around, and found it particularly amusing to sit on a little table in the middle of the bed. It was very funny really and quite fortuitous.

Afterwards we rode home, through a tip, which depressed Ellie to see an abandoned Winnie the Pooh, and over a bridge with the most stunning sunset. It surprises us no end that where we live in the heart of 'Expatville' is so close to abject poverty, and on our regular days we don't see it, and it only takes us on a short ride to cross over into that void.

For the record we rode less than 10km on this trip!