I'm walking on sunshine!

Whoa-oh!

I was just so excited to wake up this morning and not see rain!  Check out this beautiful morning:

Pretty darn exciting, even if it's not your traditional "beautiful morning."

:o)

Also exciting: after bothering our landlord to fix out main A/C unit 4 times and surviving with only the bedroom A/C unit since we got back to Shanghai, they finally agreed to replace it! The old one left today, and we're supposed to get the new one tomorrow. Here's hoping that it works better!  

Holy Bao, Batman! It's a post!

(a Bao is a bun or dumping, something "put together." Also, getting something "to go" at a restaurant is "da bao.")

HEY!  I'm back!  Maybe?

We had a wild and wonderful spring and summer, and I'm hoping that this is that start of "back to normal" postings. Heads up: I'm hearing rumblings that VPN's aren't quite doing the job that they used to do, and posting on this blog needs a VPN that works!  Cross your fingers that this is just a blip.

 To recap....

Last spring saw the lower school put on "School Daze" with the 2nd-5th graders. 

We also moved and paid 3 months' rent + 1 month deposit + .5 month for realtor fees in cash!! 

 That's 21,100 RMB right there.

Our new place also needed repairs done on the AC unit.

Why, yes, that's a repair guy climbing on the outside of our balcony with just a rope around his waist.

Why, yes, we do live on the 12th floor.

Yikes!

Mark also put on a music festival at the upper school. Way successful!!

We got to hang with some of our most favorite professors. 

I also got to conduct middle schoolers. 

Way fun!

This summer, we had a new addition to the family....

Meet Maggie!  She's the blonde one in the middle. 

I'm already being replaced... My parents are giving the squirt my stuffed animals!!

Coming back to Shanghai was bittersweet. 

I, for one, didn't like having to travel the long haul by myself. My seat mate didn't let me sleep on him. Imagine that!!

On the other hand, we got to come back and have dumplings. 

YUM!

Now if only it'd stop raining...

Day number 6 of constant rain!

We're missing you at home and wishing for some sun!

XOXO

Castle in the Clouds

by Mark

I love being in a new city because things like a trip to the glasses store can turn into amazing adventures out around town. 

A few weeks ago, my eyes were feeling a bit blurrier than normal so I decided to get them checked out. A friend of ours recently got glasses from Jins, a Japanese company, for $50 including the exam. I figured I might as well give it a try since I haven't had glasses since my eye surgery. Jins is downtown in the Shanghai World Financial Center ("the bottle opener" ) so we planned our trip for Sunday morning with Brian and Anja. When we got downtown, we realized just how nice it was outside. You could actually see a nice blue sky and visibility was better than it had been since summer! On a whim, we decided the best thing to do was to hit the sky bar on the 92nd floor for a quick drink and some views. Amazing decision!

The lobbies of the elevators have some interesting art. 

See the Jin Mao in the foreground?

Itty people!!

After the drink, I headed down to get my eyes checked and my face fitted for glasses. With the help of Jessi and Anja, I chose some nice blue frames that make me look extra smart. 

Our plan was to go the the fake market so Brian could get some jerseys and an iPad cover, but that would have to wait as there was another giant building next door that was calling our name. The Jin Mao tower is the third tallest building in Shanghai (second, if you don't count the new one that is not open yet) and has a very interesting outer design. The best part is the inside though. There is a grand Hyatt hotel that stretches from about the 50th floor to the 85th floor, and it is completely open on the inside! You can stand at the bottom and look up 35 floors!

 At the top is, you guessed it, an amazing bar with 360 degree views. 

Have you seen the video of the guys who climbed this?!

Inside the Jin Mao, you can see the outside of it!

It required 4 elevator rides to get there. If you lived on the ground floor and worked at the bar you would have a 15 minute commute each day.

I can't wait for the new building to open!!

SNOW!!

You knew I wanted snow and sent some in our direction!! You're too kind!

On Sunday, we had the ultimate "Do Nothing" day: No leaving the house and definitely staying in our PJs. Internet putzing galore.

For some reason, I decide to check my phone for the weather and see this:

WHAT?! Snow??!

A peek out of the window reveals snow whipping sideways...

And flurries attacking us!

Oh how frightful!

Especially waking up to this on Monday morning:

Boy, it was icy though! I slipped on the ice on the three steps out of my apartment building's front door.  No harm. Mark also saw a car upside-down on his way to work that morning. 

That afternoon we were gifted with even more snow:

First day back to school after a break (the 13th day of school since December 20th), and there's snow to entertain kids that never ever see it. 

Holy cow, were they a handful and a half!

But guess what I heard all day from kiddo after kiddo.

.

.

.

.

"Don't let the snow stop!" - words straight from our winter production.

Aren't they darling???

Hey! Who turned off the lights??

Nope, that's just the air quality.

Apparently, Shanghai was in the international news for the air pollution. I saw this and cracked up (before I starting hacking up my black and crusty lung... KIDDING!)

Home, sweet home. 

During those couple days, my air quality app looked like this:

Yep, that's right. It says "Beyond Index." Look how much we overachieve!

Don't worry, we bought a ton of air-purifying plants, we take the necessary precautions... Just wait out the couple days, that's all.

And see, Mom?  Today was a beautiful, if rainy 68, and tonight is even better at 58. 

We're surviving just fine. 

We promise. 

:o)

Guest Post... A Table with a View!!

Last Friday I woke up early and called my parents on Thanksgiving to wish them a good day. They were just about to sit down to a delicious dinner with my whole family so I was lucky enough to get to see all of them and say hi to them all! It reminded Jessi and I how much we miss all of you and how much we missed Thanksgiving this year. To make matters worse we had to be on the bus at 7 to drive across town for some professional development! UGH!!! The day started with some large group meetings followed by two short workshops presented by SCIS Honqiao teachers (we are SCIS Pudong). I won't bore you with the details. Next came lunch, a half hazard attempt to create a thanksgiving meal by serving turkey and canned mashed potatoes. I appreciated the effort but the lack of Sue's squarsh, yes squaRsh, made us miss home even more. After lunch I had a meeting with all of the music faculty from the SCIS system to brainstorm plans for a festival. Little did they know that my partner, Tracey, and I already have a festival on the calendar this spring and three American college professors booked to be our guests! I love showing off sometimes! Finally, at two o'clock came an awesome reminder of why our school is a great place to work. Our administrators threw a party on the soccer pitch with beer, wine, and hours devours. They even provided several sets of bocce balls for our entertainment. Maybe professional development isn't so bad after all!

Since Jessi and I were already in Puxi (the west side of the river), and since it was our 7th anniversary (of our first date) we decided to head downtown for a fancy dinner. At first we had two friends that were going to join us but they ended up going back home to Kangqiao (our neighborhood). It was just going to be the two of us for a date! That never happens! While in the cab I made a reservation for Mercato, an italian restaurant on the bund. It was a recommendation from a friend and boy are we glad we took it. It was on the 6th floor of and old building and every seat in the restaurant had a great view across the river to the Pudong skyline. After such a long day out and about we both settled into our comfy chairs in the dark lit room and prepared to relax and celebrate. Jessi ordered an Old Fashioned and I got a Margarita with chiles and basil on the rim. It sounds weird but they really helped cut the sweetness of the drink. The waiter brought us some bread and oil, standard for an italian place, but there was a mysterious second container of oil. It was olive oil infused with the small, red chile peppers that we see all over Shanghai. It was incredibly spicy and delicious! To start, we ordered a salad made with arugula, apples, walnuts, peccorino. It was simple but amazing. Next, I ordered rigatoni with meatballs (second only to Grandma's) and Jessi got spaghetti with pesto. The noodles were homemade in house and the sauces were perfect. To finish it up we split a slice of cheesecake with passion fruit gelato. With all of the Thanksgiving neglect we had endured so far this meal really hit the spot!

                                Pudong skyline with a bus whizzing by...

                                Finally sitting with a drink!

                                I think I just drooled on the keyboard
       

                                My mom is jealous of this margarita... even if she doesn't know it.

                      The Bund

    Cutie!!

Smoke on the Water

Cue the classic rock!

I'm sure that you've heard that pollution is pretty crazy around here... We can be behind the stinkiest cars in your life. Add that to the normal grime that is China, and you get the best reason to wash at night. :o)

I promise that it's worse in Beijing. Shanghai is lucky in that there's a lot of wind to blow things around, but it's unlucky in that there's a good amount of fog that can happen to make it look worse. Have you ever seen your weather app just say "Haze?" Not in Denver.

And really, our part of town is usually better since we're not in the center of the city.

For the most part, the sky is a dusty blue here. Clear days are gorgeous.

And then you get this:

Just looks like a dreary day, right?

The fun part is turning this into a game of stats. How high is it today? How high was it an hour ago?

This is what it is currently. 

Not that I know what the difference is between PM 2.5 and PM10, but I think that red is bad, right?

Wait, hold up! There's a convenient chart for you to learn your colors!

We've mostly been in orange, with yellow and a few greens. Lately, it's been getting worse, so we have gone to the Morbid Maroon shade on two days.

Relax, Mom. There's no need for a gas mask.

All that happens is that we make sure to run our A/C units (at a comfortable temperature), since they filter the air. The kids stay inside for recess. We avoid being outside or elevating our heard rates. The  doors and windows stay closed, and we try not to sit in traffic.

At home and at school, we've overloaded on air-purifying plants, and I am having fun trying to keep them all alive. I still have 14; 2 plants have gone on to greener pastures.  :o)

Hmm, since today isn't so good, maybe I can convince Mark in a trip to the plant market again???

Hoping to live in a jungle...

And the "Crazy Driver" Award goes to...

Seeing as it was a nice day, and we wanted to do something interesting, a group of us went to Century Park to try out the fun bike contraptions. Even though it was during the holiday, we figured we could hold our own against the crowds.

Needless to say, some shenanigans took place, especially since we two of the bike buggies under our control.

Behold.

These things are soooo much fun!  I'll give you one guess to imagine what we did with them.

Keep in mind that the people in the back have no control 

other than to pedal with the person in front of them. 

The innocent!

The crazies.

 There was a bit of "bumping" happening. And a bit of off-roading.

We might have been worrying the locals...


The park was getting ready for a big fireworks extravaganza and had the biggest collection of seats set up around the main pond. See that white line on the opposite side?

Yeah, more chairs.

Maybe next time we'll try the paddle boats, though based on our performance, it wouldn't be the driest activity...

Lovely little areas to hang out in, if you're so inclined. 

So weirdly, we were going straight (and slow) on this nice, flat, shaded promenade when Mark's chain came off of his gears. The boys all had a go with their mechanical skills, but no luck. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn't pedal either. 

Mark and I sat back to enjoy our ride while Brian and Anja propelled us forward. Considering our bad luck, we took it easy and continued our ride.

...Then tragedy struck again. 

Anja's gears completely fell off the frame of the buggy. 

And we were only halfway around the park. 

Oh, boogers. 

We definitely attracted a lot of interest being the only foreigners and the four of us pushing/walking the buggy back to the barn. 

It was strangely awesome in it's own special way. ;)

A good day in all.