Heaven in Shanghai???

Shanghai is not without its fair share of American food chains...McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC, California Pizza Kitchen and Cold Stone Creamery. Some of them taste pretty authentic, but some are so far from authentic that it is sad. Take doughnuts for example. Although there are plenty of doughnut shops around none of them taste like home. They taste more like unsweetend rings of nothingness. That is until we found....wait for it...Krispy Kreme.

I had heard from a friend that it was here and to be honest my expectations weren't that high. I decided to surprise Les with a trip there and I knew from the moment we walked in and were greeted with a warm, icing dripping, hot off the press doughnut that this experience would be different. This was the best $12 dozen doughnuts I have ever tasted!!

The funky ones with candy and cookies on top were Les's pick...all I wanted was sprinkles

Happy Easter Weekend

We had another great fun filled weekend. It started out with a trip to Brycen's school to help out with their Easter celebrations. They made sock bunnies, decorated and hid Easter eggs and sang songs. It was fun to help but I do not know how those teachers do it day in and day out with 25, count them 25 three year olds running around...WHEW!
On Saturday we met some friends at an indoor play area here called Mama Meya. They had lots of fun Easter activities for the kids and Brycen had a great time. On our way home we took a pit stop to an American favorite, but I will keep you in suspense and put that in another post...
On Easter morning we woke up and were so happy that the Easter bunny visited our house. Brycen was happy to find colored pencils, markers and a football (actually it is a rugby ball, Les informed me because they don't play American football here)...oh well. We then met some friends for a very yummy brunch. We ate everything from steak, sushi, ham, Indian food and the best desserts ever! It was a great weekend.

Oh Sunny Day

It has been a rare site lately to see beautiful sunshiney days, blue skies and buildings as far as the eye can see. But today we have all 3! I love this view. It is for this view that makes living on the 55th floor a little less scary. We have an incredible view of the Shanghai World Financial Tower, home of the worlds highest observatory and behind that to the left a little is the Oriental Pearl Tower. I find it very funny that the Pearl Tower is a TV tower, but we only get 5 english speaking stations. Go figure.

I have been trying to keep track of some of the funny things Brycen says lately:

"when are we going to our regular house"...house in Ohio

"this is our new house"...apt. in Shanghai

"we live WAY high up"

"dinners here"...he says this everytime our doorbell rings. There is a dinner delivery service here and obviously we use it WAY too much:)

"where is Shanghai"...he says this when it is really foggy and you can't even see your hand in front of you. It's funny when he says it, but scary when you look out the window from this high up (think being in the clouds in an airplane)

The other day he didn't want to take a nap and he called mommy, mommy for 1 1/2 hours straight. At one point I heard him say "mommy when I call your name your supposed to say 'yes Brycen here I come' "...yeah right.

Busy Weekend

Last weekend was beautiful. The weather was nice and so it was finally time to get out and see some of Shanghai. The morning started off with none other than a visit to the Dr. with Saria. I thought it was another case of pink eye, but they think she may have blocked tear ducts. Phew!! I had our day planned. We were going to go to a famous park in the middle of downtown called People's Square/People's Park and then to the Shanghai Railway Museum. I showed Mr. Chao (our driver) where we wanted to go and he initially dropped us off in front of some Urban Planning Museum. Surely we couldn't be in the right place, so I had him drop us off at the park that I saw across the street. There was a huge fountain there with kids running around in it. Shortly after we got to the fountain they turned it off so the kids could splash around in the water. Brycen thought this was very cool, because you could see the holes where the water came out. After walking around a little I was confused about what all the excitement was about in this so called "famous" park. Sure it was pretty, but where were all the people doing tai chi and water calligraphy? We decided to go to lunch and as we were leaving I looked behind the Urban Planning Museum (where we were originally dropped off) and sure enough there was a HUGE park with amusement rides and lots of people. Whoops. Next time I will leave it up to the local to know where to drop us off. The Railway Museum was pretty cool. The trains outside were fun to climb on, even though the signs said "no climbing". All the other kids were climbing on them so when in China do as the Chinese kids do:)

On Sunday morning Brycen and I "walked" in the Jinqaio 2K Fun Run with some friends of ours. There were two things that really amazed me on this morning.

1. This 2K was held in an area that is very popular with expats. It is very common to see mostly westerners when you are in Jinqaio and sometimes when you are there you forget you live in China. So I was very surprised when Brycen and I showed up to sign in and we were two of very few westerners there.

2. The paparazzi like photographers. These people had long lens cameras and were in our faces most of the morning. It is amazing how enamoured Chinese people are with westerners, especially the children. It got so bad that at one point Brycen's friend Brady pulled the shade down on his stroller just so they couldn't take his picture anymore:)

I think next time this happens I am going to start taking pictures of them taking pictures of us.

Brycen's friends Brady and Rilynn

The 8K about to start. Notice I am taking the pictures... NOT running

His first 2K!

Chinese 101

This week Les and I started Chinese lessons. Our first lesson included learning our numbers. It has been awhile since I have taken a foreign language and now I remember why. That afternoon Brycen came home from school singing a new song that he had learned in his Chinese lessons at school. Now it it not uncommon for Brycen to come home from school saying different words in Chinese and I never know what are true words or what are just made up. As I listened closely on this day I recognized that he was singing his numbers. It was quite the catchy little tune as you see in the video and it totally helped me remember numbers 1-5. I never thought I would be "learning" alongside my son, but I love it. He is very reluctant to speak Chinese for the camera, but I will try to record him some more as it is hilarious and darling all at the same time. So here is your chinese lesson for the day:

1...yi

2...er

3...san

4...si

5...wu

mingtian jian...see you tomorrow

wo qu..I want to go to _____.

All of these words have the tone indicators above certain letters, but I am not sure how to add them.