Price is right?

I was looking for some oatmeal to eat at breakfast.  Any guess what this imported item costs at our areas main expat grocery store?

Try $15!  For that I can live without fiber in the morning until I can find chinese oatmeal.  The trip was still a good one for Bri who was a bit homesick the past few days.  Her sickness went away at the sight of cinnamon pop tarts and blow pops.

Pajama Party

This is a pretty common site on hot evenings. We see a lot of people in basically pajamas stretching or walking. Bri and I cooled off with an ice cream bar. Other people have their own ways to cool off . I've joked at times it was too hot for anything but boxers but I've never actually acted on the impulse.

Oh yeah, we're in China

Just a look out the stairwell window as I'm walking back to my classroom after lunch Wednesday....

Until you see the man sitting on his air conditioning unit as he makes a repair ON THE 5TH FLOOR!

This blog post should be especially touching to my dad who worked for many years repairing heating and a/c units.  This was definitely a "remember....you're in China" moment.

Another one occurred yesterday when a boy asked if the school recycled paper and all the veteran students laughed.  Then one Korean boy said, "There's no recycling!  We're in China!".

Are you guys starting to understand these "We're in China" posts?  They're not meant to be insulting.  Some things are just different.... very different.



Matt

Apartment Tour

     Here are some photos of our apartment.  People have been curious about our set up.  Things here are going well.  People always ask how we're doing.  Personally we're settled and feeling very comfortable.  We can get what we need and have plenty of veteran teachers who are happy to help if there are any questions.  Transportation is easy especially now that my iphone is working.  Taxis are cheap, we're getting to know some local bus routes and our friends who have traveled more extensively say they've never seen a subway system as clean and easy to navigate.  Food is plentiful and priced between dirt cheap and american prices depending on where we go eat. We can get whatever we miss it just depends on how much we're willing to pay for it.  I'm sure when we get really homesick we'll be willing to pay top dollar.

    School life is going well.  I always get antsy this time of year to just be a month into the school year and to be in a routine.  I'll try to write more about school soon because I know a lot of people are interested in my student demographics.

     Until then enjoy the pictures of the apartment. 

SCIS China Trips 2010

    The school has a tradition that each spring the kids take teacher sponsored trips to somewhere in this part of the world. The idea is to give them new experiences and perhaps new perspectives.  I don't know everything about the program but I know that there are wide range of ages that travel, they travel in grade levels to a diverse range of places and that the trips range from a couple days to a full week.  Below is a link to a movie made with pictures submitted for the photo contest that follows the trips.

  

China Trip Photos

Oh yeah, we're in China

The title of this blog has come to be a common thought that enters our mind every once in while.  Our lives as foreigners in this city have been surprisingly easy to adapt to in most ways.  It isn't hard to get around town and even when trying to communicate, there is usually a chinese person around who at least understands enough english to translate your point or question for you.  I'm sure this is due to the size of the city and probably also to the areas we've spent time in so far.  If we were visiting rural China I'm sure the simple things would be much more tedious.  That said, just when you start to get a little comfortable and begin to forget where you are something happens to remind you that you are not in Kansas (or Eastern Colorado) anymore.

This was an "Oh year, we're in China" moment as I'll start referring to them.  We saw this Sunday as we shopped at Carrefour.  The heads and the feet are delicacies here so why would they take those off?

Birthday on the Bund

   We had a busy weekend with a variety of activities and just enough relaxation to get us ready to start school on Thursday.  Saturday began with a bus to a shopping area not too far down the street we live on.  After some searching we found a phone place to unlock my iphone from the ATT network so that I could use it on the networks in China.  The process took a long time so we were hungry and that meant a cab ride to a Shanghai landmark, Yang's Fry Dumplings.  Four orders of dumplings filled our bellies and only set us back 24 yuan...$3.75.

Everyone orders the fried dumplings so after ordering outside as the counter you get in line with your receipt where a man fills the orders as fast as he can get the dumplings into the plate.  In the middle of the shot you see someone cooking the dumplings.  Behind him three or four men are preparing the next pan full of dumplings.

Adriana is enjoying a dumpling and our company.  The dumplings are filled with ground pork and green onion.  They're pan fried in some sort of fat, not deep fried so you get both soft and crunchy texture.  The tea pot on the table actually has some sort of vinegar in it that you dip the dumplings in as you eat them.  The acidity of the vinegar cuts through the richness of the pork fat in the dumpling.  I need to work on eating dumplings with chopsticks and these dumplings were delicious so we'll definitely be returning to this place.

 

 

 

    After dumplings we were off in search of a street of art stores for Bri to buy art supplies.  We experienced a slight oddity on the short cab ride to the art store street.  For a block or two at a time you would see nothing but small shops of tools, then it would be scooter parts, then it would be something else for a block.  The odd part was every shop on that street seemed to have the exact same things with very little variation.  The pattern held true when we reached the art store street.  Every shop had paint supplies, calligraphy supplies and paper.  Bri was able to find everything that she needed to start painting and dickered the price down to 450 yuan.  She figured that the supplies would have cost between $200-$250 in the states but only set us back $70.

The salesman Bri bargained with is taping the canvases to the easel so it would be easier to carry home.  You can see how beaten down and weary he looks after Bri finished negotiating the price down :)

    After a relaxing Saturday night we were up early to go shopping at Carrefour on Sunday morning.  It was good to get everything off our list and not have to wait in long lines.  After I spent some time at work and finished getting my phone set up at the local China Unicom store Bri suggested that we go have dinner on the Bund to celebrate my birthday.  She called and made reservations at M on the Bund which is a pretty hoity toity restaurant but a good place for foodies to splurge when celebrating a birthday.  It was a little different to have a waiter who spoke a lot of english after eating at places where that was not the case.  We said ni hao and he said hello :)  Then I was just about to ask for bing shway and he asked if we needed some water.  Dinner was good but the atmosphere and view were spectacular.

We swapped picture taking with some english speaking white faces as we were walking along the Bund to dinner.  The tallest building on the right is one of the tallest in the world.  The Shanghai World Finance Center is 1,614 ft high, about a football field taller than the Empire State Building.  It has the worlds tallest outdoor observation deck.

Just an amazing view from the restaurant which was on the 7th floor of a building at the Bund.  It was great to see everything in the daylight and then after dinner get to see it all lit up.

Its a Small World After All

Twice within the first five days of arriving we were just shocked by connections we had to people we had met in Shanghai. Here are those two stories.

On our first morning we walked over to the school to use the internet and get some information needed to setup our apartment. All morning we were meeting different people as they came through. The second teacher we met, Dani, was from Philadelphia but had been traveling internationally the past 17 years. During the usual "Hi my name is.... and I teach...." Bri mentioned being from Colorado. Dani, looking like she was trying to stump us asked, "Do you know where Joes is?". Now to some of you this will mean nothing but for the rest you'll probably be as shocked as the two of us because Joes is where Bri's Grandpa lives and grew up. Bri's mother also grew up in little ole Joes Colorado, population teeny tiny. Dani is actually good friends with the son of one of Lynn's school teachers. Imagine that.

After the story above we had a good laughed and couldn't believe the connection. After the story below I've decided that the world is just smaller than I thought and I'm going to assume everyone knows everyone else. Saturday night the school took all of the new teachers to a fancy chinese restaurant for dinner. When we arrived Bri and I saw that there was assigned seating to try and integrate teachers from our campus, Hongqiao (Hong rhymes with long, qiao is chow) with teachers from the Pudong campus. We went our separate ways and within three minutes Bri is giving me this look and I know she wants to share something but I'm really not good at ESP and I'm in the midst of my own conversation. Then the man she was speaking with comes over to introduce himself.

His name is Matt Barton and he teaches english at the Pudong campus. He taught one of my best friends and groomsmen, Tom Eisenhauer in high school. After years teaching he knew Tom's name right away when Bri mentioned that she had a friend from Manitou Springs (where Matt moved from with his family this summer). He actually said Tom is one of his favorite all-time students and that he still uses the goldfish speech Tom gave in school as an example for his class every year. We both enjoyed that coincidence and now I'm convinced that the world is just too small, so never gossip about anyone, because everyone knows everyone and based on my experience in Eastern Colorado....they might be related.

Tom, what I'm wondering is if that goldfish is the same fish Cody and I found dead when it jumped out of the tank at the Laura street house in college. Could it be?

Mission Complete

In the weeks leading up to our departure Bri and I had a lot of conversations with each other about what we expected, points of anxiety and things we wanted to accomplish before Christmas.  One thing I was excited to do was purchase produce at a local market. 

Buying local produce turned out to be much easier than I expected although I still have a lot of room for improvement language wise.  This morning one of our new friends, Dani, and I walked to the local wet market about 150 yards away.  The goal was two-fold.  1. Find a good cup of coffee.  2. Buy a watermelon. 

We had been told of a good coffee shop on the corner of the market, but upon our arrival we found it to be closed.  The market was smaller than I expected but a vary convenient size to retrieve a variety of fresh produce a few times a week.  The market had just the right amount of rank odor to make you feel like you were getting the real experience.  There wasn’t a lot to share about the market but here’s the rundown.   There were veggie stands, a few fruit stands with some common and some uncommon specimens, a couple tanks of swimming fish and live crustaceans, freshly made noodles, live chickens for sale, two tofu stands with about 15 varieties each and multiple stands with butchered meat lying around on the counter.  So….nothing too interesting.

After a lap around the place to get the lay of the land I made a few purchases!  My mandarin is still nonexistent so I wasn’t able to barter but I still made it out of the place with some good produce at decent price.  I‘ll definitely be back.

 

I just bought a couple pounds of bananas for six yuan (pronounced liked why with a k in front).  I'm showing the hand signal for six that the lady signaled to me.  Six yuan is about $0.93.

On our way out of the market we saw that the coffee shop was opening (7am) so we popped in for Dani’s latte and managed to get me an americano ordered.  Of course we also purchased a couple pastries for breakfast from the coffee shop and a couple dumpling type items from the shop next door.  It turned out to be a really good morning and both goals were completed successfully.  Click here to see some more pictures and commentary about the market.  

Dani sitting at a table in the school courtyard with our coffee, a variety of chinese dumplings and a couple traditional pastries.  Bon Appetit!

Ni Hao!

Greetings from Shanghai.  I guess the blog could be over now because we completed our trip from Stratton to Shanghai.  In reality, it is only beginning.  So much has happened in the last four days its already overwhelming to think about all that we should be sharing on the blog.  The blogger site is actually blocked by the Great Fire Wall (China's Firewall) so it took us a couple days to even log on.  I'll try to recap the trip pictorially.

Friday and Saturday we were lucky to spend time with friends and family.  This picture was taken after some pretty serious piggy back rides around the house.  Shortly after this picture Kinsleigh was getting her shoes on to leave and she said, "Bye Mah. Bye Bwi".  This was the first time that I'd heard her say our names and it was pretty emotional with everything else going on.  Our trip is nothing like military duty but it gave me a whole new perspective and respect for soldiers leaving families at home.

After waking up at 2am we were out the door at 3am.  A quick stop at IHOP for breakfast and we were off to the airport.  I asked the waiter to hurry with our order because we were on our way to China.  As we were leaving he said, " Have fun in China.  Whatever that means".  Then someone in our group told him we were actually on our way and he was quite shocked.  Our packing was very efficient.  We knew our checked bag allowance was 200 pounds without fees.  At the big weigh-in at DIA we had 198.7 pounds of the 200 pounds, so there is room for improvement but we thought we did well for our first time. 

 Let's just say I had a lot of time to myself on the plane. 

After a two hour drive to Denver, 18 hours and 7,000 miles in the air, about another hour in Shanghai traffic we finally arrived at our humble abode.  We Skyped some parents and went for a bite to eat at a popular expat restaurant right up the road that was recommended to us by the administrator who picked us up at the airport.  Finally, 30 hours after we had left Stratton it was time for bed.

Click here if you want to see some more pictures from our last week in the states and trip to Shanghai.

We have so much to share about our first week and we'll try to get consistent on the blogging.  Thanks for following us and wish us luck for our first typhoon that is predicted to hit tomorrow (Sunday).