Random Shanghai Photos

Didn't do a whole lot more since we were without Blogger. Here are some random photos touring the Bund (where Madeleine met Benjamin on his 1st birthday) and just hanging out.

Barbie Store Shanghai

One of our events when were Blogger-less was a day at the Shanghai Barbie Store. It was at least 5 floors and included not only Barbie toys, clothes, and a hair studio, but it had a cafe. The best part about the cafe was it had American food!! I think we had BLT and hamburgers or something like that. The important note was the pink sauce on the sandwiches that made them Barbie Special!

Singapore Life

We are now in Singapore and adjusting to the heat. It's 95 deg every afternoon with 90% humidity. Reminds you of Houston in July only it lasts all year long here. You get a rain shower every afternoon to cool things off and then the humidity drops in the evening in time for a comfortable walk.

We started with a reservation for one service apartment across town which was a dump. We left after one night and I will leave it to Theresa to tell you that story. Just know that we are now in a very nice place with lots of swimming and only a few blocks off of Orchard Rd which is the main shopping district.

On Friday we took Madeleine for her first swim in a pool - she loved it! We have since gone again and will probably make it a regular way to fight the heat. As you can imagine, she is fearless.

Our complex also has a really nice playground for the kids. While Madeleine is not quite so social to approach kids, she has no problem when they flock to here like a magnet.

You may also notice that her newest hairstyle is the pigtails.

Taiwan

I have a few more pictures from Taiwan to share. The visit was very nice and I was sad to leave. I hope that we return often.

This is the slide at the Hello Kitty play area in the Taipei Airport. This airport has the nicest baby rooms for changing, making bottles, nursing and baby naps.

This is the us in front of the fountain at the Hyatt in Taipei in October 2008.

This is Dada and Madeleine in May 2009

I love this face. She has the best laugh!! This is yet another balloon we received at TGI Fridays in Taipei. Thankfully Mommy let the balloon float to the ceiling before we left so the Balloon Fairy got the night off!

Back to the World of Free Speech (kind of)

We have left China and are now settled in Singapore. Not much happened since we last posted.

The only real excitement was that we all caught a cold. Madeleine and Theresa got over it pretty fast. I on the other hand developed a sinus infection. I got a visit today from a doctor that makes house calls. Considering that he arrived within 30 minutes of my call and brought medicine with him, the $216 ($140 US) didn't sound too bad - the 4 prescriptions cost only $16! I'm feeling better already.

It was a little nerving flying while I was sick. We knew that there was swine flu in Hong Kong where we changed planes and that they were scanning everyone's body temp to detect for the flu. While I didn't have a fever, we were trying really hard not to cough so we wouldn't draw attention.

Our flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong was full but the flight to Singapore was nearly empty. After takeoff, Madeleine moved to another seat and had two first class seats to herself. As you can see from the photo, she made herself comfortable. She had plenty of attention from the flight attendants.

Goodbye Shanghai

Hello Singapore

Blogger

China has decided to block Blogger for the time being. Lee thinks it is in response to the quarantined people blogging about their experiences. I am able to get on Blogger with our Verizon card but it is very slow. Hopefully China will allow access soon. If not we will be blogging from Singapore in about a week.

Night Market

Tonight we searched out the prize I have been searching out for more than 2 years. Every stop in an Asian country I stop in the most obscure places to find it. Sometimes in alleyways, sometimes in shopping centers, most of the time you can only find by word of mouth. Tonight's search sent us to the Linjiang Night Market by word of mouth.

At the night market you can never be surprised by what you might find. Most markets sell clothes, shoes, souvenirs, lottery tickets, and food. The street food is not for the faint of heart and certainly not on Theresa's scale of eatable food. The food includes every part of a chicken (the neck is a specialty), seafood (including whole squid), and baked cakes. The smells range from cow manure to pot (yes, really) and sweet smells in between.

So our search ended up with success. After two years of searching I finally found the treasured "squeaky shoes"!! The correct interpretation is "shoes that make noise when you walk." We bought Madeleine 2 pair, one that fits her now and one decorated with Hello Kitty that is a size or two too big. We also bought extra pairs for some very special boys back home - you know who you are.

If you can tell me how to rotate the video, please let me know.

Chili's balloon

We went to Chili's last night for dinner. Like we don't eat enough Chili's at home. Yuck. Anyway, Madeleine was given a balloon and boy did she have fun with it until the Balloon Fairy took it away. Sad really. I mean who does this "Balloon Fairy" think she is? Weren't balloons made for kids?

Walk in the park

Madeleine and I went for a walk this morning in Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park. There were a few groups of people exercising in the shaded grass including one large group of ladies working out to music. Well, of course the little dancer had to stop and show off her moves. She was well received. There were quite a few elderly folks in wheelchairs with their caretakers in the park as well. They were all quite taken with Madeleine, especially when she decided to chase the birds. Thankfully they were all faster then she was!

Taiwan - then and now

October 2008
May 2009

Happy Mother's Day

Mommy's flowers
Lunch at the Hyatt

Too cute!!

I had a wonderful mother's day here in Shanghai. First, I slept late!! Yeah!! Then I had croissants for breakfast that Lee and Madeleine got for me at the french bakery. Then we went to a wonderful lunch at the Hyatt Regency in Pudong, across the river. It was Italian and very good. They also served Prosecco, yummy. After lunch we went back to the apartment and I read while Daddy and baby took a very long nap. Quiet time for Mommy! After naps, they went and bought me a lovely bunch of pink Gerber daisies. For dinner we went to a Mexican restaurant. The food wasn't too bad, especially after a couple of margaritas. While we did miss our Moms, it was a very nice and relaxing day. Thank you Lee!! Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms!!

For Kelsey, aka KK

The back of yo head look ridikilus!!

Lazy Saturday

Didn't do much on Saturday, just used the day to recharge. We found a nice French bakery that has become a favorite breakfast stop. After the morning nap, we made our way to the park, People's Square, and down Nanjing Street.

The parks here are really nice. They are clean, manicured, and have very few vagrants. It was kind of strange to see the locals feed bok choy to the ducks. Do you think ducks quack in Chinese here?


Nanjing Street is an old road now turned into a pedestrian walk with shopping on both sides. The street has mostly Chinese department stores. The whole place was a sea of people.

At dinner Madeleine decided she wanted to try out the chopsticks. As you can tell, they worked better as a chew toy than an eating utensil.

Dumpling progression

I love dumplings

I really love dumplings


Feed me more dumplings!!




Maybe I had too many dumplings

What!! We're out of dumplings!!

Scary face

Madeleine has a great new face she makes. I think she made the face on her own at first, but then she made the face one day for her cousin Kelsey. Well, then the big fun started. Kelsey would make the face and Madeleine would imitate her and they would go back and forth. They even do it on Skype. Now you can just say to her, Madeleine do your scary face, and she will do it. It is so funny!! Babies are fun!!

Drying clothes

I had a request to show me ACTUALLY hanging clothes outside to dry. Well, here is the proof. You didn't think I would show my clothes, did you? Only the baby's get hung up, mine are laid out on the main balcony to dry.

Movie star on the Great Wall

This is what we call the movie star. My mom used to do this with me and I loved it. We put our sunglasses on Madeleine and start saying Movie Star, Movie Star! Where is Madeleine? And then she slowly pulls off the glasses and starts to laugh. Then she puts them back on and never gets tired of the game. It is huge fun!!

Marketing Genius

I was reading an article in the China Daily newspaper about cars in China. First some interesting facts. According to the World Bank, car ownership in China is 15 cars per 1000 people. In the US it is 874 per 1000 people. The number of cars in China is expected to grow to 50 million by 2010 and 150 million by 2020. Now this is a quote from an article about cars in China and the recent Shanghai auto show from an attendee. "We are all Rockets fans. We always see the name Toyota when we watch games, so we like it more. Some of Toyota's cars are really perfect." I guess Toyota doesn't really care how many cars they sell in Houston, Texas or the USA when they have all of China.

Olympic Park

Monday in Beijing was a business day for me with meetings around the city. In the evening we made the drive to the Olympic Village and then a drink with our friend Angela who lives in Beijing. The Olympic Village was really impressive. You could not enter any of the venues but they did have them lighted up and the plaza open for people to stroll.

Beijing Sunday

I had a business meeting on Sunday morning which lasted a little longer than I expected so it cut our day sightseeing short. Once my meeting was over, the first issue was lunch. We headed out to the pedestrian mall to a sea of humanity. Not only is China normally a sea of humanity but add to the norm a holiday weekend. There were lines everywhere including McDonald's! We returned to the hotel for overpriced hamburgers and salads.

By the time we reached the Forbidden City, it was too late to buy an entrance ticket so we just strolled along with gardens on the outside and along Tienemen Square. On the way back to the hotel, it was so hot, we stopped for ice cream and Madeleine had her first taste of vanilla. That's her showing the scary face for Tucker. I think she actually likes the dumplings more than the ice cream. Sunday evening we had dinner with Simon at Houhai Lake. Sorry, no exciting photos of this.

Beijing & Great Wall

We just arrived home and it's 11:00pm on Tuesday night. The last 4 days have been exhausting to say the least so we will only blog a little at a time.

Friday was the first day of a three day holiday call Labor Festival. Friday was a light work day so I was able to catch up on a few things and then we just hung out around the neighborhood. On Saturday morning we flew from Shanghai to Beijing on an early flight and arrived at our hotel by noon. We hired a private car and driver to take us to the Mutianyu site of the Great Wall which took about 2 hours to reach. Once there, the crowds were not too bad. Once you walk through the street vendors trying to sell t-shirts, hats, food, and other trinkets, you arrive to the ticket gate at which point you take an old ski lift to the top of the hill. This ski lift was older than me. Once you reach the top, the view is pretty amazing. It's also amazing to think that this entire wall stretches more than 5000km and was only crossed by the Mongolians twice. From the ground to the top of the wall is probably 200 ft.

It was about 95 degrees so we didn't stay long. There were lots of stairs and once you see one stretch of the wall I think it just repeats itself a few hundred times. We rode the tram back down the hill and was greeted by a couple guys in Mongolian costumes for photos.

Back through the street vendors Theresa decided that Madeleine needed lunch so she started negotiating for a banana. She approached the first vendor and explained that she wanted only one banana. The vendor weighed it, gave us an impression that this was a big one, and said she wanted 5 RMB (about 75 cents) for the banana. Speaking like a well trained Chinese negotiator, Theresa replied with "ahh!! that's too much" and walked away. Within eyesight of this, she approached the next and asked "how much for one banana?" Without weighing the banana the vendor asked how much she would pay. Theresa said "3 RMB." "Oh no, this is good banana" said the vendor. As we walked away we heard "okay, okay, okay." Theresa walked away proud of her first Chinese negotiation - one banana for 3 RMB (about 40 cents).

The drive back to Beijing took almost 3 hours so by the time we arrived at the hotel we were exhausted, ordered room service, and went to bed early.