When I arrived in Shanghai, I wondered how I would meaningfully fill my time. I struggled with this the first 1 ½ years, but finally settled into volunteering with a very worthy cause, the Charles Foundation (www.charlesfoundation.org). In 2001, Josephine Charles, a British woman working as a counselor at a medical clinic in Beijing, travelled to the rural mountainous area of southern Sichuan Province, near Tibet. She was struck by the extreme poverty there, and when asked if she would help build a school there, she reluctantly agreed. Now, ten schools later, she is still going strong. T [View Full Entry]

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Westen's band normally practices at our house about twice a week. Since the drums and other instruments are in our two-story living room, which has no doors, you can imagine it's pretty loud. We all have our ways of dealing with it. I try to go for a walk. Anika goes in the office or her bedroom and closes the door. Serge just works right through it. Here he is on a conference call while sitting on the toilet and using the hamper as a desk. Quietest place in the house! Sigi just looks around wondering when it will all be [View Full Entry]

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What an interesting day I had. I am supposed to be in southwest China in Xichang, Sichuan Province right now, but instead I’m sitting in our house in Shanghai. I’m going there to visit the schools and children supported by the charity I volunteer for (http://www.CharlesFoundation.org). The plan was to fly to Chengdu and then on to Xichang, but instead I was grounded in Shanghai, on the plane, for about half of the day due to “flog” ( as the flight attendant insisted it was called) in Chengdu. A very kind flight attendant with decent English was kind enough [View Full Entry]

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When the native Senecas gave Canandaigua Lake its name, they knew what they were talking about. It means "the chosen spot". What a great summer it was. We finally moved into the long-awaited cottage, and loved every minute there. We kept pinching ourselves - were we just renting this place, or was it really ours? It is so far from the bustle and pollution of Shanghai - such a contrast. I had dreamed of that first cup of coffee on the dock in the morning, followed by a cool morning dip. We had talked about relaxing on the deck at the [View Full Entry]

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You might think that we wouldn’t get much of a Halloween celebration here in Shanghai, but that’s frightfully wrong! Although Halloween is an American holiday, the word has spread, and our neighborhood was mobbed last night by an international group of ghosts, goblins, princesses, Buzz Lightyears, pumpkins, and my favorite, a team of Ghost Busters! We went all out, with the decorations, which is rare here, including a strobe light, creepy music, and a skull/ghosty thingy hanging from a tree on a string which Serge would pull at strategic times to make “levitate&rdquo [View Full Entry]

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The first big holiday of the school year falls in October. This year it included two major Chinese holidays: mid-autumn fest and the national day. This year China celebrated 60 years of the establishment of communist China. There were celebrations that rivaled the open ceremonies in Beijing this year. We were planning to stay here, since I had given up the search in frustration. Each trip requires a ridiculous amount of research and planning, unless we’re willing to pay the highway-robbery prices charged by the expat-focused travel agents here. However, the week before the holid [View Full Entry]

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Last weekend we traveled with Westen’s hockey team to Taipei, Taiwan for three games with the local teams and lots of sightseeing. We were very fortunate to have four Taiwanese families on our team who really showed us the city. They made sure we made the most of our days there, squeezing in great food, Taipei 101, great food, the National Palace Museum, more great food, and, of course, hockey. In case you couldn’t guess, we never got hungry the whole time we were there! As we flew in we were thrilled to see mountains, forests and water. The city is [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday I took Sigi for the annual Chinese dog registration “roundup”. What a China moment that was - about 150 ill-mannered Chinese dogs and their owners lined up outside the police station. Fortunately I went with my friend Amanda, who knew the drill, and her English-speaking driver, David. The biggest excitement came while we stood in the line outside. A Chow Chow attacked a small, white dog by biting it squarely on the back. It started running around, thrashing the poor little dog back and forth! After some yelling, the owners managed to stop the attack. The [View Full Entry]

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Australian Style Christmas was quite different this year as we spent it in the Australian summer sun. Quite a few people from Shanghai headed to the snowy parts of the US for the break, and I was a bit envious. But Australia was a good remedy for that! We had almost two weeks there, split between Sydney and the coast of Queensland. It’s such a beautiful place - fascinating nature, beautiful beaches, great food, friendly people that we could understand, and BLUE, BLUE skies…something we don’t see much of [View Full Entry]

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We just returned from a week in northern Vietnam…and an interesting week it was. Vietnam has some of the most beautiful scenery we’ve ever seen. In contrast, Hanoi is a crowded city, teeming with tourist hawkers eager to take advantage of us. We often dared not stop to look at a map or even to discuss where to go, lest the nearest rickshaw (they call it “cyclo”) drivers move in for the attack. Our first day we turned around to see Westen with a pointed rice hat on his head, saddled with a yoke on his shoulder dangling two baskets holding [View Full Entry]

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