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Published: January 29th 2009
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The fireworks this year are apparently not as constant as the past few years. People here reckon that it is not quite all the time, but to be honest you do get used to them after a while. A whole bunch have just gone off again, but since New Year's Eve it has not been as bad! However, on New Year's Day we went to a friend's house for dinner and they set off some fireworks afterwards. Sophie's friend Finn, from her old Grade 1 class, is from Australia, and we have become friends with his family. They very kindly invited us round for New Year's Day dinner and it was just amazing. There was another family there, Annalise and Pascal with their daughter Amelie who is also in Grade 2. We started with some Moet champagne which got my head a little bit spinny, and the fact that we were back up on their 33rd floor aparment did none to ease that! For dinner we had some scrummy sweet bacon and salad, with a chicken noodle soup. Bron spent ages cooking while we munched, grazed and chatted away, and came out with some lovely home-made chicken in breadcrumbs with home
grown lemons. There ensued a long discussion about the fact that lemons grow better if you wee on them.....and then Ian realised why 'Yellow' is no longer with us! As you can imagine, after much champagne sipping, the boys really enjoyed this conversation!
For dessert, Finn's brother and his friend made a chocolate fondue! OMG....the children swarmed to the table as there was so much yummy fruit to dip in the chocolate, and of course marshmallows! William just kept eating strawberries...he hadn't eaten much as he still wasn't feeling quite right. We all felt quite full after all this gorgeous food, and we decided that now was the time for the fireworks. So we headed down to the ground floor, and first did mini hand held advanced sparkler type things. Finn's dad then unravelled the big firecracker (with the help of the guard I may add!) and set fire to it. The noise is amazing, and I am hoping Ian will be able to upload some of the video to help you to understand just quite how loud it is! We are having trouble with this at the moment as the file is too big!
Since our huge
dinner on monday, we have generally been chilling and not doing too much. We wandered along to the play area down the road, went to the rather quiet supermarket for supplies, and had to do some housework sadly. This next bit is dedicated to all those Shanghai 'tai-tais' out there who are cursing the Chinese New Year holiday and the fact that all the ayis have scarpered!This is the one time all the migrant workers are assured of going home (even though ours had gone at Christmas while we were away also) and they stay for at least a week. This whole week is a national holiday and many shops and businesses are closed. Even the fake markets we frequent have many closed stalls. Anyway, the absence of an ayi may seem quite harmless to the average westerner who has never lived in Shanghai, but, this being such a polluted city, means that every day is a cleaning day. All our floors are sweep only and the huge amounts of dust that come in mean that they need sweeping and washing every day really. We currently only have one toilet in use also as the other is blocked. In China,
you put the paper in a bin next to the toilet or else it gets blocked, as we found not long after we got here! Sadly, ours still gets blocked with only the minimum amount of paper down it...enough said.
Cooking in China poses a challenge in itself, but especially when you are not in the mood. I have to admit it has been nice to do some cooking in my own home this week, but I wish I had the right ingredients and equipment. We asked our ayi to stock up on fresh goods before she went away, and she made us some dumplings and meatballs for the freezer. We have used most of this up already, and still have another week ahead of us. She does not return until Monday 9th......eek!!
The temperature has risen a touch over the past few days but has brought the rain with it. We are trying to save our pennies and stay at home, but the miserable weather is not helping this much. The best activities in Shanghai are outdoor or expensive sadly. However, we did find a reasonable place today in Shanghai Children's Discovery museum. At 20RMB per person,
whether adult or child, it was a bargain but fairly priced. All the displays were in Chinese and many activity things were broken. There was a great submarine model which the kids loved, and William was so excited by the space ship exhibit. The best bit was the pretend play area, a bit like Kidtown, where they got to play in the 'Hairdresser' section, or the 'supermarket' or 'doctors'. Sophie's favourite was, of course, performing on the stage! They played for about an hour until we were called (in Chinese!) to go and watch the space thing pretend to launch. William was mesmerised and Sophie wandered off, but we had killed an afternoon and they had a good time. After a quick trip to Carrefour we headed home.
The children are off to a Harry Potter magic show with Kevin and Victoria for their birthdays tomorrow so we have some alone adult time.....and what are doing during this time......going to buy the birthday cakes and provisions for the parties...YIPPEE!! We might just stop for a peaceful cuppa on the way too, however....watch this space!! Ian has the beginnings of man flu, passed on from William we think, who has
manfully gone through it and we think is well on his way out the other side!
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mingyao ren
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chinese new year
I am a chiese student who study in the UK. I was attracted by your backgroud of the photo and recognized that the photo was took in shanghai,hope you can enjoy the life with your family in china.