lazy days turn to hectic mayhem

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It's update time. We had a fun time celebrating Mark's birthday in Shanghai with a couple friends and Mark's brother, Matt. The celebration involved Nathan, Matt, Mark and Ray all taking turns on the restaurant's mechanical bull. Hilarious! After a western (and by western I mean cowboy western this time) dinner of steak and potatoes we went to a lounge/dessert place called Hof (house of flour!) and had a death by chocolate cake. Dangerously good.

It's been wickedly hot--record high temps for Shanghai this past couple of weeks. We went to a museum to cool off on Sunday and by the time we reached the lobby, we were soaked with sweat. Really gross. And then we got cold and were shivering during our tour of the Shanghai Museum. It's so hot we can't be outdoors for more than a few minutes. I see men and women sleeping in the subway station to escape the heat. It's brutal. We come back to our apartment and are extra grateful for our functioning and high powered air conditioning units in each room.

Today we had a total solar eclipse in Shanghai. We went outside with the rest of Shanghai to see day turn to night. I had bought these special viewing glasses, but it was so cloudy and then rainy, there was no sun to be seen. It was still pretty wild to be standing outside at 9:30am and have the sky go totally dark, the streetlights pop on, and then slowly the sun moved and it was back to daylight in another few minutes. Since it won't happen in Shanghai again for 300 years or so, I was glad to be able to witness the event. I'm a bit relieved about it being too cloudy to test our look at the sun during an eclipse glasses. As Emily said "I don't want to be blind-folded by the eclipse."

Unrelated to the eclipse was the fact that as we huddled in a subway entrance which had a see through ceiling and quick access to the park should the rain stop, I was wishing for an umbrella so we could escape the crowds. It was really only a matter of minutes before a man came up, and remember it was getting darker and darker at this time. He set up a portable table, opened his bags of umbrellas, set up a large umbrella to protect himself from rain and he was in business. Umbrellas are for sale all over town, all the time. There are markets with shops of mostly umbrellas but you can usually find them outside of train stations. Especially when it is raining. So everyone knows an umbrella should not cost more than RMB10 (approx $1.50 USD). The dude tried to sell it to me for RMB30 and I just kept saying what til he finally said RMB10. There were many buyers, I understood they were paying 10, so duh, I'm paying 10 too. One of the umbrellas broke before we got to lunch. These are low quality items. I'd gladly pay more for a better quality umbrella but that's a whole different story.

In other big news, we are moving apartments. Our lease was up and we needed to find something cheaper. Our wonderful current landlord helped us find a place in the building next door. We are excited because it is building 8, apt. 802 and 8 is a lucky number in Chinese culture. We felt super lucky that this has all gone so smoothly so far. We found the place today (Wednesday) and we move on Saturday. It is a bit ridiculous that we have to move this weekend but it works out best for our landlord and I didn't want Mark to get stuck moving on his own (see below). We've seen the benefits of guanxi and relationships in China. We have a network and we used it to get a deal that might not have been possible on our own. The world of Chinese real estate is still quite mysterious, but we've learned a lot in our year here and this rental will hopefully be a trouble free experience.

I'm packing frantically to move one building over--still gotta pack everything AND THEN on Monday the kids and I are coming home for a visit to Evanston. Mark has to work, but we wanted to get a trip home before school starts on Aug 17th.

I know this will sound absurd to anyone dreaming of having a maid to help make life easier--but I got really sick of having a fulltime person here. So, after our ayi left for a second extended leave, I decided not to have her back fulltime. It's just too much. I also burned out on her cooking. Try as I might to teach her the virtues of oil-free or really low-oil cooking, she just could not do it. So then it was just me eating her food (kids went on strike months ago and Mark is rarely home for dinner). I'm feeling much more normal now (though I still don't clean or do laundry much) and it will be a little easier as we will eventually be ayi free when we return home. I've read so many articles and blogs about the drama that ayis can cause--with childcare practices (they tend to coddle and not discipline) to poor cleaning practices. I'm pretty lucky in that our experiences have been mostly good. But, that being said, it got old. So I'm trying a new approach for the next few months and I think I will be much happier.

Everyone is asking the big and obvious question of when are we coming back for good. I really can't make a firm commitment and I am especially careful not to be too public with things related to Mark's job. This blog is about me, the kids, our family and life in China so I have to keep a careful eye on my topics.

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Comments

[Uncle Fred]

Hi
Hi Suzanne, Mark Emily and Nathan, (and Matt if you're still there) Nice to hear the updates. Have a great trip home, for some fresh American air (do we have that?) Anyway, love to all. Fred, Toshimi and Melody

[Linda]

Evanston, here you come
Great news that you and the kids are swinging by The House. Enjoy all the fun...and the cooler weather. Do Emily and Nathan have lists of the friends they want to see...and foods they want to eat? Does the sun rise? Right?

[soooze]

booking the playdates
I'm already making plans with friends--keeping it all on my google calendar, though when we get home I don't have Internet at our house. I will have to go to my neighbors to get Internet and watch tv! it's bare bones back at the home base.