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Published: September 8th 2009
Welcome to blog number 150! Every now and then I glance at my blog stats (read: daily) and today I realized was another milestone of sorts. 150 entries from the time we decided to move until now. Over a year later, and I’m still finding things to write about.
We had a good week. Mark was out of town until Wednesday night but he got home in time for our anniversary on Thursday. We spent most of the evening at the school open house for parents. We really enjoyed meeting with the kids’ teachers and my only complaint is the evening was too rushed. After the school event, we went to grab dinner at a Thai place which was nice. We saw many other school parents at dinner. Since we all had childcare that night, I think many people had the same plan to sneak in a dinner date before heading home.
I’ve been walking to school each morning with a woman who lives in our complex and whose sons go to the same school. Their family is from Finland and the dad is working on the Finnish booth for the big Shanghai Expo in 2010 (world fair). Finally!
iPhone mid-repair
it was touch and go...An English speaking friend in my ‘hood to hang with. We went to get massages after school one day (two hours of foot AND body massage for about $20). We are making plans to go exploring since we are both taking classes in the mornings and have a window of time after class gets out.
Mark’s iPhone stopped working suddenly last week—the white screen of death. He was understandably panicked since he relies on his iPhone a great deal. I sprung into action, fabulous and incredible problem solving wife that I am. I Googled “iPhone repair Shanghai” and came across a posting on an expat forum for a guy who called himself the Mac Doctor. Now if that doesn’t scream professional-level service I don’t know what does. Of course I called the MD and he told me to come to his booth at the electronics market (one of many) so he could try to fix it. I found this particular electronics market easily enough after my class, and then quickly located the (un)-official Mac repair booth. They had a banner with the Mac logo hanging up in the small booth filled with all things Mac. Now, I had asked
cool kite shot
the lady with this kite was bugging me, but Mark got a great shot of it. about the price right away, but the head guy just said he’d take a look. Before I knew it, the iPhone was completely open and in pieces. What looked like an infinite number of tiny screws were laid out on the counter. Initially, I was a bit skeptical about the likelihood of a successful repair. How wrong I was. The work was performed right in front of me—which I very much appreciated—so I didn’t have to worry about any switching of parts. Plus it was quite interesting. Open-pod surgery.
In all it took the three guys about thirty minutes, an attempt at two LCD screen replacements (the first didn’t work) and a large number of do-overs as the iPhone was opened, closed, opened, closed, and so on until finally it worked! I was so excited to see it come back to life that I paid the fee and inquired about getting a replacement battery for our Macbook. The price, if you are curious was 500RMB or about $70 USD. The fact that I could get it fixed in less than an hour, priceless.
Friday night we had dinner with some friends which was lots of fun. On our
way home from the restaurant, our driver cracked us up with his commentary about Bush and Obama. The Chinese name for Bush sounds like “Bush-i” and “bu shi” means no in Chinese. So that’s even more fun. Obama is good Bush is bad was the gist of our banter. Then he did this very dramatic impersonation of someone shooting guns and dropping bombs while describing how he felt about Bush. We bonded.
Saturday, we went on a mini-assignment to check out a new set of amusement park rides for the magazine. The kids rated the rides with thumbs up or thumbs down and they could not get enough of the spinning and twirling rides. Mark and I went on one swing and spin ride and were both queasy afterwards. Mark had to lie down on a bench to recover. While he rested, the kids went on a spinning ride again and I tried to keep an eye on them without making myself dizzy. Just writing about it makes my head spin a little bit. We went to get ice cream before heading home and we were approached by a woman taking “1000 smiles for the Expo”. Supposedly, the kids
and I are now featured on the website for this smile collection. I have to check and see if we are really on it.
Sunday, we went to Century Park via subway. We stopped for a quick bite, Emily was desperate to try the new New York hot dogs in the subway station. She got a plane dog with catsup (Chicagoans please don't freak out at what some may consider hot dog eating crime of putting catsup on a dog--she's a kid!) and Mark tried the chili cheese dog. Both were rated tasty and both were polished off quickly. The ginger soda (not quite ginger ale) was rated lower. Mark said it tasted like liquid wasabi but I disagree. I think it tasted like ginger drink and by that I mean real ginger in liquid form. Not the tastiest. Then we went to the park to rent and ride tandem bikes. Boys on one, girls on the other. This time, Emily could reach the pedals but most of the time she just sat there and looked pretty while I rode us around the park. Good exercise for me, so I’m not complaining. The park is so wonderful. We always
have fun there and each time we go there are new flowers in bloom and thus new photo opportunities. We took a picture in front of a field of corn. Seemed an odd place to plant a crop, but it reminded us of Ohio, so we snapped a picture. If you remember the sunflower pictures I previously posted—same park.
We were riding around the park and we came across a huge outdoor stage. Of course we had to stop and explore further. Emily performed two songs to her audience of three. I’m surprised we didn’t draw a bigger crowd. I think given more time and a microphone to amplify her sweet voice, Emily could have filled the stadium. She’s got some talent, that one. And she’s fearless. Hannah Montana, watch out!
It was a really nice family weekend. Now, Mark is gone for the third week in a row. I’m just glad he comes home on the weekends. We really miss him when he’s gone.
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Linda
non-member comment
Happy 150th!
A respectable New York hot dog in a Shanghai subway station. The world is definitely contracting. How great to have the World Expo in your city next year...and already a contact in your building. Nice work on Mark's iPhone. Open-pod surgery...good one.