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Published: June 22nd 2010
These are the final days and I would be foolish and let's be honest, a tad bit selfish if I didn't share my every thought and feeling here with you. We started together 2 plus years ago--and so we must finish out the time in Shanghai together. It's the right thing to do.
We arrived home from Phuket at 5:45am on Sunday, Father's Day. The kids were great travelers as usual but it was a tiring trip home. We spent the morning sleeping and the rest of the day packing, before heading out to lunch at the Gourmet Burger restaurant. They have the world's best sweet potato fries and I had a veggie burger while the rest of my carnivorous crew dined on juicy beef burgers. I tasted Emily's. Was delicious. We then went to pick up Mark's gift from Nathan. A super cool custom Lego creation he made that says "love you dad." Mark loved it, and also the Chinese flag Emily made for him.
The day before the movers came to pack us up, we did some last errands, last shopping and last eating. So many favorites, so little time. We had to pre-pack our plane luggage
to be sure we had enough space for all our must haves. We left room because we know there will be last purchases--more on that later--and we tried to ship as much as we could. The kids were great. They did a lot of their own purging and packing. We donated clothes from all four of our collections and felt good after making the easy drop off at a charity collection point in the building next door.
We had our last Din Tai Fung meal--a favorite spot for xiao long bao (soup filled dumpling heaven) and took a last stroll in Yu Garden at night where we bought some last souvenirs.
And then there was today. I awoke at a bright and early 4:30am in my clothes from the previous night, having passed out in Emily's bed when putting her (and myself apparently) to bed. Figured, why go back to bed when I could print out customs forms, so after a visit to Facebook and Gmail, I finally finished the forms and printed them out. Funny thing about planning a major move. You tend to run out of things toward the end. Like printer paper. I had about
8 sheets left, 12 if I counted some partially printed upon paper I found in my mad search for paper. So I carefully printed these pages and hoped for minimal errors. Of course, Mark found one error--his date of birth was listed as June 12 instead of July 12 (stupid calendar select feature on the PDF form). He fixed it with a pen to prevent a reprint situation.
We spent the last few hours before the movers came finishing our sorting (ship, take on plane, give away, or dispose of in garbage bin which is another form of recycling in China because all garbage is picked through and reused if at all possible). We are giving a lot of our stuff to the "first friends" Jo, Ian and family--they are staying on in Shanghai for another tour...which is great since we hope to come back to visit. The rest is going to our ayi--she has been with us the whole time.
The movers were fast and efficient, but it took the morning and then a couple hours after their lunch break to finish. I found a few last things that i threw into the mix at the last
minute and the movers slickly sliced open boxes and resealed them with great speed and skill. They made custom shaped boxes to house the Kung Fu sword, the guitar, and various odd shaped items. They arrived armed with a giant roll of bubble wrap and stacks of boxes and paper. It was strange to sit and just watch it all--occasionally answering questions. I watched the finale of Glee online at one point. It got boring. There was one point when I was alone in the apartment with the movers (Mark had run an errand and the kids went to get food with the ayi) and I just had a flash of how big this all has been. How meaningful our time here was and how it's ending. What will that mean? How will it change us?
And then they were done. We signed the forms, said thank you and watched the truck get loaded from our balcony. We shipped 35 boxes home...which by the packers standards was very low. They told us that often people "like us" ship between 60 and 400 boxes. And sometimes have 7 large trucks to carry it all away. That made us feel like
rock star minimalists...even though we did accumulate a decent load of stuff in our time here. We have some pretty awesome things we found to take home...good prices, but more importantly really special things. I hope our house doesn't look like a shrine to Shanghai when we unload our boxes in our wee little Colonial back in Evanston.
I made a mad dash to the fabric market with Emily. It's Tuesday afternoon at this point and we leave Monday. Normally, things take a week but I have a few favorite tailors and I figured I could get stuff done more quickly if I asked. I went online and found some pictures and then went to the market with Emily and ordered too many things...Emily got a couple shirts. She helped me with my fabric selections too. She's a great fashion consultant.
Tomorrow is Expo day. Finally. We have a book, advice, free tickets and 1 day to see as much as we can. The crowds have been insane, the lines have been horrifying but we are going anyway.
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Count down!
Well, on the stress o meter, moving is a 10. You are holding up great dearie!! So happy to get your precious pictures..They speak a thousand words as well. Safe travels! XOXOXOXO