We have entered the stage in our language acquisition known in China as Chinglish. In an effort to use as many Chinese words as we can, we are all putting together some very silly phrases and sentences. Whenever we have even 1 word in Chinese to contribute, we use it. Mark had a funny one today after lunch. He was trying to end our long goodbye--I was eager to hang out more and he was eager to go back to work...so he said "any shuí ..." which is Chinglish for any who, as in, any who, thanks for coming to meet me for lunch, and I'll see you later! It's pretty silly, really, but our family's collective vocabulary is growing rapidly. Yesterday, I taught everyone how to say snack! Xiao chi. Now that is a handy ... read more

Quick note: I'm still catching up on posting the stuff I wrote while on our trip...we are back in Shanghai safe and sound. Many of the trip photos were taken by Mark, so I wanted to credit his efforts. He took some fabulous shots that really capture what we saw and experienced. Wednesday October 1, 2008 We met some other western looking tourists at the hotel breakfast. They ended up sitting at our table and what do you know—they are also “from” Shanghai and are here on vacation. This couple and their daughter are from France and we all chatted over breakfast. We saw them again at our first stop of the day, an ancient village called Xidi (She-Dee—insert your joke here about what that sounds like). Among the hundreds if not thousands of people there, ... read more

Oh where to begin? There is so much good stuff packed into the last 3 days. We have been on a true adventure - just as we planned. The kids are amazing. So brave and willing to adapt. They are my heros. Whenever I want to whine and complain I look at them dealing with it all and I just try to suck it up appreciate that we are all here together. The bus: Not so bad! I had such low expectations and then it turned out to be totally fine. It was a bit of a struggle to get to the bus station as we took a taxi to the train station, which is near the bus station but not quite attached. We incorrectly went inside the train station and the security line only to ... read more

It's almost the October holiday (next week the entire country gets vacation). We crazy Slavens are going to try a new mode of family transport...the bus. A very popular mode for many, it is certainly the last thing I expected to choose to do on a vacation. Take a long bus trip. I'm not a fan. However, we lagged in our efforts to plan a trip, didn't know the ins and outs of booking the train tickets (best to use travel agents in future). SO, it was the bus or bust. The plane is crazy expensive....and a taxi would not get us there any faster but would cost a lot and be less comfy I'm guessing. Good news is, there will certainly be some stories. I expect the loudest people on the bus to be behind ... read more

Mark left for Ningbo on Friday for a trade show. The 3 remaining Slavens kept ourselves fairly busy and got along fine though we missed Mark. We had a very busy Saturday which involved running all over Hongqiao to get Nathan to his Lego Engineering class, Emily to a birthday party at a classmate's house and then back again to get Nathan and then back again to get Emily. Emily and I ran into 2 friends of hers at the grocery store near Nathan's class. We were lucky enough to hitch a ride to the party with a mom and her daughter from school. It's still very strange running into people in Shanghai. It happens mostly in Hongqiao where the school is, but just last week I ran into another mom from the school in Jing'an ... read more