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Published: April 12th 2009
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Happy Easter to all! Sadly, we are missing our usual Easter Holidays so we nearly missed Easter this year, but thankfully Suzanne found us a fantastic way to celebrate Easter Sunday today at the Renaissance Hotel Zhongshan Park. There was a special Easter Brunch on for only 258RMB per person (about £25!) but children were free and there was free flow Prosecco all the way! We starved ourselves so that we would get value for money and value for money we got! It was totally amazing! We had booked for 11.30am so that we had fresh food on the brunch and we had a great table, right next to the Western side. I will try and summarise the food, but will be accompanied by pics later on....however, Ian was so taken with the desserts he only took pictures of these!!! So, to start, there was the bestest oatmeal (or porridge as we know it!), then the usual fried breakfast items such as hash browns, scrambled eggs, sausages, mushrooms, beans.......an amazing array or breads and different butters....roast lamb, several stews, some beautiful salads, made to order omelette, 6 different types of freshly made pizza, 2 different soups......then there was the Easter side
where there were huge amounts of Chinese dishes, including different Chinese desserts! Added to this, there was freshly squeezed mango, orange, grapefuit juice and coke and prosecco, along with coffee and tea on tap. Around the other side of the restaurant was a fabulous kids play area, complete with Wii and TV, where there was kids food, and all kinds of sweets for them and chocolate bunnies to take home. And the best bit, there were even staff to look after them!! I mean, we cannot express how much we enjoyed it. However, one small problem occurred when we all found we were so full we would have to roll home! We all totally and utterly overate, but will not need to eat for another week at least! We were interested to be told that today was the first time they had done Brunch and it would now be happening on a weekly basis, and by the way, on May 10th it's Mothers Day and all mums can eat free. Well, mum, guess what, we have made a booking already and you have it to look forward to!!
After such a huge lunch we had to head into Zhongshan
Park itself for a walk and for the kids to try and run off some of the E numbers they had consumed! Suzanne grabbed some blankets and we managed to find a small expanse of grass to plant ourselves on while the boys kicked the football around with some random joiners-in. As always, the park was packed and full of people flying kites. Several times, we were almost beheaded by kite wires (well, almost!) but it was so lovely to just sit and watch the world around us. As we discussed, a very cheap and relaxing way to spend a sunday afternoon.
Phew.....well, how can we follow that with news of the rest of our week?! I guess we need to say that we have now officially signed our contracts to stay another year. It is very good news, as we now have a little stability in place and can make some plans, and also our bank managers will be a little happier with us! We will be coming home in early July for visits, sadly without the use of a car, and will be returning to Shanghai in early August in order to find ourselves a much better
living space for next year and get settled before we start work in mid August. It's all very exciting, and so much nicer now that the sun is shining.
We have had the most amazing weather this week and I even got sunburnt yesterday! We had a very quiet day yesterday as we had a rather large night on Friday. We met up with the Clitheroe Crew again on Friday night, this time on Hong Mei Lu at the Big Bamboo. We met at 6pm and I brought the children back here and set them up with a DVD before the ayi arrived to take over at 8pm. We have to tell you how wonderful our new ayi is. She now comes every morning for 2 hours and does all the cleaning and ironing. It is exactly what we need, and she doesn't interfere with our lives, she is calm and gentle and the children even like her! So I returned to the bars to find Ian and the Clitheroe Crew had joined a whole bunch of teachers from school and had become rather drunk. Once I have caught up a little, we decided we should soak some of
the alcohol up and went off for a Teppanyaki. Well, it was a rather amusing experience to say the least, and also a very drunken one. All kinds of meat was ordered, including some very ropey chicken wings (which Ian promptly blamed for feling rough yesterday might I add!) and some chicken bits which were decidedly not normal. Throw some sake into the mix and it can be seen what a fun time we had! By 11pm, I decided I needed to rescue the ayi and Chris, Helen and Richard retreated to their hotel. Ian and Jonathan were on a roll and continued on until what time we are not sure, but around 3am at a bit of a guess!
Needless to say, Ian was not feeling great yesterday morning when we went off to work....but was slightly cheered when he rang me shortly afterwards to say he was on his way home again! Luckily, the classes were off as the children had other tests, so he came back and hid under the duvet. I lovingly removed the children from the mix and we went for ice creams and playing and I did a spot of sunbathing in the
park! After a family lunch with a slightly more human daddy, I nipped off for a pedicure and gossip with Ms Victoria, before a lovely family evening of pizza and a movie. A very relaxing day all round, just what we needed before a big Easter Sunday!
So, on that Happy Easter note, I shall nip off to catch up on my Alex Rider reading......am a teenager all over again!
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Marina
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What a great way to spend Easter! I'm actually in Shanghai now and loving it. It's funny because my cousin lives near Zhongshan park. It's really busy on Sundays! I spent Easter in Xian. It was wonderful! Maybe you can try going. The warriors are very impressive. I got my tickets from Springtravel which is located on Ding Xi Lu. A roundtrip flight was about 1100rmb. I LOVE the prices here!