Advertisement
Tick tock. The time is flying and we are racing around doing our favorite things and our must do things as we prepare to pack up and return home next month. We are getting excited about seeing all our friends and family whom we’ve missed like crazy. We are also looking forward to the comforts of our real house and being in our soft beds again. Not so excited about driving a car again, since while not having one, we’ve been able to walk or take public transportation/taxis everywhere we’ve needed to go. Plus no car means less impulse buying. Because in a world of you buy it, you haul it, you think about it more.
The other day I asked everyone what their top three things they’d miss were and what the top three things they wouldn’t miss. We all had different answers. At the top of both Mark and my lists was the sense of excitement that still surrounds life in China. Of course we have the occasional boring day but the opportunity for excitement and adventure feels ever-present here. I do hope we can take that home with us. It’s going to be hard I expect. We
won’t miss the shoving crowds on subways or the hock-a-loogie sound the precedes an actual loogie hocking. I know the kids will miss their friends, the fact that they have very limited chore duty (that’s on all our lists as we have such great domestic help here). I will also miss the school. It’s been a great two years of learning for the kids and making friends for all of us.
Longtime friends of my parents, Sheila and Tom got in touch when they recently came through Shanghai. They were on a tour of China and I was able to see them for an afternoon. Mark met us for lunch and we had a great time. I love meeting people who have known my parents for so long. We did some of the highlights from my now standard best of Shanghai list. We went to Fuxing Park and got there via my haphazard navigating skills and a few attempts at getting directions from strangers on the street. The best part was when I asked an older gentleman for directions in Chinese and he replied in English, explaining that while he was indeed from Shanghai originally, he was from New
York. He did compliment me on my Chinese though which I loved.
We explored the loving French Concession park and then met Mark for lunch at Tai Kang Lu. It’s always fun to show new people our favorite place and see their immediate appreciation for the area. The stores and restaurants and the whole scene is just really fun. It’s touristy but not over the top and there are no vendors trying to sell you watches and bags or lure you to their shops. The stores are full of treasures you don’t find at the junkie markets. We did a little shopping post-lunch, I made sure the taxi driver knew where to take my new friends, and then I was off to meet my kidlets after school.
The next day, Mark and I both went to the Grade 5 invention convention. Our school’s 3 campuses participated and it was a fantastic event. I covered the event last year for the magazine I write for on occasion. This year, I was a judge! Mark had been recruited for the job but I was a last minute substitution when one of the school administrators had to leave unexpectedly. It was
school lunch
better than when I was a kid!fun, I got a free school lunch (dumplings AND chicken nuggets) and we were both there to see Nathan receive an award. He received a certificate for patentability for his Travel-Write travel tray. Go Nathan!
Last weekend was the big extended holiday because it was the opening of Expo weekend. Mark was ill much of it, but the kids and I were about to get out and about. We went to a good old fashioned BBQ one day. Another day we went to Century Park and had a picnic from home and then rented a single row covered bike. Emily sat in the middle and Nathan and I pedaled her around the park. She took pictures. We were asked to have our photo taken with many people, which we did. One couple stopped us and tried to get their daughter to smile for a picture with Emily and Nathan. My kids were great sports but the little Chinese girl was having none of it. The mom was offering to buy her treats (actually milk?) if she would just smile. The mom finally gave up on her kid and took a picture with my kids herself.
I had a
great mother’s day. The kids and Mark treated me very well. I got great cards and Emily made me jewelry. Mark and Emily snuck out and got me a gorgeous bunch of roses from the florist up the street on Sunday morning. Later that day, we went to a Mexican place and had margaritas and yummy food. The kids ate heartily which is always fun to see. Then we set out to find an area with a couple antique stores we’d been wanting to check out.
What should have been an easy journey turned into one of our long, drawn out adventures. We spent over an hour looking for this place, talked to many strangers, met up with a woman on her bike who kindly walked her bike and us on a 40 minute detour back to the right area. The woman was so nice. She was on her way to buy food and when I asked for help, she dropped everything and escorted us. She even called the shop, stopped several other people to ensure our course was correct. While we were walking through these narrow streets and alleyways lined with homes, small shops, food vendors and kids
playing, we had a pretty long chat about ourselves, her work as an ayi (nanny) for a French family with two boys. The fact that we were able to chit chat like this was very fun. We did eventually find the shops, but that became secondary to the adventure we ended up having in trying to find them.
We are winding down with school, lessons and activities as we prepare for the big move. I suggested to my magazine editor that I write a piece on repatriation. I am now starting to sweat it a bit but I’m also glad for the challenge since it will be my last published article while living in Shanghai—comes out about 2 weeks before we move home.
We are gathering intelligence on the Expo and are planning to make a visit soon. We anticipate we will make several visits. It is actually sounding more and more interesting to me and of course we have to go before we move.
Oh, and my leg is all healed. It was a benign something-or-other type of tumor. All fine.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.235s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 53; dbt: 0.1383s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Linda
non-member comment
Loogie?
Great blog! Weather looks good there. Thanks for all the pictures...and captions. Love "Great views while lost". The photo of you getting help is just how I imagined it. What's a "loogie hocking"? Chicago term?