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Published: November 3rd 2010
I Heart Shanghai
You can surely feel the love for this city!Beware this blog is going to be full of random thoughts!
We have officially made it one month in China! Can you believe it?! Just as we expected, time is flying by! Guess we must be having fun! If you’ve kept up with the blog, you’ve read about all the fun we’re having experiencing new adventures everyday!
Well, during my first month I have learned that there are some cultural differences that I am never going to get over. I wouldn’t call myself high maintenance… I like camping, wildlife, experiencing new places (clean or dirty, exotic or luxurious); hell I’ll even eat chicken out of an open-air bin and taste pig’s tongue! But I do enjoy living a rather comfortable and clean lifestyle in which I don’t have to worry about contracting diseases from foreign creatures crawling on or even near me.
Last week at the office, there was a rat crawling above my head in the cavity between the ceiling tiles and the floor above. It was running around like a racehorse at the Kentucky Derby. As I took my feet off the floor and folded my legs underneath me, I followed the noise with my eyes
and scoped out the ceiling for possible entrances into the office. I noticed a large hole in the corner nearest me, where some cables come through the ceiling to the server. I also observed that the ceiling tiles stretching the entire office are slightly sagging (probably from the rodents using our ceiling as a running track)! So for days, the rat has made our ceiling its home; sleeping in the morning, exercising in the afternoon, and who knows what he does at night! He will even poke his head down at times to check out what’s going on in the office. In fact, the other day he showed himself, his whole kitten-sized self. As I scurried to pick my feet up off the ground and began shaking, I pictured him twisting down the cables like a fire pole and hiding in the corner or under my desk! I looked back and he was gone. And I was in the corner all by myself! Blair was at a meeting, Kiki was in Beijing and Frank was at his wedding. It was there, quivering in my chair that I almost had a meltdown. Then Blair signed onto Skype and informed me that
he had gone home after his meeting. I was outta there as fast as I could pack up my computer and run out the door!
I returned the next day and peeked in the corner to find that there wasn’t even a trap set up. The “mouse hunters” came later that afternoon to drop one off, but to this day I have not arrived at work to find a mouse chattering away inside the corner trap. And every afternoon, the sound of the rat nibbling close to my corner hole sends shivers down my back.
The office building doesn’t seem to be all that bad (you saw the exterior pictures). I was told that it’s only about 13 years old, but I think it just hasn’t been well-maintained. Langley also informed us that if a building has a restaurant, it is notorious for rats. And since buildings are completely interconnected by a system of ducts, the rats are able to make their way to all the other floors, even if it consists of travelling over 20 stories! Thankfully (knock on wood), there is a big push right now to move to a new office space. They have found
Bridge over Suzhou Creek
It changes colors throughout the night! a new space, which is luxurious to say the least and we are hoping it will be finalized quickly!
So that’s the office; in our apartment, we have a small cockroach problem. In the beginning it was a small big cockroach problem, but now that we are taking the necessary precautions it is only a small small cockroach problem (the second adjective referring to the size of the creature). It was a relaxing evening after work. We had finally started to feel settled into our new Shanghai lifestyle and I had begun attempting new recipes from my Chinese cookbooks. I had labored over the stove to make a really yummy Chinese dinner of General Tso’s chicken and rice. When we were finished eating, we walked into the kitchen to clean up and found 2 large cockroaches staring up at us (one on the gas burner and one on the counter) and 2 small ones in the sink. Guess it was a good dinner! I allowed my personal pest control specialist to take care of the situation while I tried to control my pounding heart in the other room. It was one of those moments when you realize that all
The Bund
with historic Puxi buildings in the background the hard work you have put into something turned out to be for absolutely nothing. You would think that days of cleaning would prevent the cockroaches from roaming our apartment. No siree! In addition to cleaning uncontrollably and spraying the area with Raid, we have to wash our dishes immediately after finishing a meal, clean every surface which may have been touched by food, take the trash out every night AND store any open food items inside the refrigerator (even crackers). What a pain! But if it keeps the roaches away, I’m game!
Next random topic; I don’t know how the pregnant and hungover survive this city. There are so many foreign smells you encounter on a daily basis just strolling down the sidewalk; urine, sewage, trash, cigarette smoke, other types of smoke, odd spices from street vendors, odd burnt spices, oh and you can’t forget exhaust. Allow me to expand on a couple of these. The percentage of people who smoke here can probably be compared to the days of my parents. And besides a few disregarded “no smoking” signs here and there, you will not find laws of any kind regarding smoking. What gets me the most
Historic Building on the Bund
I think this is the HSBC building. is the amount of people who smoke within our office building. I walked into the bathroom one day and couldn’t even breathe because someone was smoking in the stall next to me. People will put out a cigarette just before the elevator reaches our floor and finish exhaling inside. Due to lack of ventilation, the smoke accumulates throughout the day making the afternoons almost intolerable. As for the urine smell; it seems to be acceptable here for children to pee on the streets, like a dog! And they don’t even try to hide it. In fact, at Expo, we were standing on the side of the street, leaning against a fence, waiting for the parade to begin when I hear water running. I look over and to my dismay the little boy next to me is peeing on the street completely oblivious to the thousands of people surrounding him. I have even seen children rewarded by their parents for relieving themselves. Also, it seems that some children, instead of wearing diapers, run around in pants completely slit open through the crotch area. I don’t understand!
On a more appetizing note, before I came to Shanghai, I started preparing myself
for the “Shanghai Diet” I would be going on. Assuming I could maintain an active lifestyle, I would only lose weight on a diet of rice, meat and vegetables, right?! I am now convinced that I will probably gain weight while I’m here. (1) We can’t read Chinese characters, so I have no idea what the nutritional facts on the packages say. (2) We’re not supposed to eat fruits and vegetables without first cooking them… there go salads, fresh fruit… everything must be chopped and boiled which is so much more work! The CDC also recommends not eating/drinking dairy products, which at first thought seems healthier, but there goes yogurt, a healthy bowl of cereal! (3) Because of number 2, it is quite a bit easier to go out to eat and pretty reasonably priced too compared to the US. But the easiest restaurants for us to go to are KFC, Pizza Hut & Papa John’s because they have English menus. And (4) I haven’t been able to maintain my active lifestyle. Blair & I tried to go for a run one evening after work a couple weeks ago… there’s a beautiful park about a mile from our apartment which
A Gated Door
to one of the historic buildings on the Bund we figured would be great for running! We planned to run to the park, run around the park and run back, which would total about 3 miles. Well we got out onto the street and realized we were insane to try running in such a busy city (everyone stared at us like we were insane too)! Our knees would be shot by the time we reached the park, trying to dodge the people and bikes on the streets, that is if we didn’t get run over first! We ended up walking to the park, running around the park, and walking back. After an hour adventure and an hour of inhaling vehicle exhaust, we realized that exercise is just not the way of life in Shanghai. We even tried to join a gym (there’s a small fitness room at the hotel across the street) but they wanted to charge us $50 per month each! Granted we do walk A LOT here, but I just don’t feel like I’m getting a true cardio workout. 😞
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Joni Blair
non-member comment
Thanks
I found you by mistake because my name is Joni Lynn.....wait for it......Blair. I am a stay home mom of four who lives in Missouri. Sounds like you are embracing your adventures in Shanghai. I may have to live vicariously through your travel blog. Thanks for sharing:)