We've been living in Shanghai a little over a week. Needless to say, it's a bit daunting trying to find our way around. Shanghai is a very large city and when we first arrived, we took a taxi everywhere. Now, a little over a week, I am now dragging Matthew all over town by train and it's incredibly cheap (16 RMB roundtrip for the two of us which is US $2.00) . Our first adventure on the train didn't go as planned. I wanted to take Matthew to visit this area called Xintiandi (which means New Heaven and Earth). Typical tourist trap but, I wanted to save his brain from turning into mush from watching too much Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon (yes, those channels are here thanks to satellite tv). Getting off the train, we were supposed to transfer to another train to get to where we were supposed to go. Instead, we wound up at the Cloud 9 Mall. Okay, not a bad compromise, but not quite where I wanted to go. We exited the train station instead of going down the corridor to the train platform. Fast forward, several days later, I am proud to say that I managed to get Matthew to the Shanghai Science Museum in Pudong and we spent a wonderful day together at the Museum. Today, we went back on the train to the Pudong side and found the Shanghai Aquarium and, what's that across the street? Another MALL!!! This mall had things that I never thought I would see in Shanghai- like Sephora, Kenny Rogers Roasters (who knew that the cowboy would be a celebrity here as well?), Nike and all the other brand names that we're familar with in the States.
Ordering food can be a bit of a problem since we're trying to get by with my limited Mandarin. In frustration, I often pepper my conversation with Cantonese which causes people to say to me "Shen Me?" which translated means "What the hell are you saying?". When we order meals, I often call it "Mom's Surprise" because who knows what I ordered in my limited Mandarin. So far, we haven't eaten anything that I can't identify so, that's a good thing.
We're still waiting for the arrival of our air shipment from the States. We're supposed to receive it on Friday, the 21st. This is after we were told we were supposed to receive it no later than Friday, July 14th. I've learned one thing since I've been here, nothing ever shows up on time.
