Humpty Dumpty

Well, believe it or not (because I can't), Susan sprained her ankle again only this time it was the other leg. Our compound has beautiful grounds with streams and small bridges. A bridge, which will remain nameless, was the culprit. We were walking to the shuttle bus to go into town. It had been raining for the past few days so the walkways were wet. The bridges are arch shaped, with sharp inclines and declines. Have I set the stage, good. Well, on the down side of this bridge Susan slipped and twisted her ankle. Luckily, we have a medical center on the compound so we collectively hobbled over to see the doctor. Now I would like to pause here to rant a bit. The medical facility is a satellite office of a western style hospital. That's the good news, the bad news is that every time we go in there they tell us to go to the hospital. What good is having a medical center in the compound if all they do is tell you to go to the hospital, a statement which I verbalized loudly. Anyway, a nurse looks at Susan for about 4 seconds and sends her off. The club house is a few painful steps away so we decided to go in and sit down and, of course, have french fries. The attending doctor must have felt guilty because she found us in the clubhouse and did a more thorough examination. So now Susan is hobbling again, damn I hate that.

Since Susan feels obligated to sprain her ankle every few months, I've decided to create, "AIR BAG PANTS." Yes, the concept is similar to the airbag in your car. In the event that Susan starts to fall, her pants will inflate, becoming a ball and thus preventing her from falling down. She might roll down a hill but she won't sprain an ankle. I have to work out a few details but I think it will be a big seller for spastic people.

Wu Zhen

Last day in Hangzhou. We had a tour booked to a water village called Wu Zhen. Wu Zhen is where scenes from Mission Impossible III were filmed. The scenes where Tom Cruise was running through the water village is familiar for many.

We were up before the roosters and headed to breakfast. We figured it would be a good idea to eat something since heading to a water village- the quality of cuisine would be.....questionable.

We were on the tour bus and the guide goes into a non-stop 60 minute monologue about Wu Zhen. They must all be trained to do this. In fact, I could see the want ad for this position. "Wanted: Girl with a very shrilly voice who can speak non-stop without breathing". I was able to understand her better since she spoke a bit slower than yesterday's guide so I knew what was coming. We decided to separate from the tour group and explore the village on our own.

We wandered around and found some interesting sites. This is yet another village that is stuck in imperial China. These are tourist attractions because places like this are disappearing. China is developing so quickly that traces of the past will soon be gone forever.

It was lunch time and the kids were getting hungry. Now this was going to get ugly. All that was available were local restaurants and they were not going to have any of that. They insisted that they saw a McDonalds but, surprise, we couldn't find it. Now, gentle reader, there is nothing worse than a whiny, hungry kid and we had two to deal with. All we could find was a convenience store. The only things the kids ate were Oreos, Chinese moon pies and M&M's. I know, I know, not the healthiest of diets but at least they stopped whining. Besides, how much worse can it be than smelly tofu?

We had a nice tour of Wu Zhen and then left to return to the railway station for our train back to Shanghai. In between, we gobbled down some KFC. Yes, another healthy meal on the road.

Hopped the train and returned to Shanghai. Picked up a taxi and waltzed in the door at 8:30 PM. Popped some laundry into the washing machine and we're watching Mission Impossible III. What a way to end the weekend.

Tonglu

On the third day of our trip to Hangzhou, we thought it would be a good idea to take a bus trip to explore an old nearby village. The tour was filled with locals and conducted in Chinese. We were not able to follow the monologue since the tour leader was speaking as if she was on crack, extremely fast and with few pauses. It was impossible to figure out what the trip was all about. She spoke like this for an hour straight. I thought my head was going to explode!

We arrived at a place called "Grandma's village". A small town that is locked in the past. It felt like we were in imperial China waiting for the emperor. As part of the tour, we took a raft ride down the Tianmu River, the Chinese really love raft rides. Let's just say- the weather wasn't helping. It was coming down in buckets. We purchased plastic ponchos which were thinly disguised garbage bags. They didn't last for the first kilometer of the ride, disintegrating into pieces upon contact with water.

We then went to a local restaurant for lunch and by "restaurant" I mean "roach coach". It was more like someone's house then a proper eating establishment but we were a captive audience and had no choice. The kids didn't want anything and quite frankly, nothing was appetizing on the menu. We ordered tofu to be on the safe side. The tofu had a rather unique aroma and was grey in color. We were convinced the it was strained through a pair of pantyhose to give it that unique flavor. Needless to say, we didn't eat anything.

We headed over to Yaolin Fairyland to tour the under ground caverns. This was a truly spectacular site. Nature is an incredible thing, something man can not duplicate, ..... except Disney.

We ended the day with a phenomenal dinner at Va Bene, yes, an Italian restaurant in China! Two bottles of wine, pasta with clams and a wonderful dessert made up for the terrible lunch we had.

Tomorrow, we will head to Wu Zhen. An ancient water town about 1.5 hours away by bus. Yes- another tour with the local Chinese. Then we're heading back to Shanghai by high speed train.

International Incident....Almost

It was drizzing all day in Hangzhou. We were wandering around sightseeing when we came across a statue of a famous local resident. Rainer struck a pose with the statue holding its beard in his hand. Suddenly, we began to hear shrills in rapid fire Chinese from a very old woman. At first, we had no idea what she was saying and who she was saying it to. Eventually, we realized that she was screaming at us. According to Matthew's translations, she kept saying "stupid and brainless". She was making quite a scene. People gather at a drop of a hat in China and this tirade drew many people. Her husband kept trying to stop her but to no avail. Obviously, we could only do one thing, laugh hysterically. This only fueled the fire. We weren't doing it to be mean, we thought the whole situation was so absurd. Apparently, she was upset that Rainer disrespected the local hero by pulling his beard. The funny thing was, everyone that posed with this statue, pulled his beard as well. Apparently, it's because we were foreigners that it was disrespectful. Now you understand why we were laughing.

We hopped a ferry that took us to three small islands on the lake. Unfortunately, the weather was not ideal for picture taking but it was still beautiful to see. We headed back to the city to search for lunch and we found Crystal Jade. It's one of our favorite restaurants in Shanghai and we were relieved to see a branch in Hangzhou. Beijing duck, spicy chicken, tofu and other dishes were inhaled at lightening speed. One thing we haven't lost being in China is our appetites. All our fans can attest to that.

Hangzhou

Since we're home for the holidays, we decided to take short trips to surrounding towns. Our first stop was Hangzhou. It is considered to be the backyard of Shanghai. It's got lots of trees, lakes and clean air.....things that Shanghai doesn't have. In fact, Hangzhou reminded us alot of Connecticut. A high speed train took us from Shanghai to Hangzhou in 1 hour and 18 minutes. We're staying in a five star hotel close to West Lake.

Hangzhou was once the capital of China during the Southern Song Dynasty (AD 1127-1279) and is known for West Lake. It is surrounded on three sides by hills, temples, pavillions, gardens and arched bridges. The lake runs about 3 miles across and 9 miles around, a truly beautiful place. We took a boat ride across the lake. I'm exaggerating when I say boat. It was more like a sampan with a single paddle. The man paddling the boat had as many teeth as paddles and he kept telling us how fat we all were and that he should charge us more money. I wanted to push him into the water. Of course, he thought this was great fun....top that with him singing "Happy Birthday to You" in Chinglish, it was an interesting ride.

After dinner, we wandered around the lake and found the musical fountain. It was great to listen to music and watch the water dance to it. It was very nice way to end the day.

Uncle Boris

Boris is a very good friend of ours who was recently hospitalized. Word traveled fast from Duracell. Irina, Boris' wife, was mystified how word got to us so fast. Hey, we still have our connections. Shortly after we heard about Boris' illness, Tony was hospitalized. It was as if it was a sympathy illness, misery loves company. They were both laid up in the hospital and miserable. Luckily, they've both recovered.

Boris and Irina have both been an important part of our lives. They have big hearts and they love Matthew immensely. Boris was solely responsible for introducing the Kinder eggs to Matthew. It's a chocolate hollow egg with a toy inside Matt has loved those thing ever since he was small. Of course Boris would over indulge him buying a carton at a time instead of one. I think he really loves to make Matthew happy. Thanks to Boris' introduction, we were roped into buying the Kinder egg Advent calendar this Christmas. That's 24 eggs, one for each day until Christmas. You really don't want to know how expensive the Advent calendar was, especially in China. Even though Boris and Irina are half way around the world, they were there in spirit as Matthew held those eggs close to his heart and smiled.

So, Uncle Boris and Aunt Irina will be spending a quiet Christmas holiday at home so Boris can recover. We'll be home as well, Shanghai I mean, doing the same so that we can spend time as a family which is the true spirit of the holiday.

Christmas Gathering

We're all officially on vacation- Matthew's out of school, Tony's home from work and me, well... according to Matthew, I am always on vacation. We'll be together for the next three weeks. Three glorious weeks of togetherness....yeah. We went into the city today to have lunch with a friend of ours, Alice. She lives in Shanghai most of the time and returns to Hong Kong every few weeks to see her family. So, since we're all nomads, we decided that it would be great to get together for the Christmas holidays. We met at Xintiandi today for lip smacking dim sum and what not. Two hours of eating non-stop and we all waddled out of there. We said our goodbye's to Alice and we'll see her when she returns after the New Year.

In the meantime, it's a very small world. We headed back to pick up the shuttle bus to get home and I ran into my friend Nicole. Tony looked at Brian (Nicole's husband) as if he knows him from somewhere but can't quite place him. Brian does the same. While we were chit chatting, we find out that Tony and Brian worked together at Duracell in Bethel, Connecticut. What a small world! Brian is now with 3M and is here on assignment in China as well. Funny thing- it turns out that they live in the building next door to us. It shows us that the world is truly a small place.

Kitchen Is Closed

This is Matthew's last week of school. Then he's off for the next three weeks. I've spent the day baking today. I started at 7 AM and finished around 6:30 PM. I was trapped in the kitchen. I made two loaves of banana bread, two trays of brownies, chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies and shortbread cookies. Total count on cookies- about 400. I've packed up most of the shortbread cookies for the holiday party at Matthew's school tomorrow. The kids will frost and decorate the cookies. Everything else will be going to Tony's office. I often send platters in during the year when I bake and the locals love it. They've gotten used to seeing something sitting in the pantry from me. The locals don't bake at all. The traditional Chinese kitchen does not have an oven. Most of them would rather buy it at the local bakery. However, I've tasted the local baked goods and it's not suited for the American palette. We bake with real butter, lots of sugar and most of all, chocolate. Good chocolate. That is something that is not replicated by a local Chinese bakery.

Of course, right after I was done with all the baking, I had to turn around and start dinner for us. Roasted chicken with vegetables. So, the oven was on for a record 11.5 hours today. I don't care to see another cookie, brownie or banana bread for a while. I can't wait to see what my gas bill will be next month.

Environmental Violations

Every day, there is smoke billowing somewhere in Shanghai. Particularly, in our neighborhood, it happens practically 24 hours a day. Sometimes, it's so grey outside, that you honestly think it's a very cloudy day. You can't identify the direction it's coming from...but none the less, you can really smell it. Here in China, there is no environmental protection agency. At least that I know of. Really. People openly burn their trash on the side of the roads, toss their plastics on the side and most of all, people hang their laundry out to dry with the distinct aroma of burned trash clinging to their freshly laundered goods. Go figure. Often times, I like to have the windows open to get the fresh air circulating. Only then, when I get a whiff of the burning trash, I quickly close the windows. Haven't these people figured out about recycling for the sake of the environment and not burning the trash that is clearly ruining the ozone layer? Guess not.

Back in the US, I was an avid recycler. Newspapers, magazines, paper products, glass, cans and plastics. You know the weekly pick up was quite enormous coming out of my home. I am still recycling here. I sort everything out and put it into a separate bag. Tony thinks it's an absolute waste of time for me to sort since the locals don't do it. I can't break my habit. I am really trying to contribute to the environment. Instead, the locals put all the trash into one bin and then someone has the unpleasant job of sorting through everything to pull out the plastic and what not. That is really not a pleasant job and I feel for the person who has to do it. I've walked by and seen someone diving into the dumpster pulling things out into a pile. I can't figure out why the government hasn't implemented recycling. Perhaps it's to give the locals jobs to sort through the dumpster.

So, when we return from this assignment, I will probably glow in the dark from all the environmental hazards I have exposed myself and my family to. It'll be my souvenir from this part of the world.

Christmas Concert

Matthew and his band mates performed today at the elementary school Christmas recital. He was blowing real hard on his saxophone and he also played the snare drums for one of the songs. It was a twist on the traditional songs that I know. The kids performed "Castles and Kings", "Jingle Bones" and "Yo Christmas Tree!". It was a really great to watch him play and we were very very proud. Tony had the opportunity to attend since he is on the mend.

There has been a lot of rehearsals for the kids over the past three and a half months and it was very hard to hear the same songs over and over again. Practice makes perfect and the kids were able to achieve this moment on stage. Matthew and his band mates will have to perform at the school assembly next Friday and then holiday vacation starts. Three glorious weeks of sleeping late and doing nothing for Matthew. He's really looking forward to it.

Christmas is Coming!

Tony's home recuperating. We decided it would be a good day for us to put up the Christmas tree. Not the same like in Connecticut. We have a tradition where we go out and pick a fresh cut tree and spend the weekend decorating it. This tree isn't fresh cut and came out of a box. Tony put it together and Matthew and I put the decorations on. Not quite the same but it's better than nothing. We're not going anywhere this Christmas holiday. We're going to stay in Shanghai and just take it easy. Last year, we spent Christmas and New Year's in Hong Kong. It will be interesting to see what Shanghai has to offer for the Christmas holidays here. Most of the expatriates are returning home to spend the holidays.

While assembling the tree, we noticed that there was a little tag on the tree branch that read "Flammable". Ok- that's not something we would expect. All the faux trees in the US are non-flammable. Another reality for living in Shanghai. There isn't the same standards for safety here. Take for instance, restaurants. There isn't a smoking and non-smoking section. Well, if there is, it's a matter of be separated by one table. Hello--- what's to stop the smoke from spewing over to the non-smoking area? Have they heard of proper ventilation? Apparently not. Second hand smoke is an issue. We often walk out smelling like ashtrays.

So, Christmas is several weeks away. Uncle Tony will be mailing our holiday cards from New York when he gets back later this week. I still haven't figured out what to get Matthew and Tony for Christmas. I don't think cash would work in this instance. Gift cards are not even an option here. The stores don't get the concept. Looks like I have to go around and educate the locals on the benefits of selling gift cards.

Recuperating

Tony and his friends left last Sunday to return to Hong Kong and it has been a whirlwind. Matthew got sick on Monday and missed school. Packed him off to school on Tuesday only to have Tony come home complaining that he wasn't feeling well. Flu like symptoms, stomach issues and what not. He was running a fever on Wednesday morning and I asked him not to go into the office. He didn't listen to me. He went in and came home several hours later. Raging with fever and complaining of severe stomach cramps. Tony's lips and fingernails were blue and I didn't like what I saw. I called Mr. Miao and dragged Tony out of the house to go to the hospital. He kept insisting that all he needed was gatorade. He was probably right but I wanted to get a professional opinion on the whole situation.

He was running a 104 degree fever and was doubled over in pain. He was admitted into the hospital that evening for severe dehydration and acute gastroenteritis. Basically, he had a severe bacterial infection and was on demerol, IV saline, antibiotics and potassium. Four days later, he was released. Scary situation. We don't know what type of bacteria it was and how he got it. He'll be on antibiotics for a few more days. Luckily, we're living in Shanghai where there are decent expatriate hospitals and the doctors speak English. I keep wondering what would have happened if we were living in the middle of Sichuan or some small remote village in Suzhou. Not a pretty scene.

Tony's recovering and will be home for the next several days. He has to get clearance from his doctor before he can go back to the office. Meanwhile, I cleared out the import market of all the gatorade. I'm making sure he stays hydrated and is resting.