Told you blogging wasn't for me!

Tea Gardens, Changxxing

Yes, I realize that it has been...oh, 7 months since my last post. I often tried to sit down and type up something witty or fun. But that never seemed to happen. It wasn't until I sat down with a dear friend of mine, that I realized what my problem was is. I have some serious insecurities with how I write and totally care about how others will look at me because of it. There. I said it. So, as I attempt to put my struggles behind, I will do my best to bring you up to speed.

Since my last post: we climbed the Great Wall, Bob's dad, mom, sister and nephew came for a visit. We went to Guilin (which was amazing), we climbed the Wall again, we flew to CO, had a nice visit with Jess and Nick, flew to FL. Then we flew "home" and endured a wonderful, hot, humid and smoggy summer by the pools. Noah started school in Y1 (kindergarten for the non-British). Bob is still pushing forward with his degree and I am continue to make pathetic attempts with my Mandarin lessons. Phew!

Here are a few snapshots of said above:

Wall trip #1 with a ton of fog

Eliana's 3rd birthday

Yanlord River, Guilin

Wall trip #2 with visibility

Inlaws at the Wall

Nick, Jess, Noah and Eliana in CO

Ari, Lily, Noah, Eliana, and Ivy- cousins in CO

Noah, Abby (his girlfriend) and Ella in FL

Noah's 5th birthday

The sun is shining and that makes me smile. I really had no idea just how much I needed the warmth of the sun until I was without it for so long. It did wonders for my soul. I have been quite homesick lately. Missing my dog, my friends, my comforts and my sunshine.

 

Noah had a Book Fair last week at school. He had the chance to wear his pajamas one day and his Spiderman costume the next. I even had the opportunity to go and read to his class. He seems to be adjusting to his new routine. He now eats the school lunches and tries something new each day on his plate. His school has an International Food Fair coming up in April and I am looking forward to trying some yummy food.



Noah had a cosutme parade for his Book Fair Week

We had some cultural training a couple of weeks ago that proved to be quite informative:
There are 56 nationalities that are in China! 93% are Han Chinese (they are the ones limited to one child. However, you can pay your year's salary to have another). 55 nationalities make up for the other 7%.

80% are atheiest. There are 5 "religions" found- Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam and Christianity. Islam is the largest.

The Chinese are a culture of shame (we are one of fear).

They refer to where they live not as China, but Zhong Gua, which means center of kingdom.

You should NEVER mention the three T's- Taiwan, Tiananmen Square and Tibet.

And there you have my 8 hour training in just a few, simple sentences. :)

We also got a chance to ride the Magnetic Levitation train, aka the Bullet Train. It goes from Pudong to the Shanghai Pudong Airport. It peaks at 431 km/h.


Bullet Train



That's 267 mph!

Our shipments have all arrived and it has been Christmas all over again. As our 89 "boxes" of stuff started walking through our door, I realized just how much of this stuff we do not need. It was embarassing. We proved to ourselves that we could live minimally for the past two months. Yes, it had it's challenges, but we really got by just fine. The kids missed all of their stuff, but again, it is just stuff. I feel a serious purge coming on...



A beautiful day in People's Square



There goes our sea shipment! :)



More from People's Square

One month!?!

So much for my good intentions again!

A month...30 days...720 hours...43,200 minutes and my Mandarin has not improved. I did hear one good piece of advice, "Don't give up, it will pay off eventually". Like when it's time for us to move back to the states? I will keep. on. trying. Did I mention it is crazy hard?

We moved into our permanent apartment last Wednesday. Yea!! We moved into a bigger unit with tons of natural light and a great view. It was the easiest move EVER! When we only had to move the same stuff we came with via plane (12 bags of luggage and some extra items we have picked up), it had better have been easy!

Our air shipment and sea shipment have not arrived. We were told that our air shipment would take 2-3 weeks. Um, right. It just pains me to have to go out and buy stuff that I know we already have coming- like knives (I tried to survive with just using an IKEA's kids plastic knife), pots, pans, Tupperware and DIAPERS! But we have proved that we can live with just basic stuff. We won't know what to do with ourselves when all of our crap shows up.

Noah started school last week. It has been a pretty big adjustment but he has done very well. He went to three days a week for three hours a day to 5 days and 7 hours. On his first day, I had asked him if he had learned any Chinese. He replied, "No, it's boring." "Okay, but did you learn anything?" "No, because I wasn't listening!". Well, at least he is honest.

We went to a fabulous Mexican restaurant on Saturday! The manager remembered the guys from their trip back in November and treated us very well! Their tortilla soup was incredible but my favorite thing was....their COFFEE! Oh. My. Goodness. It came in a espresso cup and was a party in my mouth. So yummy. I have got to figure out their secret recipe. Their churros were fab too. The other great thing is that we can order Mexican foods there so we can can make our own! Super excited to try that out this week. They invited us all back for a party they are having on Friday. Should be fun.

Mike, Jessia, Heather and Roger

Bob is doing well at the plant. He has his own assistant and he's not sure how to deal with her. He has his work cut out for him there. He has a 2 hour commute one way every day. He gets the opportunity to get all of his homework done. I am thrilled about that. :)

Our home church is going really well too. It's amazing to see God working in each person. The wife agnostic downloaded a bible on her Kindle! She said she wanted to get one so she could argue with Bob. Hey, whatever it takes. We are going through Genesis now and they have so many questions! I just love watching Bob teach. Noah asked when we can start going to "his" church, so we might try a "real" one this weekend.




At the park enjoying the sunshine

Burning some energy while trying to stay warm

 

Our little haven we call home

Life is settling down

My intentions have been to stay on top of this blog and give you daily updates, but obviously that hasn't happened!! I will try and do better...

 We explored the subway here with another one of the families here, the Judd's. We had a great time. Their subway system here is so CLEAN! They have shops and restaurants under there too. Thank God the Judd's rode the subway the day before, because it is extremely intimidating. I am pretty sure that I could get on the wrong one and would never be seen again! We went to the People's Square and had a man follow us around to show us his "stash" of fake stuff. After his persistence, we finally went to a dark, scary alley into a shady looking door to find ourselves in a back room filled with Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Coach and Rolex knock offs. Mrs. Judd walked off with a gorgeous Chanel purse for only $40! It was a great day of fun and laughter.

We then had to rush back home to interview an ayi. Ayi in Chinese means auntie and is given to any woman over 30 years old as a sign of respect. Kind of like Miss in the the US. An ayi is a woman who can clean, cook, and/or care for your kids. I loved the idea of having someone to clean my house (all of you know how much I loathe that). So, God led us to this young lady and she started today. She has been cleaning ever since she arrived at 8:00 this morning. :) She will mostly clean and occasionally help with the kids. It's an odd feeling sitting around and watching someone else do the work. However, I think I can get use to this!

Noah interviewed for a school and God-willing will start next week. He is SO ready to be back in school. He cried when we had to leave. It will be about a 15-20 min. drive to and from. Another boy from our group is going there too, so they will ride together. Eliana might go to the little preschool for a half day here at the compound. We will see how that plays out.

I am extremely motivated to learn Mandarin. I just hate not being able to understand anything! It's very difficult to learn though. Someone told me that if you are musical, you will pick it up. You have to be able to hear the 4 tones they have. Good thing I am. I have been using my Rosetta Stone and it's slowly making a difference. I will say that the people here are MUCH more forgiving with the language than good ol' Rosetta. Phew.




Scooters everywhere



We finally saw some dragon dancing!!

Brooke and Eliana having fun



People's Square

Happy New Year

View from our window

Sunday was the beginning of the Chinese New Year. They pretty much take the entire week off for this holiday. It's like a ghost town out there. Almost all businesses are closed and that means food for our tummies. Tomorrow will be another day of shopping for us. Oh, I forgot to mention our other shopping trips. I can report that the prices improved once we left our little haven. We first ventured to a place called Carrefour. I was able to find my coffee maker, hair dryer and a toaster- all for $90 or so. I also bought a wok. The lady saw fresh bait and ran over to try and sell me the $400 one! I settled for a much cheaper one. We then went upstairs to the grocery level. Mayhem. Maybe it was because people were gearing up for the CNY, or maybe it's the norm. All I can say is that, me no likey. People couldn't stop staring and touching Noah and Eliana. Both kids have been great sports about the whole thing. After we paid, Bob and I got separated for a hour and I almost began to panic. God-willing we found eachother. The problem with not having a way to communicate yet. (we are currently working on that). We then went to another grocery store- City Shop. That will be our place to shop...and they DELIVER!! We were so excited to see Borden cheese ($6 for 8 oz). Bob did a happy dance when he found Best Foods mayo ($12 for 9 oz). Needless to say, we can find what we are used to at this store- at a price (which we are willing to pay). We also opened up a bank account here and signed up for a cell phone account too. We made another to trip to IKEA and things are starting to settle down for us.  

Eliana's room

Noah's room

It's hard to believe that this day has arrived. The day where we call Shanghai, China are home. Our flight was amazing! We were blessed to have an entire section of first class to ourselves and a flight attendant to call our own. Noah and Eliana proved to be quite the world travelers. We all managed to get several hours of sleep and more food than we could have asked for. We made it through customs quickly (thanks to our stroller) and then we had the task of collecting all 9 pieces of checked luggage. That was in addition to our 8 carry-on bags. Unfortunately, we lost one box and have yet to find it. Praying for a miracle that it will show up. Needless to say, we looked ridiculous wheeling our possessions out of the airport.

You can imagine the chuckles we heard as we walked by people. I should have taken a picture of Bob steering them, but I was too focused on getting out of there in one piece and Bob not running over Noah. Oh well...maybe next time.

We made it to our temporary apartment and are trying our best to make this home for a month until we are moved to our permanent unit (that one was not available until mid-Feb). We are within walking distance to the clubhouse where there is an American grocery store, a gym, an indoor pool, an indoor playground and a couple of restaurants. There are families of all nationalities living here. Noah made a friend last night from Denmark. Who knows, they might pick up a couple of extra languages while we are here.

We found IKEA and decided that they might be the cheapest place for us to eat out at. Unfortunately, all of Shanghai has discovered that too. That was Bob's first IKEA experience and he was having a hard time with the crowds there. I quickly reminded him that he was the one that moved us to a city of 30 MILLION people and he should get over his issues with crowds. :)

Tomorrow we will need to grocery shop for a week's worth of food since we don't know what will be open during the Chinese New Year. I can't wait for that bill...

Oh, speaking of bills. Want to take a guess on how much all of this cost?


Minus the Oatmeal Squares cereal (because they couldn't find a price for it)- $90. I about had a coronary. My frugal days are over and no, they do not accept coupons (I asked).

The Countdown

I surprised myself the other night. I got all teary-eyed watching my minivan drive away for the last time. Maybe I'll blame it on all the emotions that I feel for our move to China in two weeks. Maybe it's hormones. But either way, I still cried over a minivan! Earlier that day, Bob's car drove away to a new owner too. Watching both our cars leave on the same day made our next adventure a reality. So the countdown begins...two weeks from today. We leave for Shanghai, China. I hope to allow you all to get a glimpse into our daily life and experience everything right there with us. So, come join Bob, Noah, Eliana and myself as we take our steps in faith in this new country we will call home.