Haungpu River

Why do I ever forget to save? I’m writing this blog again because I forgot to!

So Querston, Omar, Sly and me went down to the Bund today and walked around and we went on a cruise down the Haungpu River. We had a huge boat and it gave us the opportunity to see both sides of the city. Shanghai is split by the river into the Puxi side and the Pudong side. Since Querston lives on the Puxi side, it was nice to see the Pudong side. 

I took a ton of pictures and we even met another group of people from Indiana. This makes our second in four days. So I have officially met more Hoosiers in China than in London. 

Sly seemed to love the boat and I’m pretty sure that we went all the way to the mouth of the Yangtze River. Again, the tour guide aspect isn’t that great with my little Berlitz book that I bought, but it gets me by!

Click here to look at the photos!

Yu Yuan Park

So, Querston and I decided that we would go to Yu Yuan Garden. Everyone suggested seeing it and we thought it would be fun to see the flowers. We decided we could bring Sly because it was outdoors, so if he got upset, it wouldn’t really matter since we weren’t inside...

Our first mistake was deciding not to bring the Baby Bjorn. We decided instead to tote around Sly in his stroller. Well, it would be an understatement to say that China isn’t exactly stroller-friendly. We spent more time in the park determining how exactly we’d get through crevices and down walkways than we did actually learning anything about the park. 

So mostly, we’re pretty sure we missed the historically significant things, but we did take some cool photos! Click here to check them out!

China

Oh to actually understand what day it is?!? I think I’m actually writing this on May 25, but I can’t actually tell with the time difference here... It’s 5 a.m. and jet lag has me sleepy really early and this morning, up really early as well. It gave me a chance to see why it’s dark here in China at 7 p.m. in May! It’s 5 a.m. and it has been light for over 30 minutes!!! You’d need to be up and going at like 7 a.m. to get the maximum impact of the day. Just a muse, don’t think I could handle that. Thank God for 9 p.m. sunsets in London.

Ok, so having safely landed and entered Shanghai, I have entered an alternative universe where the driving is INSANE, the people are wonderful and the food has been American (is it bad that I’ve had Papa John’s on three different continents now?)

Seriously, I have never in so many near-miss car crashes as I have here in Shanghai! We have almost hit cabs, other vans, people on mopeds, people on bikes, we’ve even nearly maimed a few pedestrians, although it didn’t seem to phase them. I almost got hit by a cab while standing out in front of Querston’s apartments. And no I wasn’t in the middle of the street, I was in the entranceway! 

So far I’ve seen the Pearl TV Tower, but I didn’t take pictures as we were simply driving by it and I’ve seen the people. It isn’t quite the mass of people I was expecting, but there are a ton of people here for sure.

Today we are going to the Yu Yuan Garden and I am so excited. The guidebook said it would be fun and Rick suggested it too, so hopefully I will love it. Of course I will post pics as well.

I also went to the fabric market here in Puxi where Q lives. I got three suits made, a linen skirt and five dress shirts for 1540 RNB. That shakes out to $198.45. I’m hoping that they will all fit and not fall apart and that I like them, but if I really get all that for under $200, well I’m a happy camper. Going back on Monday to check out the results.

Also plan to go on a river cruise and see the Bund and hopefully the museum with the replica of Shanghai that Linda mentioned. Also plan to go for drinks at the tallest hotel in the world, Grand Hyatt. Will write all about it later!

Best Day

Today was the best day ever. My computer said that it was 75 degrees, which was incredible considering that if I was in the states, it would have been 45 degrees. I was able to sleep in and had nothing on my agenda.

So I applied for a few jobs and sent a couple of emails. After that, I got dressed in a wrap dress and heels. Then, I decided to go on our balcony and read. So yep, I got dressed to go on our balcony, but it was what I wanted to do and I didn’t have to explain it to anyone.

I got my music out, made a glass of iced tea and kicked up my feet. After about 90 minutes, I got bored and went over to see Drew and Jocelyn. Took a walk through the neighborhood and was simply smiling the entire time. No reason, just wearing sandals and relaxing in London, can’t really complain about life when it’s like that. 

After going back to reading Good in Bed for another hour or two, Audrey called to invite me to a drink in Covent Garden. As much as I wanted to go, I’m scaling back the booze money, or spending money on anything, so I skipped. 

I moved inside as it was getting dark. Almost at the end of my book and it was really fun to still be reading and not be bothered. Athena called and invited me for pie. Since I was almost done with the book and technically pie is a necessity, not a luxury, I conceded. I put on the dress and heels I was wearing earlier and caught the bus to Oxford Circus. We walked, talked and got Ben & Jerry’s. Mmmm, chocolate chip cookie dough and fudge brownie!!! Plus catching up with Athena was great.

After about an hour relaxing and being amused in Picadilly Circus, we headed home. Back here now, showered and ready for bed. Relaxed and ready to greet the day tomorrow. Here’s hoping I can get some equally wonderful sleep!

Dehumidifier? Are you kidding me?

We have a mold problem in our house. So the inept housing agency which is Pathmeads Property Management sent over “extractor fans” to rid us of our mold problem. What they didn’t tell us was that they would be sending industrial strength dehumidifiers... 

If you can even imagine, this thing was one of TWO they thought we should have in our two bedroom, 600 sq. ft. apartment. Are you joking? There was even a separate voltage converter for the thing that was about as big as a paint can! 

The guy told us that we’d need to move it from room to room about every two weeks. And since it was so heavy, he’d come back to do it...every two weeks. Sure that sounds like fun! I’ll just stay home from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every two weeks so you can wheel around our dehumidifier.

Just another day with our property management, whom I’m sure would have been sued blind if they were working in the US. Makes me miss home...

Sanjaya

So, thanks to the internet, I can happily keep up with my American Idol obsession that is being regulated by medication, but started immediately after the first season started when I was in undergrad.

That being said, I’ve always rooted for the belter. The person who can sing with such incredible power that you are sure she or he can take on any song as long as it requires a good singer. 

To that end, this season I’ve happily been rooting for...well the black people. Jocelyn’s mom called one night (she loves Idol as well) and said in a thick Boston accent, “Those black girls are wicked good.” And Mrs. Keith I agree. Melinda, Lakisha, Sabrina, Jordin and Stephanie rounded out a group of people who were actually fun to listen to because you were fairly certain that it would be beyond their singing ability that would be a challenge. The judges weren’t going to constantly talk about how they sounded, more about challenging them in other aspects of the contest. 

I too love a good challenge, so I think that I’m going to start rooting for the antithesis of these girls -- Sanjaya. I think it would be so cool to have my kids come home from elementary school one day and show me the chapter in their American history textbooks where it said the nation truly fell apart and went nuts. Forget the Iraq war, Sanjaya Malakar won American Idol as one of the biggest, most cohesive jokes American’s ever played on themselves.

How this kid is still on the show is beyond me, but I think it would be great for him to win. Simon has promised to quit (awful - but I’d love to see if it would happen). Fans are begging for the voting to cost money to stop power voters and people like Howard Stern are now weighing in on this show, which just ups it’s street cred in my opinion.

So, in hopes of seeing hell freeze over, or pigs fly or all the other crazy things that can happen, here’s to Sanjaya winning... thank God I watch Idol the next day so I can’t vote! 

Sick

I’m home on a sick day today :( Sad, I think that I could blame Nolan or Thabi and Edu, but instead I’ve taken it out on the growing mold problem that we have in our apartment. On the upside, I was really productive today, which is extremely exciting. 

Hopefully, our landlord will decide to have the mold tester come sooner than later, not holding my breath (although I probably should). I looked up a bunch of home remedies to get rid of the mold. It looks like we’re stuck with either keeping the windows open at night or getting one heck of a dehumidifier. Since I don’t want to spend £150 ($300) on anything at this point, looks like we’re going to freeze our butts off til the weather gets nicer. 

On that note, it was 56 F here today! Can’t wait for spring (Mom, don’t forget my flip flops!)

Anyone else got any good mold remedies? Weather stories? Ok, back to watching downloaded television!