Today we were scheduled to pickup our cargo that shipped by water. We had already started the paperwork on this process last week– it took a good several hours (most tasks here do). Here’s what was involved. We received an email from some company called Divine Phoenix, notifiying us that the shipment had arrived. We then went to their offices downtown and paid 540 RMB (almost $70 USD) to exchange our email printout for another document/slip. We cab about 40 minutes north to the customs office in BaoShan, an outer suburb. There, Nai had to draft a document stating that we moved here for work purposes and our belongings were for personal use. We took that document next door, got a bunch of items photocopied and got another required form typed. By then, it was 11 AM and the first counter where we were supposed to return with the copies and forms was closed for lunch until 1 PM. So we killed some time searching for a restaurant (there only seemed to be one in the area) and then returned at 1 PM. The officer was late returning from lunch (I guess 2 hours wasn’t long enough) so we waited some more. Finally, we got all our papers stamped (once you start hearing the chops, you know you are nearly done… at least at that service window). We were directed next door again. Turns out, the items weren’t even at the offce. We needed to schedule another trip for pickup. That brings us to today.

We brought the necessary documents and were sent behind the building to locate our shipping palet. Our tubs were then x-rayed and two were selected for inspection. The contents were examined and then we were sent off on our merry way. We called a 0.6 truck to transport our goods home. John had the great pleasure of sitting on the metal bench (rather than a car seat) for almost 60 minutes. Those trucks aren’t allowed to go on the highway, so they drive through the city. My grandparents and I only arrived home 15 minutes earlier because of congestion on the highway.

We had six huge Rubbermaid tubs– full of crap. Since we’ve been here, we’ve only worn maybe 3 different outfits. Now we have four tubs of clothes. Disgusting, isn’t it? But now John is all set up with his computer books. I’m thrilled to have my Matrix Amplify shampoo and conditioner (sorry but the freebie HoJo shampoo was like washing my hair with bar soap). Remy and Martin are of course hooked up with their favorite treats– Greenies.

In the afternoon, I had an interview with JobWeek, a publication that prints job vacancies in SH and also features one unemployed person seeking work. Through some distant family connections, I was chosen to be the next featured jobless person. 🙂 So I met with Editor Pearl Shen… she said she wanted to hear my story because that’s how my article was going to be structured– like a narrative/profile. Yes, very weird. But she didn’t speak any English, so I had to give her my gist in Mandarin. So for about an hour and a half, I told her about my education, my previous job experiences, why I left environmental engineering consulting, why FMF was such a great experience for me, why we decided to move here, what I ideally wanted to do. I talked so openly and frankly, it felt like a therapy session. She asked about our inital experiences and outings around the city, our favorite spots, favorite foods, what we disliked. It was a good interview, I thought. I was very proud that I was able to convey my thoughts on complicated issues like feminism, abortion rights, family planning, etc. I just hope when the article comes out, it accurately reflects what I had wanted to express.

Next stop for the day: career counseling consultant. They have a partnership with JobWeek so I was the lucky recipient of a Chinese-style Meyer-Briggs test. Fortunately, my counselor was patient enough to read the questions line by line. Not sure what kind of personality profile will turn up… Certainly not Type A.

While I was occupied with JobWeek logistics, John wandered about the city. He found yet another coffee shop (though he claims he wants become a tea drinker) and was accosted in the mall by some young lady named Su Zi. She offered to “make friends” and go for some coffee. Wisely, John declined her offer for coffee and mentioned he was waiting for his wife. Yeah, that’s right honey. Back off! This ain’t Temptation Island…

We went around town with the gramps today. For lunch, we ate at Bi Feng Tang in the old Shanghai district of Luwan– where my grandmother grew up. Had a lot of tasty morsels, including eggrolls, baozi’s (buns), thai noodles, fish, sesame balls, and veggie wedges (see John’s food and drink guide). After the hearty meal, we went for a walk. Nai’s face lit up every time we passed cross streets she recognized. She’d tell us, “There was a place down that way where we used to order nian gao (a white sticky vegetarian dish)– the best in town!” or “The vendor at this street corner had the best roasted chestnuts.” She seemed so excited to be here. We went searching for her great aunt’s home– she said it was near the intersection of Huai Hai and Chongqing Rd. She had gone there several years back but no longer remembered the address. Going on memory, she led us to the southwest corner of the intersection. After trying several alleys, we found the one Nai remembered. When we asked around for where the Chen family lived, many of the younger adults said they had never heard of the name. What was the business, they asked? An herbal medicine shop–at least that’s what the family ran in the past. No one seemed to know. They told us to ask the elderly so we went knocking on the door of a very old woman–she must have been 90 years old. The Chen family lived next door to her, but the house had been vacant for a long time. It was no longer the primary residence and only ocassionally would she see her neighbors. My grandmother wrote a note and stuck it in the door. When we went around the corner of the house, Nai told of how as children, she and her cousins run around the side of the house and clamoured at the kitchen window, trying to get the attention of her great aunt who was hard of hearing. In the cab ride home, Nai seemed very energized and excited. She has very many fond memories of Shanghai.

Today John and I met up with Wang Jian and his wife Ge Hui Xia. They are related to Uncle Zhu and live in Shanghai. They are newlyweds and roughly the same age as us. Wang Jian works for Shanghai Mobile and his wife is an emergency room nurse. We spent the afternoon at the Oriental Pearl Radio and TV Tower in Pudong (“East of the River”). At 468 meters, it is the third tallest TV tower in the world. We squeezed into the elevator (there’s no such thing as “personal” space here) and rocketed up to 350 meters. The attendent spewed out a ton of facts in both Chinese and English–all perfectly timed for the few seconds we were in the elevator, but I missed most of it. My ears were popping. The view up top was incredible. We lucked out with a beautiful sunny day and you could see so far. I was really taken aback by just how large Shanghai is. I think you can really get a sense of our awe from the pictures.

The lower level of the tower has an extensive Shanghai history museum. They re-created many of the old-style buildings and small shops. The museum was really well-done but it was also a little tiring. Fortunately, Wang Jian and Ya-ya (her nickname) are our kind of museum-goers. They move through things pretty quickly.

For lunch, we ate at the China Shen Jia Garden Restaurant. WJ and Ya-ya ordered and every dish was a winner. We had salad, mushroom soup, fish, salted shrimp, chicken, and some super-potent wasabi-drenched veggie. I mistakenly shoved a bunch into my mouth and I think it burned out all my nosehairs. Lunch was excellent and with John’s help, we even won out with picking up the tab (it’s a constant battle over here).

After lunch, we invited WJ and Ya-ya to our place. We used the pups as our lure. I think they were curious to see just how big our animals were. Pretty big according to SH standards. They stayed for dinner (Nai and Yeb always have something going on in the kitchen).

Hope everyone had a pleasant holiday. We had a good time, though not the usual Christmas. Things started off early, with a trip to the hair salon downstairs. Took the grandparents with us to get a shampoo (which included a 30-minute upper body massage). 25 kuai. So good. The salon also offers foot massages, body massages and other spa services. John and I will be checking all of this out soon.

In the evening, we took my grandparent out to the Zen Cantonese restaurant on the fifth floor of the Grand Gateway Plaza in downtown Xujiahui. Had a nice multi-course holiday dinner with shrimp and fruit salad, fish fin soup, pigeon, cao mei fun, fish, asparagus, and mango pudding. The place filled up quickly. Fortunatley, we arrived early. We were even treated to some live piano music. All in all, a nice feast but John definitely missed his mom’s Christmas ham.

My grandparents are enjoying their time in Shanghai. Many of the major road names seem to bring back ome fond memories from their youth. Riding around town in the taxi, Nai always has a new story of who she knew and where they lived and the backroads she’d take to visit them. Every morning, my grandfather gets up early and walks around our block. By the time John and I wake up, there’s always some new breakfast food Yeb’s discovered. The other day John mentioned that he missed the old egg pancakes we used to get outside the Howard Johnson’s. This morning, Yeb got us those pancakes–he found a vendor nearby making them.

Some observations: It’s damn cold here. Central heat is a rarity. I’ve been wearing thermals everyday (John’s even wearing longjohns) and I recently resorted to carrying a hot water bottle. I’m a total wimp when it comes to dipping temperatures. Also, there’s no ice for beverages, but I’ve been told ice cubes are a US thing. And you’d better boil the tap water before you drink it. Hmm, the standard paper size here is not letter size. It’s A4 (which seems to be roughly 8.25″ x 11.5″). Units are all metric here. My brain is getting a good bit of exercise doing all the conversions… Other notes: Kellogg’s Special K with freeze-dried strawberries costs about $8/box. We don’t have an oven or a clothes dryer. I did three loads of laundry today–we’re gonna have to get used to crunchy clothes from now on. Those are the bad things so far. Plus the fact that I am missing Chipotle like crazy.

Beyond those minor gripes, John and I are enjoying SH very much. We make a great team– John has a very good sense of direction and I have no qualms asking questions and making deals with my mediocre Mandarin. We went to Carrafour again today. Hopefully this won’t become a frequent habit, because everytime we get out of that place, we are completely exhausted. John’s taking a nap now. There are just so many people in there and so many items and so many floors. It’s overwhelming.

Big news though: Today, I found chow mei fun (rice noodles) at the Carrefour food court (which they call Megabite). We entered it, thinking there’d be computer stuff. Anyway, I’d been searching for those noodles since we got here and we finally found them. Very tasty and only 15 kuai.

Also, today I started my daily schedule of learning (upon John’s suggestion)… to supplement my job hunt. I did some Adobe Photoshop tutorials in the morning (I’m all hooked up with the latest software, including Office 2003 and Photoshop 8.0) and then practiced some Chinese writing. My handwriting is so ugly though. I must have copied my name and address fifty times. In the end, it was still un-postable. Here’s our address in Chinese (written by my grandmother). Her characters are much nicer and proportionate. So if you want to send us mail, I believe that’s all the info you need. Though, you may wish to include to the right our name/address in English:

Lane 591 Hongqiao Rd.
Block No. 5 Unit 1401
Shanghai, China 200030

I’ve also signed on to volunteer remotely for Heifer International in China. I’ve been following this organization for about a year now… their work is just so amazing. Unfortunately, their China office is very far from here in Chengdu. But I’ll be helping them with writing/editing newsletters and annual reports. Should be a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to getting started soon.

Meanwhile, John has returned to work in full force. He’s been printing out pages of code using our new printer. Thankfully, he is satisfied with the inkjet printing quality. Otherwise, I’d be getting an earful. In his free time, John has returned to his old hobby of conducting taste/drink tests. Currently, he is evaluating various brands of grapefruit-flavored beverages. We’ll keep you posted on the details of his research.

Well apparently going out of my way to get a flu shot this season didn’t do jack. Sorry for the long silence, we’re still alive over here but the flu certainly took both of us out of commission for more that a few days. First it started with a sore throat, which I initially attributed to the dry heat and my new pillow. You see, I was too cheap to repurchase the space-foam pillow I had back in the States. Instead, I got this cheap $5 pillow which well… was a little too fluffy. So my head ended up resting at this odd, unnatural angle which in turn made me snore. That seemed to also dry out my throat. But by the next day, I knew it was more than the dry heat and crappy pillow. The runny nose and congested head practically paralyzed me. I began the Robitussin/Hall’s/Orange Juice/hot fluids program that day and slept in till about 3 pm. I gave myself a headache from sleeping so damn much. Saturday the sore throat moved to a new host: John. Poor guy, here he was bragging about how he was going to escape the flu precisely because he ignored my advice to get the flu shot. Now he was a victim too and boy did it hit him hard!

Sunday we thought we felt better. My Uncle Zhu from Jia Xin (about 2 hours south of here) came up with his wife and 6-year old boy. He is Nai’s nephew and works for the police department in Jia Xin. He’s really keen on helping us get settled here. He’s been really helpful– brought us freshly-made zhongzis as well as a roasted chicken. (I guess he thought frozen fried rice and ramen noodles were a bit pathetic). He introduced us to some family in Shanghai, including a Mr. Sun who works for the Jiefang paper–a weekly city publication. The networking session was okay– I was advised to become literate. I’m working on it.

These last two days have mostly been a blur. Both of us have pretty much slept the days away. But this evening, we finally started feeling better. We went to Carrefour again… picked up some imported goods. We’re on a strange Bloody Mary kick. We went to a bar sometime last week and I ordered a Mary Bloody. It came in this lame 2-inch tall tumbler and tasted like ketchup. And the celery was missing. John had a black Russian and it was unfortunately subpar as well. So tonight we got all the ingredients to make our own: some Mrs. T’s mix (that was all they had and it was pricey), tabasco sauce, vodka, black pepper, and celery. We also got some V8 which comes in larger containers… not sure how to make the drinks without a mix but guess we’ll find out. We’ll be sure to include an update on our concoctions in the Food and Drink Guide.

In other news, I try not to think about LOTR. If you have to ask, forget it. You wouldn’t understand the obsession anyway. We went to the Ka De Club to get some new DVDs the other day. I got so excited when I saw the disc-jacket for LOTR Return of the King… I mean, it was possible right? (the movie released in HK and Singapore already). But alas, when I flipped to the back, it made no mention of Viggo or Orli or Elijah… none of them. Too good to be true damnit. But I WILL get the movie before February. I HAVE to because watching the trailer and every frickin’ clip out there and reading all the entertainment news is getting old. For those of you who have seen it, please share your insights! The wait is unbearable. Sigh!

Hmm, the jetsetting grandparents are due back tomorrow. They sure are getting around for a couple of 80-year olds. I’m looking forward to their return. I’ll have to get Nai to test me on my new characters. John’s going back to Pimslur. I now refuse to tell the cabbies where to drive us. They have to get the addresses and destinations from John. His pronunciation has improved a lot.

Not sure what’s on tap for the holiday. Most locals still have to work on Xmas. We may try to get together with Wang Jian and his wife (related to Uncle Zhu). They’re about our age so we may see if they want to go bowling. On Friday, we’re attending a blogger’s gathering. While I was researching SH from the States, I came across his site which was packed with information on IT services here. Anyway, he’s having a meetup for all the people who follow his blog… so that should be interesting.

Have a safe and happy holiday everyone! Drop us some email soon or catch us online for an IM chat.

John and I found a new computer mall just west of here. Let’s see, that makes it the third computer mall we’ve visited in less than a week. Yup, total computer geeks and we love it that way. We purchased a HP DeskJet 5652… John had researched all kinds of models and brands online but when we got there, it seemed none of the US models are sold here. The one we got has all the essentials and some extras like duplex printing. It’s a fine complement to the Epson Perfection Scanner we bought the other day. Hence our computer empire rebuilds… let’s recap. We have our digital camera, individual camera card readers, full-sized keyboards and mice (each), wireless ethernet, 8-port switch, web cam, palm pilot, scanner, printer… all of the equipment deemed necessities, of course.

Okay so it’s time to come clean. Shanghai is warmer than Washington DC, but it’s still not warm enough. Temperatures are probably in the 40s to 50s during the day, but once the sun goes down, it is freezing. We’ve been walking a lot so that keeps us warm mostly, except for the face, fingers, and toes. Those parts just go very numb. You’d think the apartment would offer relief from the cold…not so. The building lobby has beautiful leather couches and a coffee table but they only look inviting. The lobby temperature is the same as outside, especially with the doors flung wide open all day. I argue that the place would be warmer if the doors were shut, if only to keep out the winds. John insists it makes no difference when the place isn’t being heated anyway.

Fortunately, our apartment has heat– three room units. The problem is, we’ve only figured out how to turn on the one in the living room. I can’t read the remote control on the others which heat the bedroom. We tried pressing random buttons but all we got was cold air. So at night the family just huddles together under the goosedown blanket (thanks Sue!). Actually, we did kind of cop out. The landlord left us a super inefficient space heater, which I ran a lot in the beginning. But then I felt like a glutton sucking up all that electricity, so it’s off limits. We’ll just have to tough it out. I don’t feel so bad about my illiteracy though. Today I asked the building maintenance person Mr. Yang to show me how to use the remote. He said he didn’t know either… it was a complicated one that would require reading the manual. Good thing Nai and Yeb arrive today. They’ll get to read user manuals!

John and I went to Carrefour the other day. It’s very similar to a Super Wal-Mart. There’s a lot of English (we saw a lot of foreigners) and they even have customer service policies (regarding pricing and returns) which is unusual among most Chinese stores. The store has five floors and there are these ridged walkway escalators so shoppers can move between floors with their carts. All in all, a pretty good experience. We bought Betty Crocker pancake mix and were so excited for pancakes on the way home. Then we realized we forgot to buy syrup.

This morning, we went to the Ikea to get some household stuff, including rugs. I know, I’m not a fan of Ikea, but we were on a tight schedule and I didn’t know where else to get rugs. We also got towels from a street vendor. I probably should have bargained them down, but sometimes I just don’t have the energy to haggle over pricing when everything is so cheap compared to the US anyway. Oh well, there will be plenty of times in the future to be cut throat.

The dogs were delivered in the afternoon. They were so clean (freshly bathed and groomed) and excited. But an hour later, they were sleeping soundly in our bed. The incessant honking of cars and mopeds outside our window doesn’t even phase them. It was good to have the babies home.

This morning, we met the landlord bright and early to get the keys. Two pairs of four. It’s top security here… one to get to the elevator, one for the outer storm door, one for the inner door. And the keys are all different styles and shapes too. You can’t just run to the hardware store and get a duplicate. So I’d better be extra careful not to lose mine.

In the afternoon, I called the vet to arrange for Remy and Martin’s release from puppy prison. She mentioned that if we wanted to follow pet rules by the book, we’d have to get them licensed which involved getting your neighbors and complex to sign off… Yikes! 1) we already signed the lease… what if the dogs couldn’t stay? 2) Our complex has 18 stories… I might have to get all the residents to sign off. We went into the real estate agent’s office and I was a bit panicked. My agent escorted us to the police station and he asked around until we got to the correct person. Fortunately, for the foreigner’s dog license, you don’t have to get neighbors to sign off. Being a foreigner sure has its perks. Yipee!!! And since the year is almost over, I don’t have to get them licensed until January. Yay, the pups are coming home. And my agent rocks!

In the evening, John and I checked out the supermarket nearby. It has all sorts of stuff including Lay’s potato chips and Chips Ahoy. There’s a lot of food but unless there’s a picture and some English, we have no idea of the contents. We’ll have to run some random tests or just wait until Saturday when my grandparents will come to Shanghai.