Craving & Baking

In an attempt to make my incessant cravings for junk food into something that vaguely resembles a productive activity, Timmy and I have been baking a bit. A few weeks ago he helped me make Halloween cookies. He was really excited about making colored icing, especially blue.

Last week's baked good of choice was carrot cake. Timmy loves carrot cake & a friend from China gave me her recipe for what I think is the best carrot cake ever. Strangely enough I think his favorite part is eating handfuls of the finely shredded carrots.

New Team Member

Team Nelson will be adding a new member sometime around May 1st! In Timmy's words, "There's a baby in mommy's tummy!" I don't think he completely understands what that means, but he's excited about the idea. He asks me the most random things like, "Does the baby like it when I play catch with her?" and "I will teach her how I go down the slide and play 'nect four (Connect Four)."

You may have noticed he said "her" in both cases above. Timmy is convinced that he will have a baby sister. He has named her Allie, after his grandma's dog. Apparently that is his favorite name. Have mercy on us if its a boy!

To answer all the questions, I'm feeling okay. No excruciating morning sickness, just tired, generally uncomfortable and hungry. All I want is junk food! Hopefully that part doesn't last the whole nine months!

Tatoes For Breakfast

Some days I wake up at 5am to a little bug saying, "Mama, I'm awake!" as if its a beautiful miracle that there is a new day ahead. What a great reminder of the blessing that each day is. And as long as this announcement takes place after 5:30am, I am happy to hear it.

Other days I hear a number of different first words ranging from, "The sun is awake!" to "I want my yeyyow car!" Today however, was one I have never heard before. Timmy crawled into our bed at 5:15, fell back asleep until the magical hour of 7am and when he finally awoke, his first words were, "I want tatoes." hmmmm. I responded with, "You want mashed potatoes for breakfast?" Yep. That was the request.

I never thought I'd be the kind of mom that makes her kids whatever they want for meals, but we all compromise. Tim doesn't eat much for breakfast ever, and that usually leads to meltdowns before 10am. So on this day we joyfully ate mashed potatoes for breakfast. Past morning menu items have included hot dogs and carrot cake. Whatever works, I guess.

Top 5s

5 things I will miss about living in Shanghai:

5. Beard Papa Cream Puffs

4. Trying crazy fruits and veggies that I have never seen before

3. Traveling in Asia

2. So many photo opportunities everywhere

1. Having ridiculous things happen almost every day

5 things I will NOT miss about living in Shanghai:

5. Hunting all over the city for western style food ingredients

4. The smells (sewer, stinky tofu, 1000 year eggs, etc)

3. The heaters & air conditioners

2. Being a rock star

1. Taking taxis

Happy Birthday Scott

So on Friday night we found a babysitter (hooray!) so that we could go out to dinner for Scott's birthday (he turns THIRTY on Sunday!). A few notes about this dinner: I have never paid so much for a can of coke in my life...40RMB = $5.84, ouch! But the food was delicious, we went to a German restaurant, and I think I'd go back despite the ridiculous price of a coke (and by can, I mean a can with no refills, oh how I miss free refills and fountain coke in the USA).

Anyway, after we ate we each used the bathroom, where for me 2 interesting things happened. Now I have been greeted by a bathroom attendant before, but never in my life have I had one actually clean the toilet seat before I used it. It was weird, in a nice way I guess, at least I know it was clean. Then as I am washing my hands I see a sign on the wall that I think would only be seen in China, "Please do not spit phlegm in here, for the safety and health of yourself and others." And they even spelled phlegm correctly. Ha, safety of others! If there hadn't been a bathroom attendant watching my every move, I definitely would have taken a picture of that one!

The old man himself, chillin' with T.T.

Vacation in Shanghai

After our whirlwind tour of Beijing with Jim and Cindy, we embarked on three days of tourism in Shanghai. We spent Thursday at the flower market and Pearl Market doing some shopping.

We followed that up with picking up our friend Lauren from the airport and dragging her out to a fancy dinner at Kathleen's 5 restaurant on top of the Shanghai Art Museum. It was Jim and Cindy's wedding anniversary so we had to go out and celebrate. There was a great view of the city from the rooftop atrium. As we were eating building after building lit up with neon and LEDs. Some of us were not sure exactly what we were eating, namely Jim, but our best guess was some kind of internal organ like an intestine. It was an interesting evening.

The view from the atrium on stop of the Shanghai Art Museum.

Friday was the official first day of the holiday here in China and we made the dumb mistake of trying to go to Yu Gardens. I think every Chinese person in Shanghai was there. We left after 10 minutes of insanity. We went and did more shopping, got our hair washed and then had a huge Chinese dinner with our friend Lou Yun. We were in a private room with a huge lazy Susan full of too much food. Again Jim ate something odd, a chicken foot.

Lauren and Cindy experiencing the hair wash, complete with an ear cleaning for Cindy!

Saturday was a trip to the fake market on NanJing Lu to get some final gifts for people back home. We also took our guests to the grocery store to see the insanity that it is. After some spaghetti at home and relaxing we headed to the airport for our midnight flight and the beginning of the real vacation...Cebu, Philippines!

Lauren and I bought matching Uggs at the fake market.

Beijing Day Two, part Two: Peking Duck and the Communist Reign

On our second night in Beijing we had made reservations at the Grand Hyatt's restaurant called Made in China. We had read that this was a great place to experience eating Peking Duck, a famous dish from this city. So we show up at the Hyatt just before our reservation time and are greeted by the concierge who says we cannot enter the hotel. We explain to him that we have reservations and he says he will need to check with the restaurant. He comes out and explains that the government has taken over the hotel and only government officials and VIPs are allowed inside. He offers to make us a reservation somewhere else. After waiting for a taxi for almost 30 minutes to get to another restaurant, we make it and eat some delicious food at a super swanky place. Crazy government.

Beijing Day One: Tiananmen Square and One Long Noodle

We arrived in Beijing on Monday morning and began our site seeing in Tiananmen Square. Being that it was three days before the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, the place was buzzing with preparations for their monster of a parade. Red flags everywhere and little silver marks on the ground where thousands of people would be standing for the festivities on Thursday. Timmy got in on the Communist pride action, see above.

We attempted to then go to the Forbidden City, which is located next to the square. The entrance that faces the square was blocked off for the parade route and we assumed that meant we could not go inside. We realized later that we needed to enter from the other end, oh well, I guess we missed out on that site.

We decided to go for an early dinner at the Noodle Loft. We had seen this restaurant on Discovery Travel and Living channel, on Anthony Bourdain's show, No Reservations. It is famous for its long noodles. Scott ordered the dish called One Long Noodle. Literally it is one noodle that is probably between two and three meters long, all wound up into one bowl. Pretty cool. The rest of the food was pretty good too.

Moon Cakes and Eggs

Its that time of year again, Moon Day is approaching, excuse me, Mid-Autumn Festival. Moon Day just sounds more fun to me. The holiday isn't actually until the first week of October this year, but the grocery store is overflowing with Moon Cakes of all varieties, most of which seem to have some type of meat involved. Yuck. Although this year I have noticed ads from Starbucks, Hagen Daaz and DQ that show more delicious looking ones involving ice cream and chocolate. Unfortunately these also seem to be priced way out of my price range, as in 500RMB for 4 tiny individual cakes - that's about $72. Yikes.

In other grocery store hilarity, it never ceases to amaze me what lengths Chinese people will go to to save a buck. Apparently if you go to the grocery store in the early morning eggs are on sale. Now being from the US, I'm used to buying eggs in cartons that are stored in a refrigerated case. Not so in China. Eggs are stored on the shelf and the ones that go on sale are purchased out of a big bin and placed into an impossibly thin plastic bag. I have then seen people take said plastic bag, filled with at least two dozen loose eggs mind you, in their hands and get on an electric bike to go home. Disaster waiting to happen if you ask me. I always buy my eggs in the carton even though I'm sure its twice as expensive, just so I don't break them all before I even leave the store. Not to mention, I would never wait in line as long as some of these people seem to just to save a few kui. I guess I'm an egg snob.

Mooncakes by the truckload.

The egg line.

Timmy Turns Two

Today was Tim's actual birthday, but it seems like we've been celebrating for a month! Between his party on Tuesday and presents sent from grandparents that have been arriving all month its been a long celebration. I can't believe two years have passed already! Here's some pics from his party and the balloons that won't die.

I finished making these cupcakes in the middle of the night after Timmy's accident. They look terrible because what I thought was gel icing to write with was really just liquid food coloring. It was imported from Germany so I couldn't read the packaging. Oh well, they tasted good!

Read his lips, "Choo, choo!"

These are the post-party balloons, or in Timmy-speak, "balooms, balooms!"

DQ Something Different.

Yesterday I took myself to the doctor because I've had a sore throat for 12 days. Its not strep so she said its either a virus or mono. I opted not to get blood tests done to find out if its mono because either way there is no actual treatment so why waste the time and money. Anyway, I'll be fine and I'm not contagious (unless you kiss me!).

After the doctor I needed to go buy a new toilet seat since ours broke. There is an new B & Q (Chinese Home Depot) in a mall near our apartment so I went there. It took ten minutes of wandering to find the entrance to the store because the place is huge. During my wanderings I happened upon a brand new Dairy Queen in the mall. It was open and I decided that ice cream would feel great on my sore throat.

I ordered a small Oreo blizzard and paid for it. I watched them start to make it and that is when it got weird. The employee opened a package of Oreos and started breaking them in half with his hands (wearing gloves, thank goodness). He puts the huge chunks of Oreo in the cup with ice cream and then goes to the blender. The blender wasn't plugged it, so he reached for the cord and it has no plug - just wires with nothing on the end. Hmmmmm. He says something to the manager and she looks for herself. After fumbling with it for a minute and apparently looking for a hole to jam the wires into, decides its a lost cause. She then hands a spoon the to the other guy to mix my blizzard by hand. You can imagine how efficient this is with giant pieces of cookie in the mix. After about 30 seconds he hands me my treat, not really mixed at all. I must have been their first customer ever. Anyway the ice cream was good, but I wouldn't call it a blizzard.

Xiamen Highlights

Our long weekend in Xiamen was good. It was really nice to get away from the now familiar Shanghai sights. Here are some highlights from our trip...

Day 1: After insane amounts of transportation (taxi, bus, plane, van, ferry & tram) we arrived finally on Gulong Yu, an island right next to the island of Xiamen. Both are located west of Taiwan. Our hotel in Gulong Yu was the only 4 star hotel on the island, but was definitely not what Scott and I would

consider 4 stars. There were no elevators!!! We were on the third floor, so that got a little annoying with Timmy and stroller in tow all the time. The island itself was only worthy of a day trip, but we enjoyed the time anyway.

We were traveling with 7 of Scott's coworkers, all young/our age single people. They were

traveling cheap, so they stayed at a hostel. We joined them for a few meals and got to experience what traveling cheap means to a twenty-something Chinese person! Some of the places we ate at I would have never thought to set foot in, much less actually eat at. The first meal in Gulong Yu was delicious. Since these islands are in the ocean, lots of seafood. Some

good, and some gross.

Day 2: We took the ferry back over to Xiamen and found our new hotel, much nicer. We searched the internet on our phones for "American Restaurant Xiamen" because after two cheap Chinese meals, we were ready for a burger! We found some place called the Red Armadillo, but it didn't exactly have an address. We decided to go anyway and hunt it down. After an hour long taxi ride, and glorious tour of the southern coast of the island, the taxi driver dropped us off on the side of the road. We had no idea where this place was. We started wandering and after about ten or fifteen minutes, a really sunburnt white guy yells down the road at us, "Red Armadillo?" Sweet. We followed him to his home, which I should have taken a picture of because I can't even begin to describe it. Definitely not your normal restaurant. He was an American expat, who has been in Xiamen for 8 years. The food was delicious, and we talked to the owner (sun burnt guy) for a while. It was super relaxing, complete with Jimmy Buffet on the stereo and a view of the beach.

After lunch, we went to the beach. Due to a recent typhoon, the water wasn't what we

considered swim worthy. So we played in the sand, walked down the coast and watched 4 different engaged couples take wedding pictures on the beach. In China it is a thing to hire a photography company to take pictures of you

and your fiance in different wedding attires at different locations. Many are like costumes, some are more traditional wedding garb. Either way it was fun to see. While we were people watching the brides, everyone in Xiamen was watching us! Timmy seems to create a scene wherever he goes. Its really annoying. On our last day Scott and I both actually hit someone for touching Timmy because she wouldn't back off.

Day 3: We went to the 10,000 stone botanical gardens, but we didn't stay long or take very many pictures. It was ridiculously hot, so much that Scott and I were drenched in sweat and the whole place was full of stairs. Not exactly fun with the stroller. Not to mention the intrusive people that want to touch Timmy. This is where the hitting incident took place. So we made a short loop through the gardens and retreated back to our hotel for some AC. After some shopping with our Chinese friends, and lunch at the highest Pizza Hut in the world we came home.

For the rest of our pictures, click here.

Watermelons Galore

Just a quick picture of watermelons, lots and lots of watermelons. I thought it was pretty amazing to see so many in one place, and there was another van full of them that didn't fit in the picture. Crazy.

Today's Adventures

So Mrs. Zhang is leaving Thursday night on vacation for a month. I have been prepping myself for a month of hauling Timmy all over the city to buy groceries and such. Then, last night, our friend/translator/angel, Yun Lou, called to say that Mrs. Zhang's neighbor would be willing to fill in for her while she is on vacation. Hmmmmm. This is a tough call, we already took a leap of faith once with Mrs. Zhang and it worked out great, but should we do it again with basically a stranger? Well, she came to work with Mrs. Z today, and seems okay, but what do I know, I can't really interview her or anything. I asked her what her name was in Mandarin and she answered, but darn if I know what the heck she said! Anyway, we have a few more days to decide on this one.

Today I took a chance with a restaurant in our neighborhood and ate there without help. I guess this might sound kind of stupid, but its a big deal for me to go out for Chinese food without someone that speaks Chinese! And guess what? It was delicious. I decided to try it because it was a newer place, they had a menu outside in Mandarin and English, and I was hungry. I have been hoping to find some place near our home that was like this, it just seemed like everywhere only had Chinese menus. Yea for small victories!

And one more thing...I got a haircut today. Nothing special, I went to the same place I have always gone, but you would think I was the only laowei (foreigner) they had ever seen! It was funny, just as funny as the first time I went there, only weirder because it was like the dozenth (is that a word?) time I've been there. I guess 6 weeks away makes everyone forget about you.

Sweet Home Chicago-land

We've been in Chicago-land for just over a week now. Timmy is loving his 4 grandparents and 6 great-grandparents, 3 dogs, and 2 cats to death. He's talking a lot, and seems to be learning at least 1 new word each day. Most still sound like baby talk, but its fun to see him learning so much.

People keep asking me the question, "So, how's China?" I don't know how to answer this question, as it is so broad and complicated. My honest answer is, China stinks! Literally! Its smelly and everything is infinitely more difficult than it is in the United States. Does that mean I don't like it? Well, I'm not sure. The jury is still out on that one. I'm happy to be home in the USA, but we don't have a home here, so its hard. Not to mention that at this point I think we will be here for 6 weeks! That is like a lifetime. We started making a life in Shanghai for the last 4 months, only to leave it all on 4 days notice for an indefinite amount of time.

I am most happy to be able to read. In China I am illiterate and I hate it. I love being able to read and use coupons and read ingredients on everything I'm eating and feeding to Timmy. I think all three of us are loving the lack of attention we get everywhere we go - meaning that we no longer stick out like a sore thumb.

One Last Thing

So in my last minute shopping extravaganza yesterday, I was walking down a street I have never walked before. All of the sudden, a Dunkin Donuts appeared! I had heard that they had opened a few stores here in town during the last few months, but I had not seen one yet. Anyway, I had to stop. Donuts in China are less than good, and if you are really lucky you will find a surprise hotdog inside a sugar coated donut. This happened to Scott last week. Hilarious. They also have donuts that look like they are topped with cinnamon or something, but then you bite it and its covered in pork flakes. They have a thing about meat flavoring here that I just don't understand.

Timmy's never had a good donut before this morning. He was pretty excited about it, I let him pick which one he wanted from the box. He picked a chocolate one, but then in the following minutes pulled the rest out and licked them. Don't tell Scott, he was still sleeping when this happened, and the ones that were licked were his! :) See you all soon!

Easter Fun

Easter is not widely celebrated in China, but we had a great day. Timmy played with his new "doh, doh, doh, doh" (play-doh, he loves the stuff), we all ate a lot of chocolate, took a walk to McDonalds for lunch, dyed some eggs and had a feast with friends for dinner.

Timmy seemed to have fun dying eggs, but did not have patience for waiting for them to turn colors. When adding the color pellets to the water, Tim decided that the green cup needed a red pellet too, so we had some sweet brownish, redish, greenish eggs. Actually all our eggs had some brown undertones - I couldn't find white eggs to use.

We ordered a smoked ham from Bubba's, Scott's favorite restaurant in Shanghai. My friend Jessica, her husband Xie Feng and their son Shaun, as well as Scott's coworker Yun Lou joined us for dinner.

Hot Pot Dinner

So on Monday our friend Jessica who lives down the street invited us over for dinner. Her in-laws are Chinese and live with her and her husband and son, so they prepared a Hot Pot dinner. Hot Pot is sort of like fondue. Monday night was the last official night of the Spring Festival holiday time (FINALLY!!!), so it was kind of fun to experience a home cooked Chinese meal. Jessica's mother in law even made homemade dumplings. On our way home there were fireworks everywhere you looked. Of course Timmy said, "Boom! Boom!" all the way home.

Sandbox Birthday

Timmy and I went to a birthday party today for two of the girls in his playgroup. Cate is the 1 year old in the redish sweater and Esther is two wearing the goofy hat. It was at a restaurant called Sydney that has a huge sandbox in the center of the room for the kids to play in while the adults eat. There is also a huge movie screen where they played Veggie Tales and Madagascar. It was hard to get any good pictures of Timmy playing because he never sits still!

Fruits

So I thought I would share some fun fruit stuff. These oranges are tiny. The pieces inside are about the size of fruit snacks - and Timmy eats them like they are fruit snacks. Yesterday he ate three oranges in one sitting. I bought this entire bowl of oranges for 4.4RMB, which is the equivalent of about $.64 USD. Awesome.

The other picture is of some apples that a friend brought over. I don't know what they say, probably something to do with Happy Chinese New Year. I am also not sure how they got the image on the apple. We have all guessed that it was probably a sticker put on while they were ripening on the trees or something and then removed.