Spring!

Spring in Shanghai is easily my favorite season, and I've almost been here long enough to have experienced all four. These are just some photos from around Shanghai. I loved the two weeks when all of the Magnolia trees were in bloom. My friend Lucie says it's even better in Beijing, I'll have to get up there next year in the Spring. I've noticed a trend as I go back through all of my photos, we have a few places that we frequent in our free time: Taikang Lu, the bird and flower market, and the fabric market. We have been branching out more lately but this Spring had a pretty predictable routine! Anyway, we went to Taikang Lu and some other places with Lucie, Dorian, Kathy and Chris. While we were waiting at Starbucks we noticed a handsome man in a ridiculous vest to help him carry around all of his super important, expensive, professional camera gear. I'm not sure who it was that suggested that Dorian go and inquire about said vest, probably me, but Dorian did. Much to our amusement the avid photographer was very pleased to discuss his vest, which it turned out was a fishing vest hence the fishing gesture he is making while Dorian considers trying the vest on. So very entertaining, as always, when Dorian and Lucie are around! We did branch out another weekend, and took the ferry across the river. It's pretty awesome to be out on the HuangPu with all of the barges and ships, it is also cool because you can use your metro card to pay the 2 kuai to get across. My photos are not flat due to lack of contrast, that is the beautiful Shanghai haze that hangs in the air most days. You can see on the skyline the building going up next to the can opener, it is going to be the tallest building in Shanghai, Asia, and I think the world upon completion. Architect gurus feel free to correct me if you know. You can also see from the close up of the construction, it is going to have this really cool spiral around look to it when it is finished. I'm not sure if we'll still be here, I think it is supposed to be done in 2014. I am also in love with these white flowering trees that bloom in April. They blooms have that trumpet shape and the trees are huge! If any botanists, master gardeners or tree enthusiasts know the name I would love to learn more about them.

Our first official visitor!

All the way back in December we had our very first house guest all the way from, well, Hong Kong, but Hong Kong via the US/India/all over! My dear friend Meg came and stayed with us for almost two whole weeks and in spite of having to work most of the time we had some amazing adventures. Somehow, having Meg around always brings me some good luck. In this instance I got the call for a job interview while she was here, that ended up in me switching from teaching which I was struggling with to working in marketing and communications at an international school which I am really enjoying! We decided to give ourselves a local makeover by sporting glasses without lenses and super adorable face masks with bunnies on them. As you will see in the photo below, we look great and it is an obvious improvement.

We traveled all around Shanghai, heading to the pearl market, the fake market, the Hotel Thing Confluence, and the bird and flower market. We also had a pretty much failed attempt at heading to a crane sanctuary in Changshu, which is North of Shanghai. We had discussed heading away for a day trip and since I am still relatively new to China and speak basically no Chinese, I wasn't really sure how to go about planning such a trip. So I turned to one of the many expat magazines whose cover story for that week was 7 Best Day Trips out of Shanghai. Hindsight, they say, is 20/20. NEVER trust one of these magazines for day trip advice. I'll liberally quote the author as saying something to the effect of "Just head to the South Railway Station, buy a ticket, hop on the bus and in less than 90 minutes you'll arrive in Changshu. Grab a cab out to the sanctuary enjoy pine tree forests shooting out of the water while being paddled around in a Chinese gondola. When you're finished grab a cab or pedicab back to the bus station and head back to Shanghai." Wow! It's just that easy?? No. Way.

We should have taken our first clue that this was not meant to be when we were on Line 3 and watched a small child repeatedly refuse a cookie from her mother and then hop off of the seat and squat down to poop in the middle of the train floor. I will take multiple transfers as a result just to avoid said Line 3 after that incident.

Then when we arrived in Changshu, over two hours later on a bus where another small child needed to go to the bathroom. This time, her mother provided her with a bucket to use in the rear of the bus. That didn't seem to resolve the problem as she proceeded to whine-cry the remaining 45 minutes of the bus ride. Catching a cab was no problem, but due to the length of the bus ride we were running behind schedule and discovered that there were no cabs or pedicabs just hanging around the sanctuary waiting to bring us back to the bus station. We didn't get to see the cranes or the chinese gondolas because the next 30+ minutes were spent trying to get the employees of the sanctuary to call a cab for us. They refused and put us on a local bus back to the center of town, where we proceeded to stand around waiting for our return bus to Shanghai which then took almost 3 hours. Trent was kind enough to later point out, that we should not have left from the South Long Distance Bus Station since we were in fact heading North. In retrospect, the experience is quite funny and a story that my mom has since relayed to many people who then request I tell it in person which I oblige. Since this failed attempt at a day trip I have successfully visited two other cities via car and train, with friends that I happily entrusted to plan entirely. And tomorrow we're heading to Hangzhou which I am really looking forward to!

Meg will hopefully be visiting again soon as it looks like her plans will bring her back to Hong Kong in the fall. I may also get to host her lovely parents in the fall during a trip to China that they are in the process of planning. Trent and I also hope to get over to HK and go surfing with Meg and Tom and the rest of the crew they work with.

Asian Death Flowers

Well, my apologies again! I had every intention of completely getting you all up to date over the long weekend but instead I managed to catch an icky little cold. Maybe it is the pollution, which is excessive, or maybe as Trent's Chinese tutor suggested it was the Spider Chrysanthemums that I bought at the Bird and Flower Market our first week here. Hua Wai, Trent's tutor, was appalled because he thought my students gave them to me for teachers day, but the reality was that I had mixed them in with the roses from my students. Hua Wai suggested that I was sick because we have the death flowers in the house. I'm feeling much better today and caught a lucky little break with not only a 4 day week but I also only have to teach half days which has helped tremendously in my recovery process. My last class is technically Shanghai Institute of Technology Students and they have the week off so I get to start my 1.5 hour journey home at noon. The only downfall is how absolutely, swelteringly hot it is at noon.

I read about the Bird and Flower market at The Bean and Tea Leaf at Thumb Plaza our first weekend here and was dying to go. It sounded way too perfect to pass up. It was a truly interesting experience. We went to a smaller one, yes there are multiple Bird and Flower markets throughout Shanghai, and they had more than just birds and flowers. They had fish and turtles of every shape and size. They also had crickets of varying sizes and cages for keeping them in, I'm serious there was a cricket the size of a mouse! We ended up buying an orchid and a little leafy plant for the kitchen, I think the people working at the market were just as interested to see us as we were to see them and their wares. Needless to say, we will be going back I loved it and we were lucky that it wasn't one with too many animals crammed uncomfortably into cages which is unfortunately quite common at other markets.

The first photo is the first look I had of the market it was kind of U-shaped with little stalls crammed on both sides full to the gills with randomness. You can also see the buckets of yellow and white Spider Mums or flowers of death on the right, beware! The black birds with the colorful beaks were all over the place at the market, they were the closest thing to parrots for sale and as one shop owner demonstrated they can be trained to speak. She called out "ni-hao" in a high pitched voice and a chorus of "ni-haos" screeched back in response. It was a very memorable experience, and you can see me with the beautiful white orchid that now lives in our bedroom. Hopefully, white orchids aren't the symbol of something else death or illness related, if so please advise!