Tourists in our own town...still

One Sunday back in March Trent and I met up with our friends Todd and Rebecca for brunch at Taikang Lu, which is a major tourist area and one of the last remaining truly "old" areas in Shanghai. You can check out Todd and Rebecca's musings on their awesome blog Knee How Shanghai. We were smart and got there early so there were no crowds just some locals hanging out and doing awesome things like kissing their pet birds. We browsed around some shops because the place we wanted to eat brunch wasn't open yet, and that is when someone thought they had a celebrity sighting. Really it was just Rebecca. Even though we live in a city of 24 million people, for some Chinese people it is still exciting to see foreigners, and not just any foreigners blonde foreigners. Luckily, if Trent and I head to the Bund we get the same treatment and I can only imagine how many vacation photos we have ended up in. Secretly, I imagine that we end up in their family newsletter and Christmas Cards but that's just silly. After brunch we headed over to the Yu Yuan Garden area and went to a bird/pet market which was mostly cool and a little depressing. Then we went to the "antique" street which had an amazing amount of mostly crap. A lot of it was cool, but totally overpriced. Most of it was new made to look old and then there were the thousands of statues of Mao. I bought a small wooden jewelry box and I am still thinking about purchasing some statues I'll go back again I'm sure! We rounded out our day with a trip to the Museum of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party near Xintiandi. Xintiandi is the fancy part of Shanghai that is made to look old but is really brand new. The museum is free and they frequently have different exhibits on display, when we were there they had an exhibit solely on the life of Zhou Enlai the first Premier of the PRC from 1949-1976 when he died. You're not allowed to take any pictures inside of the museum but I did manage to sneak one in the courtyard between buildings. 

Weekend Warriors: Shanghai Library, Liuli China Museum, Tianzifang

We try to spend our weekends half of the time relaxing and half of the time exploring. Here are some of the photos we’ve collected along the way. One or two of our days off usually start at Wagas, if we get there before 10 am breakfast is half off and I love their coffee and the first photo is of one of the staff at our favorite location in Thumb Plaza.

The next few are from the Shanghai Library, it looks neat from the outside and has a beautiful lobby but a sad little collection of disorganized English books. However, they have a great selection of foreign newspapers and I parked myself and read the Asian edition of the NYT, which was really enjoyable!

You can also see the famous Laowei Street in Hongqiao. Laowei (pronounced La-ow Why) means foreigner in Mandarin so whenever I hear people say it I know they are talking about me! This street has some really good restaurants all concentrated in one area right across the way is the Hongqiao Pearl Market where Rebecca has introduced me to some awesome jewelers.

Next up are Trent’s photos from the Liuli China Museum, which is a glass museum in Shanghai that has a beautiful exterior and some really interesting pieces inside. It just so happens to be right down the road from the infamous Tianzifang art district, which is one of the only places in Shanghai with legitimately old buildings. The photos of me are in a coffee shop there and in front of a ridiculously expensive home furnishings store…check out that butterfly fabric mom, its so me right?! We also discovered a coffee shop in Tianzifang that has household cats, I want to steal this idea and open a coffee shop with cats in Pudong but Trent says not with Gus because he’s too mean. Anyway, the cats that live here are named Prince and Princess and they are ridiculously adorable. Not only do they live there but also photos of them are all over the walls and for sale as postcards out front. Finally, for all of my fellow coffee lovers and former baristi they served me a latte with decent latte art! This is a rare find in Shanghai, sadly.  Trent ordered an Irish coffee, which was neat, because they lit the sugar cube on fire! I also threw in a favorite Chinglish sign for good measure.

The last part of the post is our little Christmas tree with presents from Shanghai and the US alike. I had to get creative with the wrapping paper, in spite of the fact that China is known for excessive packaging there was a lack of wrapping paper at least in the Carrefour near our apartment. Anyway, I’m pretty sure my gramma would have been proud of my Gap bag wrapping paper. Trent got more fancy and used the decorative H&M bag which was actually cute gold polka dots and went really well with the bows he found, I was proud.

Finally, we spent Christmas day with friends, which was bittersweet. It is of course wonderful to have friends to spend time with but we were both missing our families. I think all of the expats that we spent the day with felt the same way though, so we made the best of it together. We had a wonderful lunch at Todd and Rebecca’s apartment in the French Quarter. Todd is a phenomenal chef and we had a great group together from all over the US and Europe. After lunch we went to the Nutcracker Ballet with my friend and coworker Melina at the Shanghai Grand Theater.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures during the performance, but the lobby and outside of the theater were really beautiful. They had a really neat Christmas tree made out of old show posters. The performance was beautiful and as you can see from my photos inside the theater before the show we had amazing seats! I haven’t seen the Nutcracker since I was really little and Trent and Melina had never seen it. The Shanghai Ballet did a spectacular job and I think we all really enjoyed it. It was wild to think about the fact that around the time millions of Americans were opening presents with their families I was walking around People’s Square in Shanghai, China. No matter how long we’ve been here I still have to pinch myself to remember that it is real. I guess these photos are a good reminder too! I know that someday this blog will be a great place to come back to when we are no longer living here as a reminder of the crazy, exciting and always interesting adventures we have in this city.

Socializing in Shanghai

Trent and I have both been lucky enough to have coworkers who have reached out to invite us to hang out and explore Shanghai. My coworkers are really a lot of fun and I have gotten to know them and their families which makes Shanghai feel a little bit more like home.  We had a small get together for my coworker Charry's husband's birthday and we had a karaoke party for my coworker Eddy's birthday. We also had a really Chinese and very entertaining Halloween party at school that really helped me snap out of a homesickness funk I was having at the end of October. Trent's colleagues helped introduce us to a couple from Florida, Rebecca and Todd, who we went to Happy Valley with (Shanghai's only theme park until Disney opens in two years). More to come on Happy Valley in another blog post. Anyway, here's some photos from the birthday celebrations and from Halloween. It was really nice to see some of my students outside of the classroom enjoying themselves and expressing some creativity. Groups of students created themes for the classrooms and organized games and decorations which were really cute and fun.