Initial Bike Rides

Elli helping Mark build the tandem

We went on our first bike ride last Saturday.  Mark spent the morning building the bike (it was still in its suitcase) so we didn’t start until 1PM.  We’re at the end of the rainy season in Sanmen and it had rained every day except Saturday, so we wanted to seize the opportunity to ride even though it was 93 degrees and very humid.

Coastal road view of the plots where
they harvest clams from the sea bed

While our immediate living environment (the nuclear plant compound) is very modern, as soon as we exit we are in suburban/rural China.  We don’t really know what to call it.  It is more density than you would suspect to be classified as rural, but it is not suburban either.  Maybe industrial rural?  There are a lot of small towns that utilize all available land (think shoulders of a highway and parts of mountains even being cultivated) for agriculture but there are urban aspects like population density and brick factories mixed in.  And then full blown cities with skyscrapers are not far away.

The coastal road

Elli fell asleep during
part of the ride

Anyway, as soon as you exit our home, we are very much in a foreign place – that is for sure!  Since the nuclear plant is located on a peninsula, there is a very cool coastal road that we can pick up as soon as we leave home.  It is a one lane concrete road that is in excellent condition.  It rolls a lot so it is like climbing Blue Hills – without the monotonous repetition.  Since it is wrapping around the coastline there are lots of sharp corners (with signs telling you to sound your horn when approaching since the road is narrow and it is a blind corner) and little villages along the road.  That road comes to an end at a village with a fish market – the seafood is fresh off the fishing boats!  We haven’t shopped there yet but we will soon.

Cattle along the road

Remnants of a quarry

We rode over a bridge (similar construction to the Zakim Bridge) on the highway and followed a fellow expat’s directions to try to find a beach.  We never made it to the beach (we made a left turn too early) but it was great riding.  The rural (fields with goats and ox driven plows) and industrial (quarries, brick factories, shipping yards, etc.) create quite a lovely backdrop for riding.

Lots of cool views

We did 24 miles in two and a half hours on that Saturday ride – stopping to take pictures along the way.  Our average speed was only 12mph because the hills are steep, the descents are winding, and the flats are often crowded with people.  We ended at the little convenience store (everyone calls it the 7-Eleven) here at the nuke compound where we got ice cream (Magnum bars) and a watermelon.

Elli likes ice cream!

We also went out for a short evening ride on Thursday night after the temperature dropped a little – we only had one hour until sunset but we were able to ride down to a local marketplace in Liu’ao, past a brick factory, and then did that same coastal road the opposite direction.

It seems the riding here is going to be great!

Shanghai to Rural China

Enjoying a banana in the hotel room

We’ve been at our new home in Sanmen in Zhejiang Province since Tuesday afternoon. On Monday Mark did an orientation in the Shanghai office in the morning, was given a company laptop, and a pile of cash (our living stipend for the month of June and the largest bill in china is only worth $15). We were then taken on a very quick shopping trip to Carrefour (think Target) to pickup some basic supplies for our new apartment. We got our pots and pans, a rice maker (which we still haven’t been able to use since it is all in Mandarin – we’re cooking rice the old fashioned way until we have a friend tell us how to use it!), cutting boards, etc. On Monday evening we ate dinner at a hot pot restaurant (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_pot). Eating from a hot pot is so much fun and the food is great. Elli had a bad case of the wiggles though, so Mark and I had to take turns walking her down the sidewalk in order to get through that meal.

Elli did OK on transitioning to a new time zone until Monday (besides going to bed at 4:30 and getting up at 3am). Then that day was a disaster. She was all out of sorts. She had actually been running a fever up to that point, but it broke on Sunday so we’re not sure if there was some physical illness going on too or if she was just confused about her surroundings. She spent most of the day screaming (except when walking outside – but the smog was bad so we didn’t stay out too long), was ok for the hot pot (except for the understandable wiggles), and then started screaming again after sleeping for only about 40 minutes that night. At that point we took her outside again and walked around until she fell asleep again. She woke up two more times during the night, but they were fairly short and Mark was able to get her quiet again after only a short while. Since then she has been fine though!

Smog in Shanghai

Tuesday morning at 9AM we were picked up at our hotel in Shanghai to make the trip to Sanmen. It was a 4.5 hour drive in pouring rain. We were met at the site by the HR person from Mark’s company and brought to our new apartment where we unloaded the van (with the help of Mark’s coworkers who were called to help) and began the process of unpacking. We were pleasantly surprised to find that 1) we got to move straight into our apartment since almost everyone else has had to stay in the hotel on site for a few nights to a few weeks first, and 2) that we got a 1200 sq. ft. apartment instead of the 600 sq. feet we were told we would be living in temporarily until a bigger one opened up. Apparently the bigger one opened up right before we came!

Now, since most days are an adventure and we’re already behind in blogging we’re going to do the next few entries thematically instead of a simple linear story. To start, here is the entry on where we are living:

Guest room

Master bedroom

Home Sweet Home

Our apartment is on the third floor of a five story building. We were told to try to avoid the first and fifth floors due to mold issues, so this is just about perfect!

Study

The place is mostly furnished – it came with the living room set, the table, refrigerator, toaster oven (our only oven), washing machine, and bedroom furniture.

Living room

There are two bedrooms, a large study, two bathrooms, a small kitchen, dining area, and living room. There are also several enclosed balconies which serve as the only closet space in the apartment. All of the windows are full length and then protected with railings that a toddler finds perfect for climbing (and that also serve as clothes drying racks). The windows make the apartment very sunny even though it currently rains every day here.

Bike balcony

Laundry balcony

Living in the company housing seems a lot like being back in college – surrounded by friends. We have two of Mark’s startup coworkers in this same building. Directly across from us in the next building is another one of Mark’s coworkers, which means getting to see her in pajamas as she leans out the window to talk to people in the street as we eat breakfast.

Our apartment is only a 3 minute walk to Mark’s office. The Chinese do rigid lunch hours which means Mark gets to come home for lunch every day – he isn’t expected to bring a lunch and work while eating like he is used to.

So, that is what an apartment at a nuclear power plant construction site in China is like.

 More photos of the apartment are posted on Facebook.

Our Journey to China

The Journey and Our First Day in Shanghai

Our trip to China went very well. Mark and I didn't sleep at all the night before we left - we still had too much to pack and clean. Our taxi picked us up at our home at 4:40AM and had our eleven suitcases/boxes, three carry-on items, three personal items, the diaper bag, and the baby seat for the bicycle loaded in about 10 minutes. Thankfully he showed up in an full size SUV. I doubt all of the stuff would have fit in a mini van.
The drive into Logan was uneventful. In turns out the driver is getting his M.S. in Engineering Management from Northeastern University -- the same degree Mark just earned this spring. We actually ended up getting to the airport early enough that they asked if we'd like to go on the earlier flight to Newark, NJ that was to leave in ~50 minutes. It worked out really well because we were already concerned about only having a 1 hour scheduled layover in Newark and a storm actually rolled in and delayed a bunch of planes -- ours sat on the runway for 1 hour before we could take off.

Since we caught the earlier flight we ended up having a 2.5 hour layover at Newark. Elli really liked the moving sidewalks and used them like a treadmill, much to the amusement of other passengers in the area.

We then had a direct flight from Newark, NJ to Shanghai, China. Our seats were at the very back of the airplane (second row from the back) which gave Elli a long path to wander up and down and also easy access to the flight attendants, whom she quickly befriended. She also made friends with some Chinese high school students across from us, who kindly shared some Chinese noodles with her. Elli then started a game where she would take the noodles out of her mouth and feed them to another girl. Yes, this would be like some random kid on the T feeding you something from their mouth.

Elli cried for maybe a combined 30 seconds during the entire 14 hour flight. She was amazing.

When we arrived in Shanghai we were met by a driver who was hired by Mark's company to pick us up. Mark's boss also showed up about 20 minutes later with a second driver so we would have enough room for all of our stuff. While we were waiting for the second driver, Elli walked around the airport. She seems to quickly becoming accustomed to being admired and summoned. There were rows of Chinese adults trying to get her attention.

We went straight from the airport to our hotel in the Hongquio section of Shanghai. Door to door the trip took about 24 hours plus the 12 hour time change - so we arrived Friday at 4:40pm. On Monday morning, Mark has work orientation, then we are taken shopping for all of our household items on Monday afternoon, and then we head to our new home in Sanmen, Zhejiang Province on Tuesday morning.

A Weekend in Shanghai
We've had a relaxing weekend in Shanghai. It has been fun to get some shopping done and to not even have to think about doing the tourist thing since we were already here a couple years ago. Although most things are not surprising to us now, they certainly aren't normal either! In particular, it is still amazing to see old run down buildings in the middle of modern Shanghai.

On Saturday we walked to International Pearl City, which is a shopping center with lots of vendors and nearly all transactions require bartering. We shopped here when we visited in 2008. This time we had some very specific purchase goals: dress shoes, jeans, a belt, and tie for Mark. The very first store we entered soon had Elli in their arms and at least six girls/women were fawning over her, passing her back and forth, and taking cell phone pictures of her curls. We didn't buy anything there, but I'm pretty sure we could have gotten free babysitting.

We ate lunch at a Thai restaurant where we got to experience Elli being given her first questionable gift. One of the waitresses gave her a box of matches to play with. Yes, matches for a 15 month old.
Today (Sunday) we walked to the local Carrefour, which is like a Target. That is where we will be taken on Monday to buy our household items so we wanted to scope it out today. We got turned around on our way there though and ended up at the Hongquio Central Park. Shanghai is filled with these little green spaces with fountains, pathways, etc. We decided to go in so we could let Elli go for a little run. As we walked around the fountain, a Chinese family (grandparents with their grandson) approached us and wanted to take photos of their grandson with Elli. The only English they spoke was "hello" -- and even that was poorly accented. However, I was able to understand his Mandarin enough to realize he wanted to know how old Elli was and Mark successfully communicated "shi wu yue" (15 months), much to their (and Mark's) excitement.

When we were taking a taxi back from Pearl City today (we had to go back to pick up a pair of jeans Mark bought that they needed to hem for him) Mark also successfully gave the driver all the directions in Mandarin (left, right, straight, and street names) since our taxi driver didn't have his glasses so he couldn't understand where we were pointing on the map. It feels good to NOT do Shanghai as a tourist! We need to keep practicing though... because our lunches didn't seem to match what we thought we were ordering, but were very tasty nonetheless.