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.