Birthdays

Mark and LiLi celebrated their 28th and 2nd birthdays on March 16th.  The weekend of their birthday we did a hiking trip to Yandang Shan - a mountain range formed through volcanic activity.  We went here with Vicki's family in December and really loved it, so when one of Mark's co-workers (who helped us arrange our Dec. trip) decided to organize a trip there, we were definitely in.

Hiking with our baby girl

There were 17 of us that went on the weekend trip.  It is a 2 hour drive (or 35 min. train ride) from our home.  Ten of us stayed in a "Farmer's Hotel" while the rest of the group opted for the 4-star hotel (the only hotel in town with "soft" beds).  It is Y100/night for the farmer's hotel - so about $15.  The 4-star hotel is Y400/night - so $60.  The farmer's hotel is just a private home that has been organized into motel rooms.  Think of the shabbiest motel you've ever stayed in and you are probably close to what this place is like.  But the price matches the quality, so we don't care!  The beds are Chinese beds - which are akin to sleeping on a sheet of plywood.  When we arrived this time too, the weather had just changed from cold days to warmer days (in the 50s), so the concrete house was "sweating".  There was literally water dripping from the ceiling and the walls and floor looked like they had been doused with a bucket.  Each of the rooms has an individual heater/air conditioner though, so once in there, we were able to control the moisture a bit.  The first night though the sheets felt pretty damp!  We liken it to camping though, so it doesn't faze us.


That night we went out to dinner with the other "young" Westerners in the group.  So the five of us grabbed some street food snacks and then ate at a noodle shop.  LiLi ate quickly and was ready to go play with local kids on the street, so Mark stayed inside to chat with his co-workers while LiLi and I played.

People here love to give LiLi gifts - particularly if they think it will 1) allow them to hold her (bribes!); or 2) keep her around longer.  Sometimes these gifts are questionable (e.g. a book of matches), but most are food (e.g. candy, jello, "meat" sticks, duck tongue, etc.).  On this particular night, LiLi was looking at the seafood selection at a nearby restaurant with other kids and the staff decided to give LiLi two live little shrimp in a cup.  After a little bit they decided to throw in a little minnow too, but they didn't add more water to the cup so the fish started splashing water out violently since it wasn't fully submerged.  This is now LiLi's favorite story to retell.  She is becoming quite the story teller despite her limited vocabulary.  So most of the story is told through charades, renditions of "what's that!", and a few interspersed words like "wet" or "yu" (Mandarin for fish).  It is hilarious.  She is so much fun.


LiLi was a big hit, as well as my pregnant belly ("Didi" as LiLi calls it - Mandarin for little brother).  While I was out on the street with LiLi I had to answer many questions about when I was due, if it was a boy, where the baby would be born (they always think I will return to the U.S. for the birth), etc.  I'm pretty good at conversing in Mandarin on this topic now.  This time, I was scolded by the local women though.  They unzipped my jacket and patted by sides, yelling at me "Meiyou! Meiyou!".  This literally translates as "no have".  Apparently they didn't think I had enough fat on my sides and I should eat more.  They even brought out a rather pregnant Chinese woman to show me what I should look like.  Ironically, at the beginning of the month the doctor in Shanghai (ignorantly) told me I gained too much weight and I "need to start exercising and eating healthy" (since his assumption apparently was I am lazy and eat too much unhealthy food.  He never actually asked me what I do for exercise or what I eat.).  Apparently I can't please anyone...


The next morning we went hiking with the group.  Mark's co-worker, Amy, who organized the trip actually went off with three of the other guys to do a more aggressive hike.  Yandang is set up as a series of "parks" - you can hike between all of them, but most people drive between the main attractions.  In reality, this geological park requires very little hiking, and even the trails that are off the beaten path are all armored stone!  The Chinese tourists rarely leave the main paths though, so the more secluded ones are quiet and free of obnoxious tour guides with flags and bullhorns.


We would have joined the more aggressive hiking group if I wasn't so pregnant and worried about holding them up.  Having us stay with the main group also allowed Amy to go enjoy herself.  She feels a need to "babysit" when she organizes these things and is always having to hike or ride at a slower pace than she would prefer.  She asked us to "babysit" the group - which we agreed to do just so she would go do the hike she would enjoy.  


No one in the group actually needs babysitting though...  they are all quite competent adults.  Amy had also arranged for an English tour guide for the group, but the guide canceled last minute due to a family emergency so we actually ended up with a Mandarin-speaking guide instead.  The poor woman must have felt like she was herding cats all day.  Westerners aren't very good at being herded.  Just tell us when to be back on the bus and let us be.  No need to move us a a big group.  


I think my favorite moment was at the Square Cave attraction.  We had gone there with my family in December and at that time Mark had seen a trail he though you could hike down.  So this time he took LiLi and the two of them ran ahead to go do that and just meet us at the bottom of the mountain for lunch.  When the rest of us got to the path that led to the trail Mark took down, the guide stopped everyone and said there was no more road (which isn't true...) and we couldn't go any further.  She then asked, "where is the man with the baby?  She nearly had a heart attack when we grinned and said, "down that road!"  Mark and LiLi made it down the mountain just fine and we met up with them at the base for lunch.


At another location, we were aware of another waterfall that we had seen when hiking with my family, so we wanted to go see how much water flow there was now.  One of Mark's Chinese co-workers ("Cathy") told the guide we wanted to do this and would just meet up at the bus later.  The guide was visibly stressed about losing some of her "cats" but agreed we could just be back to the bus at five.  Cathy joined us for the afternoon then and we had a great time together.  The tour guide called Cathy at 4PM to say everyone else was already back on the bus.  We were no where near the exit though (or done with our hike), so it was agreed that the bus would just come back and get us at 5PM instead.


When we got back to the farmer's hotel, we found only cold showers...  We called Amy, who called the owner, and found out that he was out of oil.  We heated water in a teapot and bathed in the sink before going to dinner (street food).  There was hot water though by the time we returned from dinner.


The next day it was raining and we thought that the group would just head back home early instead.  We called the more aggressive hikers, who had set out earlier in the morning, and heard that they were huddled in a shelter at a trail head waiting for the rain to clear in order to start their hike.  Apparently there was some miscommunication... because we thought they would be back in two hours.  So we decided to just hang out in the lobby of the 4-star hotel until then.  

Chocolate cupcakes with ganache
frosting decorated as fish

Five hours later we were finally on our way...  It was frustrating to not know what was going on for that long and to try to keep a toddler entertained in a hotel lobby.  The weather had actually cleared up a bunch by then though, so we drove to one last destination on our way out.  A third of the group took the cable car up to the top of the mountain and the rest of us hiked up the steps.  Since this part of Yandang Shan is the most out of the way the place was empty.  There were several interesting Buddhist temples built here and also some fun hiking.  At the end of one path there seemed to be a trail going down the mountain.  So Mark (with LiLi) and his co-worker Jesse (one of the more aggressive hikers) decided to run down the mountain and have us pick them up on the road on the way out.  The plan actually worked out well and they got to get in some extra hiking.  

Decorating starfish.  LiLi loves to do crafts.

This trip to Yandang Shan was a fun & inexpensive way to spend Mark & LiLi's birthday weekend.  Because of this trip, we actually ended up doing LiLi's 2nd birthday party the following weekend.  It was a fish-themed party.  So we made fish bowl invitations ("Swim on over for LiLi's 2nd birthday!"), decorated the house with "fish" balloons we made (taping paper fins, tail, and eyes on are quite effective) and hung from the ceiling, and served fish cupcakes and dirt pie (and a carrot cake birthday cake for Mark).  We also decorated "star fish" with rice I dyed and set up "fishing" in the bathtub with magnetic fish and poles.  It was a fun time.


We had seventeen adults and ten children come to the party.  LiLi love hosting a crowd and is still excited about the fish balloons hanging from the ceiling...

To finish off our birthday weekend, we took advantage of the nice weather to get in a long bike ride.  A group of our friends were going hiking, but we decided we need to ride because 1) we need to train for the W101 (there is a possibility we will be home for it this summer); 2) at this point in the pregnancy it is more fun to ride than to hike; and 3) we need to take advantage of riding without having to find a babysitter!

The Zhongmen hill climb.  What awesome,
vacant road climbing up the mountain!

We set out to try a new route.  Normally when we do this I create GPS tracks for us to follow.  However, since we mostly new the route and looked at Google Maps, we didn't take the time to create a track to follow.  Not a good idea...  First, we missed the left we wanted and climbed an extra 300' to a dead-end.  Not a big deal though.  We got to see people hand cutting granite and the view was nice.  We then found our correct left hand turn, but then we came to a split in the road with two village names we didn't recognize.  On the map there seemed to be one main road with some offshoots... but both of these looked like main roads.  We chose the one we thought kept climbing the most (since we were only at 400' elevation and knew we needed to go to 1200').  We picked wrong though.  That road climbed a bunch more but then descended before we knew it should...  We ended up at a road we have done before (glad for old tracks on the GPS!), but it meant we still had another 1200' to climb to get home!


Another thing to note... don't let the pregnant girl carry the money since she'll have to pee so many times during the ride.  One of the times we stopped I must have lost our cash.  It is quite the ordeal to get off riding bibs to pee on the side of the road, so this isn't surprising in retrospect.  We had a bunch of food with us, but had planned on buying some snacks at some point.  With the extra climbing, the ride was a slower pace than expected which meant we definitely needed food...  but we had no money now!  Mark ended up begging some food from a small village store (we've been there before - so he'll return there to repay them the 95 cents for the break cakes.  It was probably a gift, but it will make us feel better.

Flowering broccoli adds some
color to the landscape

Also, because the pace was slower with the additional climbing, we were now racing dark.  We have a permanently mounted light on LiLi's chair, but we didn't bother bringing a front light.  We ended up getting home only 15 min. after sunset - so it was still dusk.  It was a hard, long ride but a great training day.  6:20 pedal time, 113K, and 3600' of climbing.  Not too shabby for being somewhere between 35 weeks and 37.5 weeks pregnant!  And we had LiLi with us.  She loves to ride.  She NEVER complained the whole ride and spent a lot of it serenading us with her singing (the lyrics generally just include "Mama", "Baba" (Daddy in Mandarin), and "Yi-a" ("Ayi" is auntie in Mandarin, but LiLi flips them and calls her teacher Yi-a) or pointing out her favorite sites (ducks - i.e. yazi (she calls them "ga ga ga" since that's the noise the Chinese say ducks make), cows (niu), and flowers (hua).  Where did we get such an awesome kid?

Our Prenatal Adventure in China: Part V

This is Part V of a series.  Click here to read from the beginning.

We’re behind on updating on our prenatal adventure, so here is the short version:

Most expats always go to Shanghai for their medical care.  However, because we live 4.5 hours away (by train or car), getting any medical care becomes at least an overnight trip and usually a whole weekend is used up, which isn’t very feasible to do for so many prenatal visits with a toddler in tow.  Because of that (and also because of the cultural experience) we had been trying to utilize a Ningbo hospital because it is a couple hours closer.  However, as mentioned in the last post, the Ningbo hospital is very much a Chinese hospital.  The only reason we can go there at all is because they have a VIP clinic with a nurse who can speak some English and help us navigate the craziness.  However, even with this English speaking nurse, the entire process is pretty convoluted for us.  And they also don’t let the fathers in to see the ultrasounds.  Mark was very involved in all of our prenatal care when we were pregnant with LiLi, so to be so overtly excluded here is hard!

Therefore, on Dec. 3^rd we went to Shanghai United Family Hospital for the anatomy ultrasound that is done between 18-22 weeks gestation because it is the important ultrasound during the pregnancy (and we wanted competency) and also so Mark could be present for it.  Besides, we wanted to know the sex of the baby and, while it is technically illegal in China for the ultrasound tech to tell us, the Western hospitals in Shanghai will.  Based on my Ningbo Hospital due date, I was 21 weeks. 

So the Dec. 3^rd appointment was our first visit to a Western hospital in China and we were glad to find it to be just like any nice hospital it the States.  The doctors and nurses in the OB/GYN department all speak English and Mandarin (at least) and many of the doctors were even U.S. trained.  The facilities are nice (the Ningbo hospital feels like you are at a dirty, crowded bus station) and the procedures are all familiar to a Western patient.

We waited for a bit for the ultrasound which actually gave us a chance to assess the literature the hospital had posted in the waiting area.  We were quite pleased to see a lot of info on breastfeeding, a birthing class for mom’s trying for a VBAC, etc.  Since China has a 50% c-section rate (U.S. is high at ~35%) and only 20% of women breastfeed their babies for at least 6 months (60% do in the U.S.), it was great to be in a place that seems supportive of natural births and breastfeeding.  Also, rather oddly, another couple with a baby came into the waiting room that Mark recognized from his flight back to China in September since they had chatted a bit during the flight.  They had their first baby at Shanghai United Family eight months earlier and were now there for their first visit pregnant with baby #2.  They were very happy to tell us about their great birth experience at this hospital and how excited they were to get to do it again so soon with baby #2.  Certainly reassuring.

For the ultrasound we were taken into a family friendly room with screens set up on the wall so the woman getting the ultrasound wouldn’t even have to turn to see the image of the baby.  And there was seating for Mark and LiLi.  The tech was very friendly and chatted as she did the long ultrasound.  This is the one where they take measurements of everything they can, so it takes about 30-40 minutes.  Shortly after the ultrasound we then went to meet with a doctor, who happened to be the head of the department and is a U.S. trained doctor with flawless English.

We explained to Dr. Ji our situation – that we live far from Shanghai and have been doing prenatal care in Ningbo but are not really fully comfortable with the care provided at that hospital but also not happy about the distance it takes to get to Shanghai.  Without flinching, she offered for us to have this baby in Shanghai and recommended only coming back to Shanghai for “important” visits – the 26 week glucose tolerance test, a 32 week third-trimester ultrasound they do since they are based off of a European model (in the States, 12 weeks and 20 weeks are the usual ultrasounds), the 36 week Strep B. test, and then temporarily move to the city at 38 weeks so we are nearby for the delivery of the baby.

She also told us that the baby was measuring small, so I gave her all my paperwork from Ningbo and, using the measurements from the ultrasounds I had there, decided they had given me an incorrect due date.  That is, the baby wasn’t small, I was just only 19 weeks pregnant.  So instead of April 11th, the new due date is April 30^th.  While not normally a big deal, this has some interesting ramifications for us since we live so far from Shanghai!  For instance, we are not now scheduled to move to Shanghai until after my original due date even.  Oh well.  When my family visited in December, they brought with them a bunch of supplies just so we can be prepared for a home birth if necessary (because there is no way we’d go to the local Sanmen hospital for a birth and I am NOT driving a long distance while in labor).

We also quizzed the doctor on our ability to have a birth experience we want – i.e. with little professional intervention, particularly from nurses (with LiLi it was just us and the midwife).  We told her that we wanted a similar birth experience to LiLi’s: no meds, no IV’s, intermittent fetal monitoring instead of constant, lots of walking and various position, no heplock, freedom to eat and drink as we choose, etc.  While she seemed surprised at how “free” we had been with LiLi’s birth, she seemed completely willing to work with us and said that our birth experience goals should be able to be achieved – though to bring our birth plan for review at another visit.  Anyway, we were very impressed with this doctor and also the facilities.  So it seems like a Shanghai birth it might be…

We returned to Shanghai on Jan. 14^th for the glucose test.  For some reason, instead of doing the short screening test they have all the women do the longer test.  So that meant fasting the night before and then sitting around for three hourly blood draws.  I met with a doctor between blood draws and it was a pretty routine visit.  It was a different doctor this time, so she was surprised to hear my due date had been moved but also looked over all of my paperwork from Ningbo and came to the same conclusion as Dr. Ji.  So the April 30^th due date stands.  They said they would only call me if I “failed” the glucose test.  So no call = good news. 

Since I had an early Sat. morning appointment, we decided we would only stay in Shanghai one night this time instead of making it a weekend trip.  However, the transportation coordinator for Mark’s company was unable to get us train tickets home for that Saturday, he could only get us our tickets to Shanghai for Friday afternoon.  So before leaving for Shanghai we decided we would try to take a bus back to Sanmen if we couldn’t purchase the return train tickets once we got to Shanghai (they often ‘save’ tickets for different locations.  So while the train is ‘sold out’ in one location, you can still buy tickets at another station).  When we got to Shanghai, the only available tickets were for a 12:25PM train.  We didn’t think my appointment would be done in time to make it to the train station, so we opted to not buy those tickets and to try our luck with a bus.  That was the beginning of a long adventure…

So my appointment was actually done with enough time for us to race to the train station and hope to still be able to buy the 12:25PM tickets to Sanmen.  No such luck – it was now sold out (at least at the Shanghai Hongqiao Station…).  So we go downstairs to where the long distance buses leave from – as instructed to do by the transportation coordinator.  However, when we tried to buy bus tickets to Sanmen we were told they didn’t have any.  We now know that there is a bus to Sanmen that leaves from the Shanghai South Railway Station, but not the Shanghai Hongqiao Station.  The person at the counter did not communicate this to us though.  So instead, we bought a bus ticket to get to Ningbo – thinking that there would be a lot more ‘regional’ buses going to Sanmen once we got two hours closer.  Our bus was leaving in 45 minutes, which seemed like a success.

The bus ride was uneventful.  LiLi slept for most of it.  When we got to Ningbo though and tried to buy tickets to Sanmen, we found out that we would have to go to a different bus station within Ningbo to catch that bus.  Well, that is actually a little too generous about how clear we were on what was going on.  We were actually told they didn’t have any buses and then we were handed a little slip of paper (think a piece of paper the size of a Hersey Kiss paper plume) with an address and phone number on it.  We had no idea what it was, but decided to try to get there.

We go outside to try to catch a taxi, but by now it is the time of day when all the Ningbo taxi drivers seem to already have passengers.  Oh, and did I mention it is pouring rain and 40 degrees?  After unsuccessfully trying to get a taxi for nearly an hour, we finally got an illicit “little blue” taxi to take us.  We negotiated a price of Y30, about $4.75, and hopped in.  At this point we are wet and willing to pay a lot… but unfortunately the guy didn’t rip us off.  We think his price was Y30 because that is how many fingers he had.  We were hoping the place was just around the corner, but it was actually a 20 minute drive squished inside this guys little blue taxi with our weekend luggage.

When we get to this other station, we go in and Mark tries to buy bus tickets for us.  The first lady tells him no and moves on to the next customer.  Confused about what was going on (i.e. was the bus sold out?  Did that line not sell tickets to Sanmen (sometimes the lines are destination dependent)? Did buses not leave for Sanmen from this station?) he decided to try his luck at another line.  The lady at the counter in that line said she had a bus ticket to Sanmen.  Success!  However, when he then asked for two tickets, she said no.  Apparently there was only one seat left on the bus.

Feeling dejected and quite wet (though LiLi was happy and dry through the whole day), we decided to try to get to the Ningbo train station and see if we could at least get a standing-room-only ticket to Sanmen.  We knew the last train of the day to Sanmen left at 6:25PM, which meant we didn’t have much time to spare.  Unfortunately, taxis were still nowhere to be found.  A young couple with a baby who also couldn’t get the bus tickets they needed then told us they were also going to the train station and would help us get there via the public bus.  They spoke no English, so this was all communicated in simple Mandarin.  We walked a little bit to a bus stop and were pleased to see a sign with the Chinese characters for train station on it.  We had to wait about 15 minutes for the bus, and then we were on the bus for another 30 minutes.  Apparently we were not as close to the train station as we had hoped.

We rush to the ticket counter at the Ningbo train station and find we cannot get tickets to Ningbo still that day – the train had just left.  So now we are officially stranded in Ningbo for the night.  However, we were able to buy train tickets for the first train going to Sanmen the next morning (11:05AM).

So now we need a hotel.  We know that if we got in the taxi line and then just told the taxi driver to take us to a hotel, he would be confused and would want a specific destination.  So we decide to try our luck with an illicit taxi driver instead since we would have more time to explain our situation.  

Knowing some Chinese hotels are questionable at best (you know, the ones that charge by the hour…), we asked a young guy soliciting us for a taxi to take us to a hotel for “laowei” (foreigners).  We agreed on a price and he took us to his van.  I actually know the area around the train station in Ningbo pretty well so I knew there were a lot of hotels around here that would qualify as a “laowei” hotel.  However, this taxi driver took us out of the city.  At which point Mark tries asking him where we are going.  He responded “Sān mén hédiàn” – Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant.  Wait, that is two hours away… and while it would be nice to get home, it would cost like $100, not the $8 we agreed to.  So when trying to confirm the price to make sure we weren’t about to get a “Yankee Discount” we realized he was taking us to a hotel he thought people from our site stay at.

The hotel was about a 25 minute drive from the train station and was a Chinese hotel – but a nice one.  We were wet and hungry, so we were just happy to be somewhere for the night!  Having anticipated the possibility of getting stranded somewhere since we had gone to Shanghai without a firm return plan, we had packed an extra day of clothing.  So it was nice to be able to get dry before heading out to find dinner.

This hotel seemed to be in a new area of Ningbo that doesn’t have much of anything yet, so we decided to try to hotel restaurant.  LiLi had a lot of energy still since she had been “worn” by one of us for much of the day, so we went to look at the fish tanks while Mark ordered our food.  After a little bit, we returned to Mark and he was still flipping through the menu.  There was nothing in it that looked palatable (and we aren’t very picky…).  We didn’t really want to end a hard day with a bad meal… so we decided to just leave instead.  We ended up buying Ramen noodle-like packages at the convenience store across the street and just brought it back to our hotel room where we boiled some water.  It was actually a pleasant ending to the day.

The next day we decided to leave plenty of time to get to the train station since available taxis seemed like a scarce commodity and we were also in a less populated area of Ningbo.  However, the hotel was able to hail us a taxi pretty quickly so we had plenty of time to kill at the train station.

LiLi taking to some chickens
at the Ningbo train station

The train station was packed.  Apparently all of our travel woes were because it was 9 days before Chinese New Years and people were heading home.  I had actually moved my doctor’s appointment from Jan. 21^st to the 14^th in order to try to avoid the craziness.  Since so many Chinese people live far away from their family home, Chinese New Year might be the only time they go home in a year.  We knew this, but we hadn’t anticipated how many would have also saved their vacation time to use on the week before or week after Spring Festival!  The crowded train station made for more entertainment for LiLi though.  She loved the live chickens that were traveling too – as well as legs of pigs, etc.

We are blessed to have great neighbors who didn’t mind keeping our dog Jiaozi for another night.  In fact, they made it seem like their pleasure…  They have a puppy around the same as Jiaozi (also a Chinese mutt), so apparently while we were getting wet and stressing about trying to get home, our puppy was happily wrestling the day away with his best dog friend Gracie.  It’s really nice to have great friends here who make stressful situations manageable.

In retrospect, this transportation adventure was worth it.  We learned a lot about navigating various transportation situations in a couple of cities.  However, when in the midst of it (i.e. not yet knowing the outcome) it can be quite frustrating!  I feel so much sympathy for non-English speaking immigrants to the States now.  Every day can certainly be an adventure.