3 days in Shanghai

I am warning you now that this post is a beast with 18 pictures and 3 videos. But our 3 days in Shanghai were pretty awesome and I don't want to split this into multiple posts.

The flight from Qingdao to Shanghai was great and way faster and cheaper than a comfortable seat on a train. We loved the place we stayed at, which was probably the cheapest place in the main city area that allows foreigners (about $25 a night for a small room with a large bed, TV, bathroom, and AC). We didn't  talk to a lot of the non-Chinese people we saw, but of the ones we did none were American.

Enoch loved the bunnies that our hotel, the Shanghai Old West Gate International Youth Hostel, had in the lobby. He started calling them dog in English but ended calling the bunny in Chinese.

Our first day there, we went to a town called Zhou Zhuang about an hour outside of Shanghai. It's a town heavily based on water where they used to primarily get around via boat. I think authentic water towns are hard to come by nowadays, since they are mostly all just tourist sites now.

It started out a bit rough, as Enoch was sleeping, it was raining, we had to keep up with the tour group that we signed up for, and this little town had tons of stairs and rough pathways. Things soon got fun, however, becaue Enoch eventually woke up, the rain cleared, and we got free time where we didn't have to follow the tour group around.

We thought it was really pretty. We decided to take a little boat tour around the village, even though our tour guide didn't recommend it. We thought it was the best part of the whole day. The lady guiding our boat asked if we wanted to pay an extra $5 for her to sing us Su Zhou opera songs as we went along. She sounded terrible, but it still added a nice touch.

The second day, we again left Shanghai to see the famous West Lake in Hang Zhou. Just like the previous day, we went with a Chinese tourist group. We did this because it was a lot cheaper and potentially easier and more convenient than going by ourselves. To give yourself an idea what I mean, the ticket to enter the water village alone would have been over $16 a person, not including money spent traveling to get there. We paid about $11 for the tour group, which included travel, tickets, and of course the tour guide. You get the discounted rate because they are contracted out by some stores that they take you to. Overall, we were pleased with our tour group at the water village, but we were quite disappointed with our experience in the West Lake tour group.

One reason was that our group at the water village was only about 10 people, but at West Lake our group had about 40 people. It often felt like we were a large group of farm animals with wallets, being herded from place to place in hopes we would spend money.

This entire group of people following a person with the flag in front was our tour group

After a 2 hour bus ride, they immediately took us to the West Lake, which was nice. Afterwards, however, we spent the whole afternoon being herded around to shops and other places we didn't want to go to. One of the places was supposed to let us "experience" the Su Zhou method of drinking tea, which of course turned out to be a marketing ploy of selling tea. Since we don't drink tea, we told the guide we would just hang out outside, but he said we had to go inside anyway. We didn't get back until about 9PM, and we left at 6:30AM. In sum, a few enjoyable hours at the West Lake was not worth hours on the bus, hours visiting silly shops, and hours listening to an incredibly annoying tour guide who wanted our money. I don't think we will ever do any kind of tour like that again.

This tea pot water fountain was kinda cool

Despite the unpleasantness mentioned above, West Lake was nice.

Enoch enjoyed the boat tour of West Lake more than the above picture makes it seem.

The park had a marriage carousel  that Chinese woman used to be carried on  the day they got married

The last day was spent touring the actual city of Shanghai. First, we went to a famous city temple that has been completely commercialized.

First time I've seen Dairy Queen in China. If you look closely, you can also see Starbucks in the background.

We then did a lot of shopping. An old "antique" market on DongTai Road was pretty cool. They had some awesome vintage posters of Chairman Mao, but Sharon said she wouldn't let me hang it up if I got one. 

We then walked around the main shopping malls on Huai Hai Road, but they were like American Mall prices without sales so it was no fun. Later, however, we found the wholesale place that all the locals go to, which was great.

The Qi Pu road wholesale market in Shanghai. There's 4 or 5 floors in the market, with hundreds of shops on each floor  

Everything in this little shop was 10 chinse dollars, about $1.60. The Qi Pu market is the way to go

Enoch had fun here, too.

We left with a bag full of clothes. It's hard to resist prices like that. If you go to Shanhai, don't waste your time in the malls and make sure you go to this place.

Probably the most famous place in all of Shanghai is The Bund. It's stretch of city with old, western-looking buildings behind you and a great view of skyscrapers across the canal. At night it's a great view, but it happened to be raining (as it had been for most the week), so views were limited. 

The next day we flew back, and all was relatively smooth except for a 4 hour delay in the plane before we took off in Shanghai. Luckily Korean Airlines is pretty nice and they tried to make us comfortable. By the time we reached home in America, we had been traveling for 29 hours. It's definitely a long trip with a baby. Probably due to jetlag, Enoch developed a habit of crying from 12-2AM, but he's over that now and all is back to normal.

Goodbye, Zhu You

Four generations 

It's now been a month since we got to China, and it's time to say goodbye to Sharon's family in 36 hours. Last time we said goodbye and left for America, I felt guilty for taking their daughter away. This time, we're not sure when we will have another opportunity to come back. People say it's a small world, but China is pretty far away. The bigger and older our family gets, the more expensive coming back here will be. Starting medical school soon, time and money will both be sparse and the kids will be harder to manage. Whenever we talk to Chinese people who have immigrated to America, I always ask them how often they visit their family in China. I suppose it's a difficult task to assess how high of a priority and how feasible it really is.

As we leave this time, I'm not sure what to feel. Sharon's parents are by no means poor and appear quite satisfied socially and financially. This weakens the idea that her parents are probably happy I gave their daughter a chance to start a family in an affluent country and escape the bitterness of living in China, as some have suggested to me. Her dad keeps asking us to leave Enoch with them, and he's actually serious. I know I need to remember that I made the decision to marry someone from China, but also that Sharon made the choice to marry an American. I think her parents respect her choice and ultimately acknowledge that this is life.

It has been fun to be here. I am very happy that Sharon's parents got to spend considerable time with their grandkid. The tourist sites and scenery have also been fun. It has also been very difficult in numerous ways and we will be glad to get back to a comfortable routine and leave behind some of the more taxing aspects of being a parent here. A few specifics: worrying about Enoch getting sick from food; outside, it's a constant worry Enoch will pick up trash on the ground or get hit by crazy scooters/cars/bikes; inside, houses are anti-baby friendly; friends, family, and strangers feel it is their duty to tell you how to be a parent and to tell you when you are doing it wrong; in China people think you are evil when you don't spoil your kid.

That might have made China sound miserable for foreign parents unaccustomed to life here, but it's really not. Just be aware what you are getting yourself into.

Now, for some more pictures of our time around Zhu You. This little road we found was really nice for a walk.

Wheat fields are pretty

That big, scary, barking dog by the gate made Enoch really happy. He loves dogs.

Enoch is getting pretty good at walking/running

We went to the beach on Saturday afternoon, but Enoch was super tired so we went without him. The water felt like it was around 70. Would have been great paddling weather.

Lai Zhou Golden Sands Beach, about 15 minutes away from Zhu You. I think this place is going to be really nice in 15 years.

31 weeks pregnant

Swimming like a champ

The family business is usually just a storage shop for fish food, but sometimes they make it themselves. Starting a bit over a week ago, a bunch of people come over most days at about 6 or 6:30 AM and sift through sand for small sea snails and other ocean products to turn into fish food. People come to work for about $1 an hour, which still boggles my mind. Stuff in China is generally cheaper than America, but not cheap enough that you can make that kind of wage and live comfortably.

Morning in the courtyard

I mentioned I was plant stupid earlier, but I'm also pretty animal stupid too.  I'll simply call these little sea snails. They grind them up and get the meat out (it's kind of loud at 6:30AM).

Goodbye, Zhu You! (Hello, Shanghai)

Birthdays all around

In the morning on June 10th, we got to web cam with Mom on her birthday since it was still June 9th in America. Happy birthday Mom! If moms were up for trading, I definitely wouldn't trade you. Love you!

A few hours later, we went out with lots of Sharon's extended family to celebrate Sharon's Grandpa's 78th birthday (with Chinese reckoning, however, he just turned 79). Growing up, Sharon lived with her grandparents for many years. Her grandpa was a teacher and was no doubt a great influence on her. In the morning, they used to go jogging together before school. Now he is slow physically and somewhat mentally as well, but he comes across to me as an extremely nice man.

Lao Ye (Grandpa) with his grand daughter and great grandson

The family portrait. Sharon's mom is excluded because she is taking the picture.

The Chinese birthday cake for Sharon's Grandpa. The writing says "Long life like a mountain, blessings like the east sea"

When a bunch of Chinese people go out to eat, lots of alcohol and toasting is usually involved. Combine this with a dialect that I don't understand very well, and you will understand why I was glad Sharon got me to sit at the women's table instead.

The men's table

The women's table

Only 3 days left before we leave for Shanghai and then back to America. Better make the most of it.

Yay China: $3 for Microsoft Office Pro 2007!!!

While inside the Terracota Warrior park, I saw a man throw what I thought was some sort of Microsoft Office product in the trash. I quickly and stealthily retrieved it. Indeed, it was Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007. What good fortune for me!

If you zoom in on the picture, you will notice the bottom right hand of the picture says 1 CD 18元. The exchange rate right now is just under $1 for 6.5元, so this means that the software had a retail value of just under $3. Not bad! The suggested retail for this software is $499.95, which puts the discount at 99.4% off! What a bargain. I mean, everyone knows that you should never pay the suggested retail price, but who knew you could get such discounts? Currently, amazon.com and buy.com sell Microsoft Office Professional 2007 for $366 and $340, respectively. Everyone knows it's a rip off to pay that much money for some silly software, but now things are really put into perspective. Shop China!! At prices like this I might stop getting my software out of the trash and actually buy it myself.

The company selling this software is really considerate, too. Near the bottom of the picture above is some blue print in a yellow box. It's a warning that cautions against using any sort of game or software that is similarly packaged, because it might be pirated and cause harm to your computer. Whew, thanks for the tip! I definitely don't want some pirated game to cause my computer to crash while I type my book reports on my new Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007.