Rhythm

We're finding a rhythm here, at last. School has helped, and it doesn't hurt that the girls love it. I have just completed two major writing projects. I start three new books this week (outlining phase), and on Wednesday I start teaching weekly at Fudan University.

We have, once again, run into visa complications. Nothing insurmountable, but a nearly constant reminder that we are visitors here. We look forward this week to seeing a Disney publishing friend, Jennifer Levine, who will be in Shanghai on business. It seems so wild to meet up 12,000 miles from where we usually do -- but we have a restaurant booked and the girls are excited to see her (Jen, our NY based publicist, hosts us at DisneyWorld when Dave and I do events there and the families tag along--so she's the Disney World woman, to the girls!).

The weather has "broken." The oppressive heat has given way to just plain old heat -- low 80s instead of mid to upper 90s and 90% humidity.

Marcelle has a day planned with some other women -- they are doing the sights and shopping sights of Shanghai together; she ran into a woman in the fabric mart and they've had a lunch and are making plans -- its fun how such a HUGE city (19 million) can seem so small at times.

The rhythm continues; we're monitoring the hurricane threatening the gulf and sending out good thoughts -- we're thinking of the Barrys as we see massive sheets of heavy rains crossing Miami. The world isn't so big after all. Dave's columns (www.miamiherald.com) are a RIOT if you haven't been reading them; the Dave Barry take on the political conventions. Not to be missed.

Yes, the world is shrinking. But don't tell that to us... from here it still seems enormous.

(Ridley)

Record Rain Fall halts school on first day!

130-year record rain puts city in slow lane by -- AT least one person was killed yesterday as the heaviest one-hour rainstorm in 130 years hit Shanghai.

After steady overnight rain, the storm hit at the 7am-8am peak-commuting hour, trapping hundreds of thousands...

(ridley)

Take two

I guess a typhoon could crimp your day a bit! With the outer portion of typhoon Nuri hitting us yesterday morning, we went into a bit of a spin for the first day of school. Paige was on the bus for over 3 hours, going to school and turning right around to come home. They took the younger children off the bus, and Storey didn't get home until 4:50 in the afternoon. They sat in the auditorium all day watching movies. Buses had broken down in the street flooding from their first foray into the wild streets of Shanghai. Today is a gorgeous day, sunnier and bluer than almost any day yet, and there is a decidedly lessened presence of humidity - at least at 7:15 a.m.
Paige's friends can see that she takes her binder with their signatures on it everywhere. Her yearbook from last year is tucked away in there!


Our street with a barrage of motorscooters coming our way.

He rings his bell the whole time and is greeting the girls.
The bus has been extremely prompt both mornings. This is the bus ayi greeting the girls.

The fabric market

Our first stop before going to the fabric market. Actually, it seems we stop here far too often. The money is getting "recycled" far too quickly!

Ridley wanted his pants copied exactly, so the only way to do that was to remove them and have the tailor measure them inch by inch! Here he is, in one booth out of hundreds at the fabric market, waiting to get his pants back! There are booths for everything. The girls had their backpacks made at one. Every cloth related item imaginable. Storey in the foreground with her new backpack and purse, that she bargained for. The girls are quickly learning how to bargain when it is their own money being used! Paige has begun collecting earrings for her future hope of pierced ears. The vendors in front of the fabric mart have some fun things that Paige has been eying for awhile. One vendor quoted her 68 yuan for large hoops with turquoise beads. Paige ended up paying 10. All bargaining done on her own! Better than my still developing negotiating skills.
As we were heading home we saw this Trek bike shop. We couldn't believe there was one right here. Had to immortalize it to show the Trek shop down the street from us in St. Louis.

First day of school

Here we are. The first day of school. Total excitement for Storey who loves school. Paige excited, but more hesitant about the whole thing. The girls had backpacks made, their hair done yesterday, and we are about to head out to the bus stop at the front of our lane in the biggest thunderstorm we have experienced yet! Storey has her uniform of dark blue shorts and a light blue polo shirt with the school logo on it. Paige has a dark blue shirt and a khaki skirt. Crocs and flops are being worn to get to the bus and wade through the 4" deep water outside our front door!










































It is hard to see the downpour. I couldn't step any further back or my camera would have been ruined! We are under a little overhang by our gate, waiting for the bus.


















Remarkably, the bus arrived on time. It was on the other side of the street so we had to forge through water past our ankles in the street to get to it. 7:15. An hour later, 8:15, we hear from our friend from the embassy (who gets all the info first) that the school is closed because it was flooded! I call Paige, it is 8:20 and they are just arriving at school. (School was supposed to start at 8!) Fifteen minutes later she calls to tell me that she is leaving but Storey is staying. It is now 9:30. We just received a call from Storey that she is also leaving school. Paige is already on the bus in traffic and says the bus hasn't moved in 20 minutes the traffic is so bad. She said that water is up to people's knees and they are trying to ride their bikes in it. We don't know which bus Storey will be on, but we hope they both are back in time for lunch! What a first day of school! This is China!
M

Touring Shanghai - Part 2

I forgot to mention that at Yu Yuan, apart from the beautiful tea house in the middle of the pond, is the most famous dumpling shop in Shanghai. For the dumplings from the window, there is a line, at any given time, about 50 people deep. In the sweltering heat it is the last thing you want to do, so we went inside to sit down and eat them. The second floor was too crowded, so we kept climbing to the third floor. There was a room we could have gone into that required a 60 rmb minimum per person, or we waited about 10 minutes for the 20 rmb per person minimum. I think the second floor may not have had any minimum. It was a great experience, very good dumplings, although we are reserving our judgment about the best dumplings in all of Asia, which is the billing it gives itself.

We taxied across town to the largest temple in Shanghai, the Jade Buddha Temple. This was one of the doors that are now closed to entry, but beautiful.


A wall that was opposite the temple. So beautiful I had to grab a shot.
One of the many Buddhas inside the temple. This is the traditional happy buddha. There were worshippers around who had incense and were bowing and praying to each statue. There were walls filled with all kinds of gorgeous sculptures: wood, bronze, painted.
One of the temple courtyards. There is carving on the top of the roof that is a little tricky to see in the photo.
Each figure has a special power they represent, so prayers are given to many different figures for each specific reason.



















This is one piece of wood. Money is put everywhere on the sculpture. In the larger statues which are behind glass, money has been thrown in over the top.

























The actual Jade Buddha was in its own air-conditioned interior room. We paid well at the entrance of the temple, and then had to pay extra to see the jade buddha. It is beautiful and translucent. Photographs were not allowed. One large piece of perfect jade that was carved. There is also a reclining jade buddha in another room. Of course, even though there are monks everywhere in this still functioning temple, there were also shops throughout where you could buy all kinds of buddhas, jade, fans, scrolls. One amazing craft was the paper cutting. Intricate designs cut from paper.

Our next stop was a local antique street. Local meaning westerners were not to be found around. It is a pedestrian street with galleries, scultpures on the street, and various "antique" shops. These antique shops have a lot of reproductions, some good some not, and a few actual antiques. We found a store we loved and spent a lot of time looking in there. The street was once inhabited by authors, artists. A great find.

Our tour guide, Sissy, then took us to what she called the flower and bird market. The only real bust of the day. She thought it was going to be fabulous. This is where culture steps in. Our western expectations of a flower and bird market were a bit different than what we found. We first walked through pedestrian streets full of 2 yuan stores. Plastic junk in my mind. (Heaven for the girls, who were spending their own yuan!) There is a pond that you walk by. It is lively at night with street vendors coming out and people just hanging. Our age is showing. It is a young peoples hang out. We did find some good paper goods stores for school and office supplies. We finally made our way to the back and a tin roof covered area filled with some plants, not many flowers, and shop upon shop of caged crickets, mice, guinea pigs, some cats and puppies, lots of fish. It was not a charming market. It was dirty, we were getting bitten left and right. We got our of there as quickly as possible. I don't believe we saw one bird. I am sure we will find the real thing elsewhere.

All in all it was a great day. This is a great city.

M

Touring Shanghai - Part 1

We set off on Thursday to see some sights in Shanghai that we had not made it to. Since the girls start school Monday, we wanted to get in some more local things. It was probably one of the hottest days so far! Sunny and sweltering.

As we were leaving our lane, we came across our lane guard and gave him one of the state quarters from Missouri. We brought lots of these over to give as little gifts to people who we meet. He is presenting it here, like a gold medal!


Sissy was our tour guide for the day. She was wonderful. Our first stop was in Yu Yuan, the oldest section of town that has been redone. It was bombed out during the Japanese invasion. It is a bit touristy, but most of the tourists are Chinese. The buildings are gorgeous and there are fun shops everywhere.
We went into a silk factory. This is the woman finding the end of the silk string from the cocoon. It gets attached onto the machine just above the cocoons in the tray, and spins up onto the spool on the top.
The silk worm cocoons, one dangling from the machine.
The silk worms that have double eggs in one cocoon can't unravel and are taken apart and made into these pieces of silk. They are stretched and stretched and are used to make silk comforters, among other things. We got to pull and stretch, too.
The beautiful sights of Yu Yuan will follow in the next posting.

M

We were looking in a furniture store on a little street, and the owner motioned us to go outside with her. She locked up the shop and headed down the alley next door and around back. She took us through tiny dark halls, past a kitchen (spic and span) and into a room that had more furniture. It was her home. Her mother was rummaging around in another room. It was all very dark and very hot. No air-conditioning here. She had some beautiful pieces, but the best part was walking through her house. This is the lane we went down. Her door is on the left at the end.


Being the movie fans that we are, we wanted to try and see a movie, any movie. We made our way via metro to this larger than life shopping mall. This was just one of many escalator's servicing 8 floors of shopping.

Way back through a long winding hallway of restaurants (their food court, I guess) we came out onto this theatre.
Of course no one spoke English, nor had they heard of the movie we were trying to see. It had been posted in our English newspaper, Shanghai Daily, as being there, but clearly it wasn't. We'll have to try another strategy for figuring out the movie scene. We headed home to our own dinner and DVD.

We just got back from open house at the girls' school. There is a lot of China even at the International school. Lines, lines, lines! They both have wonderful teachers. They catch the school bus at 7:15 Monday morning. Wow. Here we go.
M

The dry wash.


The massage.
As Ridley was just describing his trim, here of photos of the girls getting their hair washed and dried at the same salon yesterday. We asked for wash, dry and massage. For some reason, each time we get hair done, Storey does not get her ears cleaned or a massage. Too young? Haven't figured it out yet. When you ask for a dry, that is all they do. No styling on this go 'round. That probably costs more. It cost us a grand total of 15 yuan each for our services: $2.20.

M

The trim

I decided it was time to get my hair cut. I had a meeting with Dr. Sun Jian at Fudan, and I wanted to look presentable. So Paige and I ventured out around the corner to place that looked clean and decent. The sign in the window showed a list of prices. They were high for Shanghai: nearly 20 dollars; but since I pay over twice that in St. Louis, and I wanted to look my best...

So we went inside. I sat down, Paige at my side, and I asked how much, because I didn't want to get any confusion up front. The woman brought the calculator -- the vendors gasp when I pull out my OWN calculator, which I do, but I want them to know I came to bargain! -- and she typed in 15. Paige and I huddled; clearly she had dropped a zero off the end, but this was good news, the price in the window and price inside were different. I was looking at more like 17 dollars, not twenty. I sat down. I received a LONG, double wash, with lots of pleasant head massage (though no back massage as Marcelle had reported; and no Q-tip therapy to the ears); then a LONG warm rinse, and finally I was delivered to my male cutter. He took his time, and he seemed to know what he was doing. I have curly hair and it's not the easiest to cut so I came prepared to be very forgiving; but he was doing a good job.

Twenty minutes later, the cut was a CUT. We were done.
I went to the counter. They presented me with the bill: 7.5 RMB for the wash; 7.5 RMB for the cut. Total: 15 RMB, exactly as the pleasant woman had first dialed into her calculator forty-five minutes earlier. Paige was by my side, elbowing me. I paid up.

15 RMB is roughly $2.00 US dollars. I had a wash and a cut for 2 dollars. Total. And it looks just about the same as any cut I get in the states, to be honest. Did I mention I have curly hair and it's not the easiest to cut? Two dollars. I said to Paige, "At these rates, I'm getting a hair cut every week." And I just might.

My haircut:




* * *
My meeting Dr. Sun at Fudan went very well. I start teaching in two weeks, and will teach each week all year. We get January off for holiday. I'll have 33 students, and then a different 30 after the January break. It's the first time creative writing has been taught in English at Fudan University and my sponsors are quite excited by the idea; as am I. I'm working up my lessons as I write this. It's going to be an interesting year.
Exactly why we came here.

I think...


(Ridley)

My commute

Here's an over the head, blurry, on the run shot of mid-way through my commute to Fudan University where I'll be teaching. As you can see: I'm not alone.

This is the Shanghai Railway station, actually an underground tunnel that connects two parts of the station. This is exactly 30 minutes into my 1 hour commute.
(Ridley)

Stadium Rain

I know Marcelle covered this, but I wanted to show a before and after of what the rain at the Olympics in Shanghai really FELT like!

(Ridley)

Interior of our house

It has been a few days. It takes a long time to download these images.
This is our front door. We all have slippers that we put on when we walk in the door. Coats hanging to the right with shopping bags. It costs extra if you get a plastic bag at the store, so we always try to bring our own bags. This is our living room. Everything looks quite spare. We have nothing on the walls or floors. I am going to have the couch and chairs recovered so it doesn't look quite so English. I prefer a more Asian look while we are here. The windows look out onto our patio.
Looking into the dining room from the living room (Paige and Storey getting ahead on a little math), french doors on the left going out to the patio.
The patio where we hang our laundry whenever possible. The perimeter is all bamboo. Too hot to eat outside, yet.
The kitchen, looking in from the dining room. This is Shuayi, who helps us out a bit. She is wonderful.
The front door is to the left of the staircase, straight ahead through the arched doorway.
The downstairs bathroom which also holds the washer and dryer.
Heading up to the second floor.
The three bedrooms and a bath are on the 2nd floor. Rugs and artwork to come, hopefully.
Stairs up to the 3rd floor and Ridley's office.
The work room, basically a landing.
Doors going out to the roof from Ridley's office.
View from the first roof.
Going up to the second roof top deck.
Looking east toward the Bund. Lots of building missing from this picture! I'll try another shot on a clearer day.
Lots more to report later.
M