Monday, April 30, 2007

Huan Ying

Huan Ying means "welcome" and also was the name of the small orientation group of American women expats that I had the pleasure of being a part of for the past three weeks. We were fearlessly led by Nancy and Laura, two experienced expats who showed us some little amazing corners of this city and shared with us what they have learned in their two years of living in Shanghai.As a group we experienced the Hongquio flower market and overall everything market. This was an eye opening outdoor and indoor market of the most beautiful display of flowers and plants I have ever seen in my life. Orchids, birds of paradise, calla lilies, peonies and virtually any variety you could think of in arrangements you wouldn't think you could possibly afford - but, yes you can, in abundance and to your little heart's desire! These are just a few pictures of the outdoor shops, I wish that I would have taken some indoor shots to truly convey the immense amount of arrangements.
The rest of the market contained a maze of shops selling furniture, dishes, silk items, home decorations, statues, baskets and there was even a huge, and I mean huge, painting of a young Michael Douglas. It was an interesting hodgepodge of stuff that I can't wait to go back to and explore more thoroughly!
After our search through the market we parked ourselves at Bubba's Texas BBQ for some pulled pork, jalapeno poppers, cornbread and beer. It was wonderful to have some "American" food. Bubba's is an expat landmark as it is an authentic BBQ joint owned by a Texas Longhorn with a sling box to send in all of the TX football games. Here is a picture of me in front of the place that we took back in September when we were here on our "look/see" trip - I thought it was funny to see a TX BBQ in China and wanted to send the picture to my sister, Heather, back in Austin.
On our second outing we went to the Yu Yuan Pearl Market and commodities building. Yu Yuan Gardens is a hot tourist spot (super crowded yet isn't every place in Shanghai?) and a definite "must see" when one visits Shanghai. We briefly walked into the outskirts of the Yu Yuan market and saw where President Clinton ate at a restaurant there that has "dumplings to die for" (below) as well as the famous tea house that people wait forever to get in to. We all did some shopping for our friends back home and marveled at all of the different styles of pearl, jade and stone jewelry at dirt cheap prices that would be customized for you on the spot. The commodities building (that our fearless hosts referred to as "Target") contained everything you would probably ever find at a Dollar Store - umbrellas, gift bags, party decorations, hangers, cheap kid's toys and trinkets, costume items and on and on. This was another place that I easily could have gotten lost in!

I know we all would like to thank Nancy and Laura for taking the time to show us around and for supplying us with the contact information for some of the resources they have found to make life easier here in Shanghai. Some of us didn't want our Huan Ying group to end so we are continuing to explore aspects of the city together. Stay tuned for more adventures!

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Tony's 2 Week Adventure

Posted by Tony:

It has been a very busy past two plus weeks for me. I've had visitors here from Polaris for the last 18 or so days. These latest days have taken me to places in China like Chongqing back to Shanghai for a night with the family to Beijing to Qinhuangdao back to Chongqing back to Shanghai for a night with the family to Changzhou and back to Shanghai. First I want to really thank Sabrina for her complete support through this aggressive schedule and agenda. I love you, honey. They have been fruitful travels and this aspect of the job comes with the assignment. Just as I enjoy traveling and sharing experiences with my family, I too enjoy working and getting on the road with co-workers. Don't get me wrong it is work, but I would rather spend time on the road vs. in the office any day of the week.

So because this is a get down and personal blogspot - I'm only going to really "blog" about the personal aspects of my recent travels and provide a few pictures along the way. As every now and then I do stumble upon some free time while on the road.

As mentioned the first stop on my journey was in Chongqing. Jason (my colleague here in China) and Marc (from Corporate) & I attended a motorcycle show. Jason & I were looking for suppliers while Marc was doing some market analysis and assessment. Late one after noon we decided to take a walk from the hotel down what the hotel called the "harbor". Along the way we found this little side street that lead to a Buddist temple. The temple then opened to a street that led down to the harbor that is at the meeting point of the Yangtze & Jialing Rivers which eventually flows into the 3 Gorges Dam that you have probably heard about.





The following week Brad Clark and Chris Moen arrived in China and we started a whirl wind tour that took us to a number of suppliers. We then narrowly managed to not get trampled at the Shanghai Auto Show on a Sunday afternoon. I have never seen such a crappy job of crowd control and movement in my life. There was literally mob type movement, pushing & shoving, baracade busting, a fight, etc. etc. It was crazy and we happend to be right in the middle of it. No pictures though -sorry. Just too many people trying to go into too tight of space as they only had one door opened up.... Enough of that. As with all visits to China for my co-workers it ended with some Papa John's Pizza and beer at the Wixo household. The twins even like a little pizza too. Jason brought his wonderful wife, Jenny, over for a first time meeting, and we look forward to having them as neighbors as they are literally moving into an apartment that is just across the street from our housing complex. How ironic is that...in a city of 17 million people.

Just a quick thank you to the guys that visited our new office and home over here. I will say, both Sabrina and I look forward to all of you visiting. Just talking to someone face to face from back at the home office and the midwest is a treat for us.

Now I'm home for a little while as the first week in May is a national holiday here in China and most of the country will be shut down for a week or so. We were thinking of taking the family to Korea for a couple of days but I convinced Sabrina that maybe some R&R at home might just be the only ticket I'm willing to purchase right now. :)


Until next time...

Monday, April 16, 2007

Ava and Caden - Life in Belle Wood











You already know that Ava and Caden spend a lot of time at the outdoor playgrounds within our expat community, but there are a few other hangouts that they like to visit around here. One of which is the indoor playroom which has the ball pit and toddler swing, the latter which is their absolute favorite. This room is usually filled with Ayis and children on every cool or rainy day.
The other place they like to go to is the indoor swimming pool. There is a large pool and a smaller kiddie pool at one end with some "waterfall" features. They both are huge fans of the water - whether it be the bathtub or the pool!

American Chamber Gala at the Shangri La

The Great Firewall is down at the moment so we hurried to get a posting out there for you. Hopefully we will get a few more posted before we lose access again.

We had a great time with our friends the Kochs and the Zumbolos at the Gala on Saturday night. Marc Tullemans, from Polaris, was also in town so he joined us as well. The charity gala benefitted the Soong Ching Ling Foundation which supports projects to fund healthcare services to mothers and infants in China's rural areas. The evening had a riverboat theme with "gambling", a silent and live auction, dancing and musical entertainment by an internationally acclaimed pianist Kong Xiang-Dong and a classic rock and roll Shanghai cover band. Over 500 people were in attendance at the formal event.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Happy Easter!!!


Happy Easter from Ava and Caden!

Here are a few pictures of us on Easter morning. We sure liked that the Easter Bunny brought us Cheerios in these pretty plastic eggs!

THE BIG "ONE" !!!


HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY
AVA AND CADEN!!!


Though we missed having a family gathering to celebrate this major milestone, we did our best to make the twin's birthday special. They certainly were showered with gifts from the Ayi and Belle Wood staff, and of course mom and dad too. They also received some cute new outfits from the Petges family and several containers of their favorite Puffs from Grandma Gabert. Thank you to those of you who sent birthday cards as well - it is more wonderful than words can tell you to get mail from home.

Caden and Ava got their first bites of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Caden loved to chow down on his piece once he figured out that is what you do with this gooey stuff, but Ava preferred to play in her's and squish it between her fingers. I think the Ayi officially "knows" we are nuts now! She was laughing, but she knew it was time to get out of there before she would feel obligated to clean the twins up!
I know all of your are wondering if the kids can walk yet and the answer is no - but Ava is really close. She will stand on her own and can walk holding you by one hand. She does take 5 - 6 steps on her own, but she gets so excited that she falls down. Caden has just begun to master crawling, pulling himself up and cruising. They both eagerly try to tackle the stairs and Ava can make it up both flights no problem! The engineers here will be installing gates at the top and bottom of the stairs in the next few days to make our lives easier and safer!








We love our new tent!!!

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

The Countdown to 1!!!

Can you believe that Caden and Ava are almost one year old? Where did the last year go? It seems like we were just praying for them to be strong enough to come home from the hospital and now we are just praying they don't put themselves back in the hospital with every daring move as they are learning to stand and walk on their own! I'm glad that we have their baby books to help us keep track of all that has happened in their lives in the last year (I'm just three months behind on them that's all!). Here's just a racap of the last week.

Caden and Ava had their first "play date" of sorts as our new friends Stephanie, Will and Isabella (twins), and Evan (dad, Brian, was at work) came over for pizza and playtime last Wednesday. The Zumbolo family just arrived a few weeks ago from Minneapolis, and Stephanie and I feel like we are old friends already due to all the emails we sent each other preparing for our moves to Shanghai last winter. The adults are now planning their play time as the Zumbolos, our other new friends from Maple Grove, MN Chris and Amy Koch, and us will be attending the American Chamber of Commerce Gala on April 14th.

Last Thursday brought more company in to our Shanghai home from Polaris. Brian (who has his own Ava) and Luke from the Roseau facility were here last week to visit some suppliers and they joined us for more Papa John's Pizza and Tsingtao and our second round of the movie Borat. It gets funnier each time and it was great to laugh with others from home. Thanks for a great evening guys! Why we didn't take a picture, I don't know.

Saturday evening brought more new friends to our home for a Tsingtao (hmm... there is a pattern here). Lisa and Don from Villa #78 and their three children came over. Don works for 3M (St. Paul) and they sold their home in Prescott, WI last September to make the move over here. Lisa has become quite the work out buddy for me and we are planning on doing an Antique Walking Tour that is sponsored by the Community Center next Wednesday.

Another work out companion I've met is Anna from Sweden. Yesterday, she and I and her youngest son Hugo (9 weeks) went to the Children's Clothing Market to see what we could find. Just behind the bushes you see here and down the steps was a maze of an underground shopping "mall" made up of over a hundred different little shops selling everything you could imagine in terms of clothes, shoes and toys. I could have easily gotten lost in there! Ava, as most of you know, has a closet full of her cousin Abbey's clothes, but Caden was in drastic need of some warm weather wear. I was able to score some "Gap" and "Carter's" summer clothes for him. Real or fake I don't know, but it's uncanny how the tags on them are just like you would see in the stores back home. Maybe they were snuck out the back door of the factory. Another interesting thing is that many of the clothes that are hanging in Ava's closet right now could be seen there as well. The shop owners were not as willing to deal here as they are in "fake" markets. Some would go down a little, but others would just let you walk away, a tactic that usually would let the buyer get their way. A "Gap" t-shirt ran me 25 RMB (around $3) and a "Carter's" one piece romper ran me 29RMB (almost $4). Anna bought some "Teva's" for her older son Axel that ran 200 RMB (around $25). Overall it was a fun place to go and see all that was there - especially the outfits that "modern, cosmopolitan Shanghainese" children wear, which are very sparkly and colorful.

Finally, since Caden and Ava are almost one we thought it was time that they start earning some wages to contribute to the family income. I can't believe that we decided to do this, but we took up an offer to get us connected with a modeling agent for the kids. After viewing the blog, (we've been "unblocked" again for a couple of days!) Boya, the modeling agent, called us to have the kids do a photo shoot today for the Good Baby Stroller Company (their strollers are sold here at the Shanghai Toys-R-Us and they are quite nice). So, Caden, Ava, the Ayi and myself went to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum today (just the outside of it) to be a part of a photo shoot. The kids had to wear some dreary looking "fashionable" Shanghainese baby clothing and they each took turns with the skinny blond model from the Ukraine (think LeAnn Rimes) posing with various strollers while I, and others, tried to get them to smile. It took about two hours and the kids made some RMB to contribute to their college fund. Plus they are sending me a disc with all of the pictures, and if the kids pics get selected for the catalog we will get one of those as well. I'm not sure if I will do this again, but it was interesting to say the least.


Here's a picture of Caden with the photographer.










And, before we forget and not that we could..... there is soon to be another star born! Chad and Amy Gabert are expecting their son this week. We are so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When they get around to sending us a picture we will add him to the blog so you can all see the next generation of Gaberts. If they let the little guy wait until Monday he could share his birthday with his cousins. Tune in next time for the party pictures!

Love,
The Wixos