Hello faithful visitors to the Shanghaiwixo blog! We apologize for taking so long to post a new entry, but it has been quite busy here lately. Nothing too spectacular, Sabrina is just trying to figure out how to survive in our new surroundings and Tony, well you know, is working and traveling.
Since we last posted we have been busy making our new abode homey. Some pictures have made it up on the wall and most of our belongings have found their new places. Even the beds have all been made and the twins clothing (massive amounts of pretty pink and purple outfits and shoes provided by cousin Abbey Petges for Ava) found a place in their closet. We are ready for you visitors! I think there will be a prize for the first to make it to Shanghaiwixo.
There have also been some changes to our home. First of all, carpet has been installed in our living room. Ava and Caden now have far less bruises on their knees and foreheads due to slippery falls on the hardwood floors. There is still plenty of hardwood in the rest of the house for Caden, aka Crash Bandicoot, to run his walker on, but overall the living room is a much safer play area for them.
Secondly, I had shelves installed in our "pantry". At least I assumed it is a pantry because it is a closet in our kitchen, however, it didn't have any shelves. Asking for shelves was a novel idea , I guess. The service center and the "engineers" (the fix it guys) didn't understand why I would want shelves in there. I asked what it was supposed to be used for then if not to store food. Well, "maybe" I could put "books" in there. Hmmm...I thought that was what the book cabinet in the study was for. Then even more incredulous was that I wanted 4-6 shelves. Due to the "very special American construction" of the home I could only have "maybe two". Ok, we'll roll with that. I know that they wanted to tell me no, but it is not customary for the Chinese to come out and say that. So, the next day, the engineers hung two shelves in the pantry. Now we have some space for food.
Food...hmmm grocery shopping is a whole new ball game here. If you hate doing it in the US, you would be blown away by what it takes to stock your two shelf pantry in Shanghai. First of all, if you remember a previous blog, you need to leave the mini celebrities at home if you want to accomplish anything. Second of all, the grocery carts go in every direction - it is not uncommon to see someone pushing their cart sideways down the aisle. Third, you can't read much of anything unless you go to the import aisles, but the smell will definately let you know when you are getting close to the meat department. We could go on and on, but it is an unusual experience. We've never seen a meat department look so much like a pet store before with walls of tanks containing every kind of seafood you can imagine - eels, jellyfish, sea pickles, bull frogs etc. There are huge bins of hunks of every type of raw meat you could think of, and then some, and several Chinese people digging through them with their bare hands. Butchers just hacking off sections of meat for shoppers and stuffing it in a bag for them to walk away with. This is a germaphobes worst nightmare and enough to make me a vegetarian.
The export aisles contain some familiar food, but also French, German, Austrailian, Swedish etc imports as well. I've bought some French baby food for the kids and they have some interesting combinations of ingredients - we're sticking to the basic ones! Milk is UHT milk, meaning that it is in a box, unrefrigerated. You put it in the fridge after you open it. Eggs aren't in the cooler either. And, you have to make sure you get the right kind of those so you don't get home to crack one and find a duck fetus in some sort of green gel inside. This is starting to sound like an episode of Fear Factor.
We've even tried ordering our groceries for delivery, which worked out well and was very convenient - just like Simon's Delivers back home. The tricky part was figuring out how much to order because everything is in the metric system. The one drawback is that they called us about a half hour after placing our order to say they didn't have about 20 of the items. So much for those recipies that I planned on making. Now I can appreciate why the ramen noodle selection takes up a whole aisle on both sides at the store!
My new friend Amy who is from Maple Grove, MN took me shopping the other day to give me all the ins and outs. She gave me hope that I can manage to eat here and assured me that milk in a box is totally ok! What I learned most of all is that I will need to do most of my shopping in Jin Quio which is about 20 minutes away. There is a large expat population there and therefore there are many more imported products in the Carrefour (large SuperWalmart like store of French origin) than in the one closer to where we live. Plus the produce there is absolutely amazing - that was a sigh of relief! Amy also helped me get the basics for Chinese cooking so that my Ayi can start preparing some meals for us. She also helped me buy the must have appliance over here - a rice cooker. Last night Ayi made us chicken with cashews, snowpeas, carrots, onion, garlic and ginger. IT WAS AWESOME! Now I just have to get her some better cookware as she didn't like my knives - she cut everything up into 1/4 to 1/2 inch chunks. She did like the wok that my brother Chad and his wife Amy got us a few Christmas's ago - phew!
As a side note to all the Wisconsinites out there. We bought some Sargento Shredded Monteray Jack Cheese here, all the way from Plymouth Wisconsin. Just to give you some idea about pricing: a two cup bag cost about $7. As Americans we expect choices and options - there aren't any here. If you want MJ cheese that is what you will have to pay. On the other hand, Chinese Cheerios are just like the American Cheerios, maybe even toastier tasting, and run you about what you would pay at home for a box of them.
Some of you have been asking if you can send anything. I think Ava and Caden would like to request Sweet Potato Puffs and Apple Cinnamon Puffs as we can't find anything like them here. They are having trouble (choke/cough) with the Cheerios yet as they seem too hard and don't dissolve quickly enough. And, let's face it, they don't taste as good. I've been rationing the Puffs out like gold but the Ayi gives them out by the handfuls!
Humor is the key over here as it helps get us through situations like those mentioned above. Another humorous thing is that our garage door goes up and down by itself. Actually, we're pretty sure that a neighbor has the same code as we do because it happens at very predictable times of the day. We even got the license number of the van now to help the service center solve this "mystery". Our explanation, however, gets lost in translation and they "need to check with the security to see if there is a problem". For now, we will just smile and hit the button to close the door - "problem" temporarily solved.
However soothing humor is, it didn't get me through "Ellis Island" yesterday. Tony keeps saying "its not that bad" about the medical exam all of us foreigners are required to go through. I, on the other hand, didn't think going to the medical center was all that funny. After waiting in the melting pot of a waiting room where there is barely any room to stand, they call your number and you don your white robe that I'm sure countless people have worn that same day. You then are ushered through a series of exams some of which are the usual - questions about your medical history, taking your blood pressure, testing your eyesight, etc. Then you get blood drawn sitting next to a pile of blood splotched cotton balls, a chest x-ray, an ultrasound of your abdomen, and an EKG that seems more like they are trying to jump start your battery with the clamps that they put on you. All the while I was checking out my surroundings and, believe me, the germaphobes would have run screaming from this facility as well. I wish that I could have taken some pictures for you at this place so you could have the visual too. I hope that I didn't come out with anything that I didn't have when I came in. Maybe in a few months, or years, I will be able to laugh about that one.
On a lighter, happier note, we were fortunate to have a wonderful dinner with Chuck, Gary and Mike from Polaris last weekend. It was great to see you guys. Dave Dickirson will stay at our home on Friday night before he flies back home Saturday morning. And we are getting together with Kate (a huge thanks to Kate for the big bag of ground Southern Pecan coffee!) and Ryan from Polaris for Sunday brunch at the Ritz Carlton. I hope Caden and Ava behave themselves. It might take a lot of Puffs.
Other than that I have made it to the gym here two days in a row now. I'm starting to get my routine/schedule down I guess you would say. I have discovered that that is where the women hang out in the morning. I just have to work on getting there earlier before they are all leaving. I have met a few of them and Gabrielle (from Germany) has invited me grocery shopping on Monday at the City Shop - the store where we phone ordered our groceries from. She stopped by today to give me a book on Surviving Shanghai with Children - how awesome was that! I'm actually discovering there are quite a few classes for moms with kids 2 and under. It could be a challenge taking both Ava and Caden, but it might be worth it!
Until the next posting....Love, the Wixos
We also had some good eats the Sunday before as we were invited to the Ritz Carlton, kids included, for brunch. Caden and Ava actually did quite well - no major fits and they got to try some French toast. Brunch is a huge deal in Shanghai at the major hotels and we were able to taste foods from all different cultures at this amazing spread! Besides lobster, cavier, creme brulee, Yorkshire Pudding and the like, I was able to have some authentic French crepes smothered in spirits. Although they were wonderful, I still miss the Wixo pancakes and have vowed to make some this weekend even if my arm falls off because there isn't a mixer to be found here.
Boy, this is a fun stage as they are so picky about food and want to be independent even if that means the food goes in the hair. The Ayi is a saint and I'm so fortunate that someone else helps clean up the mess on the floor three times a day!
I also should tell you that we met the couple that have been the source of our garage door going up and down by itself. They are the sweetest people from Texas and unfortunately they have about 10 days left here before they head home for good. Debbie is taking me to the fabric market this Saturday - "Girl, I just sent home 16 cashmere coats and I couldn't tell you how many slacks and blouses that I had made for next to nothing!" She's a hoot, I wish she was going to be around longer.
