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When we arrived in Shanghai, China it was a big move for myself and my family. It helped alot to be able to write down our experiences and e-mail them to our friends and family. They all gave us a lot of much needed support during that time. After a few months of "adjustment", it became commonplace for me to write updates. Here is an arichive of e-mails sent before creating this website and updates after the website was created.
Family Photo Album:
E-mail to our Friends and Family 1/11/07
China - The start of week 2
Hello Everyone,
Well, as promised this e-mail will be a little more positive: Good things:
Sean love taking the bus to school. Although I cried hysterically in front of all these Dad’s who were trying their best to have a conversation with me. Putting him on a bus in a strange country was very difficult. I pissed off the Chinese driver because I kept asking him if the bus was going to Concordia (his school). Sean hopped right on and found a friend in the 1st grade (not his class) but that also lives in our building. That day the bus arrived home earlier than I was told and he walked home by himself (with is friend) made it into the building pushed the elevator button to floor 32 and knocked on our door “C”. He wanted to go to his new friend’s apartment on the 6th floor. I gave him our phone number and sent him on his way. I think he knocked on all the doors on the 6th floor to find his friend but he did it. His friend (Price) is from Atlanta, doesn’t like Star Wars, Power Rangers or making books. I asked him what he likes and he said electronic toys like Play Station etc. Of all the boys to have to live in our building Arggggg! He had a second playdate last night a ½ an hour away which was a pain during the week but he had a great time.
Scott is doing great at work and is truly in his element here. Although he did say he wanted me to talk to Ayi today to teach her how to make some American fool. Yeh, right, how the hell am I supposed to do that when the only thing we can say is hello???? He finally got his recliner he’s wanted for the past 12 years and he’s home to his F1 racing and all the stores that come with it. His life is good.
Sophie, loves her TV. We have the cartoon network and Disney channel and we bought a bunch of DVD’s at Wallmart that actually work, the question is always, did we buy the English or the Chinese version? Not very positive I know.
We all went for a walk last weekend and found two great Malls within walking distance with Starbucks, Dairy Queen and McDonalds. Where I had the absolute best, I mean the best, Big Mac and fries. The coke sucked but the Big Mac and fries were outstanding! Anyway you walk through what we’d call the lower class of town where the locals are making all sorts of food on the side of the street (not sure what the food is but seems to be popular) sewing machines are set out on the sidewalk where they’re sewing stuff and people are getting their hair cut as well. Yes, we walked through a bunch of hair that was coming from a Man’s head on the side of the street! And, lot’s of vegetables and fruit stands. Sophie just walks through saying “ew, what’s that smell?” and holds her nose. The malls were expensive but a lot of fun to walk through. I can’t wait to go by myself some time. It’s nice to be able to walk to get anything we need from milk, to clothes, toys to a skim Latte. Today Sophie and I are going to try and find this good international grocery store that is along the river that we can walk to. Should be interesting….
Speaking of food, Sophie hasn’t been eating much. She’s found a love of pancakes and peanut butter. I can’t find syrup so she eats them plain. I started out eating peanut and jelly sandwiches a lot but now that Ayi is here I eat leftover dinner food. Ayi makes really good dinners. I love everything so far. Sean is doing well trying everything and Sophie really likes her pancakes. Ayi makes 5-6 different things and we mix them all together. She buys the fruits and vegetables from the markets on the streets and the meats at Carrefour. She does a great job cleaning and with laundry. Scott and I have to go out to dinner next week for work so she will have to babysit. I’m not sure how Sophie is going to like that. Btw, she charges $2.00 per hour for both kids!! Can you believe that?
I’m adjusting better this week. I found my coffee maker and paid $20.00 at Starbucks for a pound of coffee. Yikes! Our new sofa (thank you Linda, couch is for the front porch) loveseat and recliner came yesterday. It looks good. Our view is great. We really enjoy hearing all the boats and looking at downtown. Once the card reader comes I can send pictures. We’re still waiting on our shipment to come. All we have is our carry-on luggage. It was pretty funny at Carefour the other day. Ayi had to buy a lot of stuff (vacuum, wok, mop, food, etc.) so we went to Carefour which is like a Walmart. The driver (Mr. Linn, who has a great laugh), Ayi, Sophie and me took two carts and went shopping. First of all, they tried to communicate with me (which was a disaster!), as to what I preferred and I finally just pulled out my wallet and said buy whatever you want. I’m still not sure if they understood what I said or just did it out of frustration. Sophie had to go to the bathroom and the only way to communicate that was to have her hold her crotch. Once we made it to the bathroom (Ayi, me and Sophie) she literally could not stand the smell (she kept holding her nose and saying “no way am I going in here”) and had to leave. It’s funny because she managed to hold it for the ½ hour drive home. Talk about drama!! Did I say the view was great from our apartment?
The jet lag took about 6 days to get over. Sean was up at 4:00 in the morning then 2:00 then 5:00 and slept until six on the 6th day. These were all school days, poor guy his eyes were so red!
Not so great things:
I HAVE TO FIND A PRESCHOOL FAST!!!! Sophie is driving me crazy!! Don’t get me wrong I love her dearly but all she wants to do is watch TV and when I turn it off she throws a fit. I talked to Sean’s playdate’s Mom yesterday and she said 4-5 years olds have the hardest time adjusting to new environments. I’ve also caved and let her watch DVD’s in the van which keeps her quiet while driving, I don’t want to upset our driver. The people here care very much that the children are happy. Sophie had a major tantrum at the hotel and I received a lot of concerning stares. She does like the view though (ha, ha). Her room is scary, her bathroom is scary and she’s really tired of all the Chinese people talking to her in Chinese. First they stare (trying to figure out why she’s with me) then they try to talk to her. She just hides between my legs. We’ve toured some schools but there is way too much Chinese. They even spoke Chinese on the playground! I’m touring another today and one next Tuesday so we’ll see.
I don’t have enough energy to go through all the problems we’ve had with the apartment, just little things that would take 2 seconds to call someone and have fixed at home. Here I call, wait for an English speaking person, wait for someone to come up, call another English speaking person to explain to the repair guy the problem then wait for the supplies to fix the problem. Then call the English speaking person to let them know the problem was fixed. I haven’t worked out in 3 weeks for two reasons, Sophie is with me 24 hours a day and we don’t have a membership card to our gym yet. My too favorite things in life are coffee and wine. Both are very expensive here so if anyone wants to visit us the Jenkins hotel rate is a bottle of wine and pound of coffee. Pretty good deal if you ask me.
Our shipment has not arrived yet so we don’t have a lot of our stuff. The internet connection is very slow, so I can’t log into Skype to talk or sling box to watch my shows. We have a new wireless router coming so we’ll see if that works. Although I’m 99% sure that earthquake in (whatever that Asian country is) is causing the problem. We’ve heard the internet will not be up to par for 3-4 weeks.
The weather is a lot colder than expected. It’s between Ohio weather and N.C. but feels a lot colder due to the winds from the ocean.
Chinese New Year is Feb 16th – 25th. We’ve heard from everyone to get out of town or buy really good earplugs because the noise is very loud 24 hours a day for a whole week. The problem is we’re too late to book flights to the popular destinations and quite frankly I’m a little tired of traveling to new countries with long plane rides.
I’m sorry about the length of this e-mail. I was on a role and Sophie was sleeping. Everyone, have a great day and please let me know if you’d like me to take you off the list. No hurt feelings at all.
Have a great day!
Jennifer Jenkins