Shanghai

I have fallen a little behind in my blog postings the past couple of weeks.  I will begin with our most recent adventure Shanghai.

PJ's baseball team travelled to Shanghai this past Friday to participate in the China Cup Tournament.  This is a four team tournament between the International School of Beijing, Shanghai American School-Puxi, Shanghai American School-Pudong and Hong Kong International School.  All teams participate in a China Cup Tournament and the locations rotate year to year.  This year baseball and tennis were at the Shanghai American School in Puxi.  All of the athletes have "home stays", meaning they stay with families of athletes from the hosting school.  PJ and two of the jv players stayed with the family of a boy on the Puxi jv team.  Nothing too exciting to report from his home stay as it was an American family.  The father was a West Point grad now working for Ikea.  PJ's team won the 3 round-robin games easily (they 10 run ruled each team).  They beat Shanghai American School-Pudong in the Championship 4-1.

   

Shanghai American School-Puxi is located way out in the suburbs of Shanghai.  We stayed at a hotel in Puxi thinking that we would be relatively close to the school, but we were a 45 min. drive.  The campus is beautiful and large.  There are some local shops outside of the campus and then a brand new mall.  The only stores open in the mall at this point were Burger King and Subway.  Apparently it is not uncommon in China for something to be built and then they wait for people/businesses to come.  We are told that the Pudong campus is the newer campus and it is also way out in the suburbs, but on the other side of Shanghai.  My friend who swam for Michigan State and whose daughter swims for Duke said the Pudong campus has one of the most beautiful natatoriums she's ever seen.

Friday, before the game, Dave took the girls and I to a neat little section of town,  Jing'an, with some shops, art stores and restaurants for lunch.  It was a little like Stanley Market, but nicer.  Just a neat area to see.

 


After the games on Saturday, Dave, the girls and I went to the Fabric Mart.  This is where Dave has gone in the past to have shirts and suits made.  He has also gotten belts here.  We bought some scarves for gifts and I bought a couple of belts.  That night we went into Shin Tian Di for dinner.  This is a popular ex-pat area with lots of restaurants.  Dave wanted to take us here to his favourite Chinese restaurant, South Beauty.  As you would expect, China Chinese is a little different from American Chinese.  There were a lot of fish dishes with the skin and head still on the fish.  We opted for some chicken and pork dishes.  I ordered a chicken with spicy peppers dish and proceeded to drink a liter and a half of water!  It was good though:)

Sunday after the game we took PJ with us and went to the "Fake Market".  This was a new one for Dave.  In the past he has gone to a market under the Science Center for his "fake" goods, but this one had Abercrombie and American Eagle, so the girls requested going there.  That was quite the experience and lesson in bargaining!  We hadn't taken 10 steps into the mall when we were approached to look at merchandise.  Meg wanted a watch, so I stopped there with her.  After getting the watch for half price the woman led me into a hidden room to look at her "best quality" purses.  To get to this room they open a door that is covered with merchandise on the outside.  Inside there is more merchandise, then two more doors were opened to take us back into the room with the purses.  Dave actually had to call my phone to find out where Meg and I had gone.  Each of the kids took a turn at bargaining and they all did well.  PJ can't help but smile when he punches his offer into the calculator.  No prices are posted.  The salesmen all give you a price and then say, "but for you my friend, this price because you are my good friend".  Dave always responds with, "No. For you my friend, this price."  I find it is easiest to just not have much money on you.  This is what I did with the purses and got them for 1/3 of the price.  As soon as you start to walk away they will call you back and come down to your number.  They want the sale.  At one point we had the entire family, except for Meg, in a secret room looking at watches.  The room was so small that Meg got stuck outside of it in another secret room, but she couldn't tell where the door was to get out.  We did lots of Christmas shopping!

That night we met up with a friend and co-worker of Dave and his family.  They have been in Shanghai for about a year and a half.  They took us to a restaurant in the "Bund".  This is an area of Shanghai right on the river.  It is beautiful at night as all of the buildings light up in different ways.  The name of the restaurant is Mr. and Mrs. Bund.  It was French cuisine.  The restaurant was located in a high-end mall.  We were unable to find the elevator when we first entered the mall and tried going up to the restaurant in what ended up being the service elevator.  When the doors opened we were greeted by two employees of the restaurant, one pushing a dumpster filled with food remnants.  Dave looked at us and said, "Well guys, that's what you'll be eating tonight."  The two employees kept staring at us and talking the whole ride back down.  We found the proper elevator and made our way back up to the 6th floor.  This time we were greeted by a closed door.  At first we thought maybe we were too early, but no.  They keep the door locked and you must ring a doorbell to get in.  Then you are greeted by a line of greeters dressed in blue jeans and suspenders.  The dinner was very good and the view was spectacular.

The chair they brought for my
purse at Mr. & Mrs. Bund

I was very impressed by the effort to have "green space" that has been made in Shanghai.  There are lots of new trees being planted and little "park" (not really big enough to walk through) areas all over.  I will also say that you will never catch me driving in Shanghai.  I am not sure that there are any "rules of the road" other than to try not to get in an accident.  We saw several accidents.  We had a hired driver for the weekend.  I recommend this or using taxis.  The taxis are even less expensive than in Hong Kong.  It is important to have the "Shanghai Taxi" app on your iPhone, though.  Very few speak English.  There are mopeds, motorcycles and bikes everywhere.  Most places they have a separate lane. They seem to cross the street in huge groups.  It is amazing more don't get hit.  Your best bet for crossing a street is to be in the middle of a pack of people.    Shanghai is enormous and we did not have enough time to see anything historical on this trip.  We will definitely go back.

We flew back on Monday since the kids did not have school.  We arrived at the airport early so changed to an earlier flight.  Bad move.  That flight was immediately delayed.  We sat in the airport 2 hours before they brought in a new plane and we finally boarded.  Then the pilot came on the intercom to say the plane had taken a bird strike to one of the wings and they needed to check with engineering in Hong Kong to make sure it was still safe to fly.  An hour later they said they needed to check with Airbus.  Another half hour and they said they need to fill in the damage and tape it.  That sure gave me a warm fuzzy.  Finally, after sitting on the plane for 3 1/2 hours we took off.  We made it safely to Hong Kong.  I will say, the Chinese are much more patient sitting on planes than Americans.  Apparently they are very used to it.