Hot summers, holidays, Hannah world, and return to Shanghai!

Wooow..can you believe it? It´s been three months since we posted something here! About time we continue again or we won´t be able to catch up any more!

The reason why you haven´t heard from us for for a while is we enjoyed a super long summer holiday.

In June Paul, Hannah and I headed over to Europe to finally get our little one to meet our friends and family back home. Our travels brought us first first to London, than a few days in Germany before we hopped over to Rhodes to catch some extra sunshine  and enjoy a beautiful family wedding

All in total 4 suitcases, 1 maxi cosi, 6 flights.. 3 countries, 2 different sea sides...
Yes! -  Hannah carries the travel genes and enjoyed all of  it (especially watching suitcases going round on the luggage belts :-)!

Three weeks later our family time came to an end and  Paul had to board a plane back to work in Shanghai. Hannah and I decided short notice  to extend our time in Germany and to stay on at "Oma and Opa´s" place.

Reason for this decision was that Shanghai experienced it´s hottest summer in 130 years! It was almost 40+ degrees every day.  With the temperature at night dropping down to a cool 38 . Paul sent me Pictures of some people bbqing on the pavement and sleeping outside in their underpants!

With all our "mommy friends" having gone back to Europe and Paul expected to travel round the globe on a business trip, it seemed like the right decicion. There was not much point in spending summer in our airconditioned Apartment with no one to visit around. This way we got to enjoy our first summer together  in Germany. Here we were able to go for our daily swimm in the local Swimming pool, eat loads of ice cream and Hannah could get spoilt and entertained by my family and friends.

Just in time when the temperature dropped to a nice "cool" 30 degrees Paul returned one month later to Germany to pick us and 5 full suitcases up to come back to Shanghai with him. And therefore  a couple of weeks ago the three arrived again reunited 8000km further east in our our apartment in Gao An Lu.

I was a bit worried what it would be like. . Two months are a very long time not only in Shanghai but also in Hannah´s life. Would she recognise her bed? How would she cope with all those people and city life again? And - How on earth am I going to keep the entertainment level up?

Hannah has developed so beautifully in Europe, is so much more aware of things that it was almost like returnig with a new Baby. But the worry was for nothing: From the Moment  we walked through the door she was fine.  And after 5 minutes of wondering about all those People in the street she was busy playing with her toys on the stroller again. No Jetlag, no drama.. just happy and excited as she is.

Now, let me tell you a little about our first couple of  weeks here:

Mr. and Mrs Jing (our  neighbours) were so pleased to see us back. Mrs. Jing had to give Hannah a huge cuddle and couldn´t stop commenting on how beautifully "pang" = fat she  had become.. (I case you don´t know the previous Posts, this is a real compliment for the parents and means your child is developing great!)

No wonder! During our stay in Rhodes we started Hannah on solid food. 

She loves to munch on anything!

In good preparation for the coming months we brought back a "babyfood" suitcase  as this is ridiculous expansive here!
For example: 1 jar of "Hipp"-puree costs in Germany about 1 Euro.. here 4-5 Euro!.. Babymilk is even worse: 1 Pack Aptamil 12 Eur in Germany, about 40 Euro in Cityshop...

Another suitcase could have been called "Santa Clause suitcase" because it was filled with toys for Hannah (and loads of new shoes for mommy :-) )

 

 

But as it is: sometimes the simplest  things can be just as exciting!

 

 

 

In the past few weeks Hannah has turned into a real active little person(ality).

No toy can beat the fun she has in her bouncer which is also a souvenier from home.

 

 She LOVES it!

If we Combine it with her favorite tune she goes rock and roll!!

 

 

 

She has  also come VERY close to crawling

concerning the entertainment I had the idea of staring the day by 

..  reading the papers every morning before breakfast :-)

 

...and help in the household as we found out that our current ayi will leave us....

together we baked a cake for daddy´s birthday:

..which we celebrated last weekend with a big brunch and lazing at the swimmingpool

in the Le meridien Hotel in Sheshan

And it would not be Shanghai if we wouldn´t have already visited one of the great bars on the Bund. Our friend Serkan was again over from Germany. A great excuse to find out what VUE bar is like. It is known for having one of the best views over the City.. and it has!

(good Cocktails, too by the way...)

Looking back it´s been a wonderful summer in Europe and we enjoyed every single day back home. I loved the space, breathing the fresh air, driving a car, meeting up with friends and family we could not be more thankful for  this very special time.

 

 

But it´s just as great to be back in town.

After all: Home is where DADDY is!!

Get Married!!

This is becoming a bit of a "Hannah" blog.. time to tell you something about life in China again :-)

It is a known thing that the Chinese like to get married on auspicious dates. Just like in others parts of the world want to on dates like  10.10.10. But in China there is a bit more choice because another criteria is also how the date sounds like in Mandarin.. and this can bring good luck.

20.05.2013 was the last time where THOUSANDS of couples rushed to marriage registration centers across the to tie the knot because of the auspicious meaning of the date, meaning "I love you" in Chinese.

Shanghai daily wrote a good article about this whole phenomenon. I thought It is well worth sharing with you.

And in case you haven´t seen it I share with you also a my photostory on this topic from a couple of years ago. Please click "HERE"


A total of 3,766 couples said "I do" across the city, compared with the normal 400 on a day without any special meaning. The figure included 25 cross-border marriages, the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau said.

It is the largest number of marriage registrations this year since January 4, when nearly 7,300 couples tied the knot. That date has a similar pronunciation as "forever love" in Chinese. It also surpassed the figure on May 20, 2011, when 1,758 married. May 20, 2012, fell on a Sunday, when marriage registration service centers are closed.

The seven digits of the date - 2013/5/20 - have a similar pronunciation to "love you for life, I love you" in Chinese.

Shirley Fu, wearing a matching T-shirt with her soon-to-be-husband, waited quietly at the Huangpu District center.

"I picked the date several weeks ago due to the auspicious meaning, which I believe will bring good blessings to our future life," the nurse said.

At the Minhang District marriage registration center, 242 couples got certificates, up from the usual 20 to 30.

The Yangpu center said it handed out 198 certificates yesterday, compared with about 20 on a normal day.

DATES with an auspicious meaning have become a popular choice for marriage registrations.

The city's daily record for marriage registrations was set on October 10, 2010, when 10,150 couples became husband and wife.

The number "10-10-10" symbolizes "perfection in everything" for Chinese.

The city's marriage registration centers are always packed with love birds on special dates with auspicious meanings.

On January 4, 2013, nearly 7,300 couples registered at civil affairs bureaus across the city due to the auspicious meaning of the date - 2013/1/4.

When spoken in Chinese, the numbers 201314 sound like the phrase "love you for life."

On December 12, 2012, 4,883 couples tied the knot on the century's last repeating date, which means "want to love" twice in Chinese.

The auspicious date of November 11, 2011, for marriage saw around 5,000 couples get marriage certificates.

Many couples believe the date - 11/11/11 - is auspicious and signifies a "pure heart."

Some 7,189 couples rushed to marriage registration offices across the city on 2008/8/8 because the date has many "8s". It sounds like "strike a fortune."

Hannah´s world (April)

April was another eventful month for us. It is so amazing watching Hannah grow. Nearly every day she is surprising us with a new skill. She also loves to brabble along and is even starting to sing  in her own way to music with the aircondition beeing the happy audience Hannah has chosen.

It was fun watching her discovering her finally her hands and feet. Now that she knows she has such usefull tools she is grabbing everything with her little fingers.

 
With her feet she loves to bang like a maniac on the wooden floor rocking the entire baby gym.

"Clever girl!" I keep thinking!  Why moving one object with one hand when you can shake all of them at once by kicking it!.. Thankfully Mr. and Mrs. Jing downstairs love children and don´t seem to mind the banging on their roof too much.

They really like Hannah. The can´t stop commenting how cute and "pang = fat" she has become.. It is meant as a compliment! I can only assume that if you have a "fat" baby in China is associated with wealth and health..?.. Well if anything my milk department seems to be  doing a good job :-)

Last month Hannah and I were also able to established a bit of a daily routine. I figured out when she gets tired and needs to sleep which gives me a bit freedom during the day and also an evening because by 7pm she is totally worn out from her day.
 

According to one of my clever parenting books I had also reason to hope that once Hannah hit the 3 month mark she would start sleeping longer through the night.. hmmm.. we are still working on that.

I can barely remember how a good 8 hour sleep feels... Since 4 months 4 hours are the maximum and if that happens (very very rarely) I wake up myself wondering if our baby is still alive. But thanks to hormon overload and Paul taking over as much has he can my body is coping quite well with the sleep deficit. 

Unfortuantely Paul had to start travelling again in April. But luckily his first trip took him for a couple of days to Germany which meant that he came back with a suitcase full of goodies and presents from home :-)

 

Hannah didn´t care too much about what he brought back.. she was just happy to have her daddy back home. 4 days in such a short life can seem a very looong time!

 

 

 

 

Three months after delivery it was also time for me to do something to get back into shape. So I went to Lisa´s  post-natal class every wednesday and got to meet some fun mommies..

 

and their little babies:

 

The best thing about this class was the getting together afterwards in "Whisk" which

is a the most dangerous place in Shanghai because it is a cafe specializing in Chocolate dishes :-)..

 

But we decided that with 90 minutes of sport upfront and the need of additional 500kcal per day to keep the milk supply flowing the weekly visit was more than justified!!

And they do serve the best chocolate soufle in the world there :-)

 

We enjoyed getting together, gossiping and watching the little ones playing with each other so much that we now, despite the course is over, keep on meeting up every wednesday ... and continue eating chocolate cakes without 90 minutes of excercising upfront which is still justified because we all agree that the babies wriggle round much more these days, making us using up easily another 500kcal...

I would never have thought I would enjoy this but it is really great to share the whole  mommy "Shanghai-experience" with others and to watch the babies "communicating" with each other, too. Hannah seems to be fond of little Mahlo in particular. But instead of brabbling to him, she is pretty straight forward and is grabbing right under his T-shirt.. hmmmm....??

With the weather improving in April it was also time to catch up with old and new friends. And to meet the new babies of pregancy-fellows who we met during various pre-natal courses.
The great thing about Shanghai is that you easily make new (baby)-friends from all over the world.

For example:

Mira and little Max (Croatian/French)

 

Hannah and Lei Lei (Shanghainese/Swiss)

 

Hannah and Daniel (Shanghainese/German, born the same day)

 

Hannah and Melissa (Peru)

Hannah and little Ranga (Indian/German) and Diego (Mexican)

Sometimes I feel a bit like a "relation ship manager" for our daughter. But I guess that is part of the mommy "job description"...

Well the setting in Shanghai is definately the right "playground" for mothers who do enjoy a good cafe latte and like exploring the coffe shop scene in the city :-)!

 

Sanya - first family holiday!

We are back from our Sanya...and it was a turely wonderful holiday. The weather was perfect with over 30 degrees and plenty of sunshine. The resort we wer booked in was perfect and in this short time we stayed there we found out that Hannah really enjoys travelling and also appreciated a change of scenery. All this green everywhere!..she could not stop lookg at this whole different world which was so different to Shanghai. With Mommy and Daddy around 24/7 it was not surprising that also a lot of "first time" things happened whilst we were away. Let me share with you some of them:

Mini Lincoln.. ready for take off:

She did really well on the plane and slept through all l take off´s and landings..

Told you.. she is a traveller :-)

Actually as long she can hold onto her "adventure monkey" 

it doesn´t seem to matter how and where she travels..

At the resort we built Hannah her own lounger and entertainment center at the pool :-)

a new skill: bursting bubbles with her mouth...

 ...grabbing and holidng onto things...

Pooltime!..

unfortunately the little yellow pelican could not convince her that paddling in the pool is a fun thing to do.
She kept pulling up the legs as soon as her feet touched the water and looked very grumpy until we took her out again...

So introduced her to the "big water".. beachtime!!..

first contact with the sea!!!...she didn´t mind too much..

first sand on her feet!

Hannah´s  first sunrise

and first tropical rain storm

She didn´t mind the water from above.. probably knew that it would safe her from going into the pool:-)

Evening stroll along the beach:

But the best thing about the whole holiday for Hannah was definately all this extra daddy time!!

Happy Fathersday, Paul!

Thank you for this wonderful holiday

We love you!!