Time out!

Every now and then everyone should switch off.. so are we and escape to the beaches in Thailand for a couple of weeks. No web, No mobile, just living the moment..See you later!

Easter Picnic...

Easter is not really a big thing in China, not even in the year of the rabbit. However this did not stop us to celebrate it anyway. Not much different really to how many of you enjoyed it back home: with a picknic in the century garden park in Shanghai:

 worth to mention that I discovered two skills on that weekend:

1st: I´m able to bake something

2nd: I´m a natural in Badminton!

What a nice day that was - to be repeated!

Easter Preparations...

There are some tradtitions which I would not want to miss in my life. One of them is to enjoy my grand mothers bunnies which she bakes every year for Easter. Since it is a little difficult for me to enjoy them this year, my sister had the great idea of giving me my grand mothers recipe as farewell present - well knowing that I´m usually totally useless when it comes to baking. However - it was a challange I was willing to take on and with the help of Paul, Guro and her boyfriend Paul we managed to bake some fine bunnies:

Liebe Stefi und Oma - ihr wärt stolz auf mich gewesen!!

Fuxing Spring days...

This week I went for a little walk through the French Concession which is the area where we are living. Here some snapshots of Shanghais "French" moments:







 I later finished my walk in Fuxing Park, which is a beautiful little park in the heart of the French Concession. Fuxing stands for excitement and just going there watching people doing things is ever so exciting. You see kids practising Inline blading...

And people practising Tai Chi . But the greatest fun of all is watching the "open air" senior dancing club. It is a place in the park where couples meet every day to swing their legs to chinese tuned Salsa, Tango, Walz and Rock´n roll.

This is so much fun to watch that I will go back and practise more taking photos for a proper documentation of Fuxing Park!

Summer is here! My Clothes are not...

All travel guides warn and explain this Shangai phenomenon to you, but experiencing it is a whole different thing. It´s about spring which is supposed to be vey short and last for maybe 4 weeks.
Well, here is how we experience it:

Only on Monday it was still cold enough that you had to switch on the heating and still enjoyed snuggling into a nice pre-heated bed (love our heated blankets :-)...

On Tuesday the weather was truly awesome and the Skyline of Shanghai looked ever so glamerous under the clear blue sky. It was just about warm enough to sit in the sun with a long sleeve.

Another 48 hrs later I´m finding myself already in a short sleeve on a roof top terrace, sipping cocktails until 2pm in the morning and not feeling cold at all.

And today I started already wishing for the aircondition and realized that my brand new haircut will look  by far less cool in summer, because  of the humidity.

Now here is the  thing: My wardrobe is full of winter stuff. And all my summer clothes are still  happily sailing somewhere between Germany and China. We were told that they will not find my cupboard until middle of May. The weather forecast on the other side is showing sun, sun more sun and great mid 20 degrees. And if that would not be intouch we have a beach holiday coming up in 2 weeks... Here we go: I MUST! go shopping!!!

A Spring cycle ride on the outskirts of Shanghai

Two weeks ago we decided to take our brand new little fold up bikes on a challange and to take them to the "country side" - to the edge of the city. To make it not too challanging  we cheated a little and throw the bikes in a cab for a 15km ride to Jinqiao where Paul´s brother Dave lives. From there we started our tour along the canals. The original idea was to cylce to the coast. But - surprise surprise - the path was over sudden blocked by some larger constructions. So we decided to turn around and headed for some greeen fields instead. Yes, they do have them here:

and after a good 2,5hr cycle ride we did what everyone would have done...

watched the sun setting over the city on the river in the Paulaner Beer garden. "Haxe" for the boys

and great "Käsespätzle" for me..What a great "fusion" day that was!

Paul hé Geli zái Shanghai!

When China Travels

Last Tuesday was a national holiday day in China. This means all 1.3 billion people get the pleasure of a day off and many of them (I think it was estimated 450 Million) take the opportunity to travel back to their families. If you ever wanted to know what it might feel like beeing a little ant thant you should choose THAT day to travel by train....

Well, we took the opportunity to travel to Suzhou for a day trip (pics of that to follow)

Can you spot me in the crowd below?

Try to see it positive: You can never feel lonely in this country :-)

The things I saw today...

A romantic photo shoot...

A unhappy dog having a cut and blow dry...

and lot´s of hanging washing drying in the sun..

The only thing I did not find....

...was a shop selling chinese bike bells which my mum had requested

as present for her birthday next week - BUGGER!

A day of exiting little things

Today I would call "day of exiting little things".  The Ayi and I went on an adventure exploring the hoovers interior and than wondering how to re-built it again. The dishwasher repair men came and together with the Ayi we had a great game of "Tabu" where he tried to explain that he is looking for the waterpump and I did terrible in guessing it (None of the forbidden words were on his cards :-) ).

Than I went to Ikea by taxi but not without the usual phenomenom: I told the driver that I wanted to go to "ICHEA, IICHEA, IC EA, EIKEA, IICEEAAA! With the result that he still  had no clue of what the hell I meant..So I got out the catalogue and waved it in front of him . Still no reaction - nevermind how hard I tried another 8 versions of pronouncing the name of one of the most famous shops in the world. Eventually he takes a look at the catalogue, turns it and starts to dial the hotline number  to find out that it is this massive big store at one of the largest juctions in Shanghai.

Visiting Ikea today was like not beeing in the city. Everyone seems to be away as it was a national holiday here on Tuesday. You could walk through the store, even wonder through it and take your time. The music today was as mix of tranquil meditation and jazz unlike the usual Technorythms that enforce everyone to move on the weekends. Today people were chilling in the new layed out garden furniture in front of the cashiers.. It was almost like beeing on holiday. I think they should have moved the hot dog stand next to the garden furniture. Than it would have been perfect.

Back home I tried to tidy up this huge mess of cables and plugs in the kitchen, just to find out that it disconnected me from the internet. Talented as I am it took me only 1 hr to get that arrangement back to where it originally was. But hey, I made it work again!

And last not least: I ordered my first  takeaway via phone. And guess what .. it was delivered to my doorstep! Overall a sucessfull day!