Our Shanghai Christmas...what a year!

 

When I opened the curtains in our bedroom this morning I found myself gazing in astonishment at white roof tops in  the garden and snow  covering the trees in Gao An Lu.

As I stood there I got this wonderful seasonal feeling that you only get in the days just before a year is coming to an end.
I looked back in my mind and thought: Wow, 2012 is soon over - our 2nd year in Shanghai is completed - what a year has it been!! - One of the most amazing ones in our lifes.

Alone if we look back at our  travelling adventures:
Starting with a my month long yoga experience in India, our joint paradise get away in the Philipines in May  and a couple of months later  a wonderful long summer holiday back in Europe. And last not least our dream of seeing the ancient temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia coming true in October.

Sure it was not all about holidays :-)
2012 has also been a challenging, but very sucessfull business year for Paul. I could not be more proud of him. Not does he just do his job very well, he really feels fulfilled and enjoys it. Since we live in Shanghai I have met very few people who take on the challenge of working in a Chinese enviroment as well as he does.

As for myself: I  continued learning Chinese, developed my new webpage and started getting first (and very positive experience) for my own future business: "Angelika Lincoln Photography" (www.AngelikaLincolnPhotography.com)

This year we were also again able to welcome various friends and family  who made all the effort to come and see us. And for the ones who did not come: We experienced once again that despite the distance to home we are supported and loved by our friends and family back home.

After 2 years in China we don´t take this for granted and we could not be more thankful for everyone making us still feel part of a their lifes.

Lat not least: The biggest "award" in 2012 goes to life itself which surprised us in May with the news that we are going to have a baby. We could not be more grateful for this little wonder. The pregancy has been the most amazing journey - only 4 more weeks to go!

And therefore it happens that this holiday season  Paul and I stay in Shanghai. Despite Christmas not beeing an official holiday in China, Paul took 2 weeks off. Together  we are enjoying a wonderful cosy time in our appartment in Gao An Lu. We are forgetting a little about time and the hustling and bustling world around us whilst we are enjoying the wonders of this little life inside of me.

Whatever 2013 will bring for us - one thing is for sure - it will be a year with probably the biggest adventure since we have been together. We are ready to take it on and are looking forward to it with excitement and  joy.

And so we are closing the blog for 2012. But not without sharing with you a bunch of impressions of "Shanghai Xmas feeling" - and a few pictures from our very own little Christmas in Gao An Lu..

We hope and wish that all and each of you start the new year healthy and with joy and happiness.

 

May all your wishes come true!!

With Love

AnGelika,  Paul and soon a  little one...

Impressions from Shanghai Xmas Market:

 

Organized by the German Consulate as tourist attraction for the locals,

 

Look "Bratwurst"!!! "Glühwein" was also sold..

The sausage was not too bad at all!

and in case you wonder:

Yes, we did see people eating Bratwurst with Chopsticks!

 

 

Santa hats were handed out at the entrance gate...

Our little Shanghai Xmas:

 

Home, sweet home..

 

Traditional Raclett on Xmas Eve

(costing a fortune because of the cheese!!)

 

 

 

Paul preparing traditional English XmasDinner

Instead of a Turkey a chicken had to do.. Chinese style...

 

Yummy result..was sooo nice!!

 

 

 

This morning - snow in Shanghai!!

 a very rare phenomenon!

 

 

See you soon with new adventures in 2013!!

 

Today I ran into Santa Claus

It may be hard to imagine but Shanghai is in Christmasfever. The decorations are up in many shopping malls, the super markets blast "Jingle Bells" and "Last Christmas" from their speakers -
and even Santa Claus is coming to town.

Today I had the honour to meet him in person as I walked along Taikan Lu. He happened to over sudden stand there right in front of me and asked if I would mind taking a picture with him

With his reindeers beeing too scared of Shanghai traffic he had arrived in a car London Cab sponsored by Intercontinental Hotels and Resorts. However his golden sack did include a few goodies well worth me posing for this little promotion :-)

I could not quite figure out what character his buddy was supposed to play (who shared with me that he was Spanish and had no clue how that costume was supposed to match the theme, either)....

But I had a little word with Santa when we finished and advised him to work a bit harder on his belly.
So far he can certainly not compete with mine, yet!!!

The adventures of pregnancy in China

 

 

Slowly the year is coming to an end and my football sized belly is blossoming in it´s full 9 month gloom. I have not had a chance to write much about the whole pregancy experience so far. 

But you shall know that we have been enjyoing a wonderful time  until now. Everything is going well and smooth (touch wood!). We are in the hands of very good doctors, we feel safe and understood and are looking forward to receiving our little one here in Shanghai end of January.

Still,  living over here makes the whole experience extra special. Therefore I want to share some of what we  have learnt in the past months and  the little challenges we have here in Shanghai with you.

Today I want to tell you about some differences in western and chinese cultures when it comes to starting a family:
 

"Hooray we are pregnant!!" so:

When do you tell your family and friends?

In the West most couples wait until they have reached the save 12 week period. When I told this to my chinese teacher Vicky she just laughed in disbelief. Than she explained to me that in China  you start telling your family long before you actually try for a child because the family planning is often timed with the retirement of the grand parents. They will be the ones who will eventually take care of the baby because the parents both have to go back to work. There is no such luxury as parenting time like we have in Germany.

How many children can you have?

The one child policy in China is very well known around the world. The truth is slightly different. China has noticed that long term this will cause a problem because there will not be enough people to support the "multi siblings"-generations from the past.  Therefore if you live in the country side you can have more than one child without problems. If you are a Shanghai Citizen than the one child policy applies  – unless – you pay 70.000 RMB to the government, than you can have another one.

...and if you have twins?

than you are just lucky. Foreigners are of coarse excluded from the one child policy. My friend Suzenne is a family of 5. Can you imagine the looks she sometimes gets when they are all going out to play in the park?

Getting ready for Pregancy:
 

Paul learnt by his colleagues that Chinese men prepare themselfes for about 1 year before trying for a baby. It requires the father to be to stay off alcohol and various foods (don´t ask me what exactly). In order to be able to still attend official dinners (which usually involves loads of drinking) it is actually officially told to colleagues at work if a men is in this preparation period and this is than respected by everyone. I don´t want to know what they thought of Paul who did not follow a special diet, functioned during those "meetings" as ususal and over sudden coming out annoucing he is going to be a father??

 

Do´s and Dont´s for the mother to be:

 

Make up – Chinese women are not supposed to wear make up, colour their hair or fingernails.  Actually something discussed in the west, too. But here in China you really want think this trough. Only a couple of  months ago I read about a case of facial products which contained mercury causing serious health issues.You just never know what´s inside the bottles you buy here! One reason why I stricktly stick to importing all my drugstore items over from Europe.

Keeping Fit: Sports for a pregnant woman is a "no-no" here in China. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) the mother to be´s are supposed to rest and take it easy. As soon as the belly is starting to show you see many here wearing huge baggy aprons walking super slow. I think if I wouldn´t stick to my yoga practise I would also feel like a wobbling wine barrel by now (Actually despite yoga I probably very soon will reach this stage..)

 

"Happy" Birth day:
Giving birth (in a traditional Chinese Hospital) is mostly a caculated event.

The c-section rate (cecsarian/Kaiserschnitt) in China is well over 60%. The reason for this is not a fashionable but logic one: Chinese hospitals just don´t have the medical staff or facilities to support a natural labour that lasts hours and hours. The women also don´t get as well prepared by their doctors during pregnancy. A cecarian is an easy solution to overcome this problem. It  just takes half an hour and can be planned in well for everyone.
And let´s be honest: If you can make money with 10 C-sections in one day, why worry about one labor in the same time ???
 

How much does it cost?

Well that depends on if choose to deliver in a Chinese or International hospital (where natural birth is encouraged and fully supported). But to give you an idea what a cecarian for example costs: Chinese hopsital: ~10.000 RMB, International ~90.000 RMB ( including prenatal check ups). We are are very glad to have a good private health insurance that provides us best coverage in a very good international hospital. We don´t have to miss out on anything we would get back home.
 

Stay in bed!

For the time after birthing I learnt that Chinese women really stick to their 4 week rest in bed. The family gets together and helps mother and baby recovering from birth. Nor mother or baby are supposed to leave the house in this time.
This I can somehow understand and if I´m honest: The thought of staying in a cosy warm bed, whilst it is freezing outside in February is a very nice one.

But what makes this a bit of a tough time is that if you do the REAL thing then the mother is also  not allowed to shower or bath! This is a rule that follows an old TCM advise, probably going back to the times when water was provided only cold and not clean. Cold water can make the mothers bones (which lack calcium after birth) go brittle, dirty water can cause infections in the body parts which were opened. ..makes sense somehow.. just not sure if it is still necessary to apply these days? Now this part I will definately skip!

There are a LOT more differences I could tell you about. In a way it is fun to sit in the middle and to be able to learn from both sides.Why should West know always everything best?

I believe all cultures have established their guidelines based on their experience and different backgrounds. I try not to judge and get confused but to take the helpfull elements and apply them when it feels right.

And anyway-  if you listen carefully you can hear this little life inside you that tells you from deep within what is right or wrong for it :-)

 

and right now it is telling me to get up my chair,  lift up my legs and to take a rest..:-)

 

So much going on!!

It has been a little quiet in the blog and you may wonder why. It is not because life has become boring over here.. no the opposite is the case! There is soo much going on! Since I got back from Germany I had at least 10 different topics in my head I wanted to write about..
But there was little time to spare in front of the computer since the weather was great and we have had a bit of a wave of visitors recently. For example:

Zack from Australia in September:

Andi, Enrico and Serkan last weekend:

Than we went on a amazing holiday to Cambodia and Thailand

 

 

and in between I have been busy with Photoshop classes, Photo editing, finding new "mummy" friends (to have someone to learn from), Chinese lessons, Yoga, going web shopping crazy for baby stuff and the ususal every day Shanghai life... Ah.. and sometimes I take a rest and just enjoy watching my belly growing nice and round.

There is soo much I want to tell you, but the next visitor (Mella) is already boarding the plane to us  I´m really excited that she stays for 2 weeks where we hopefully get the chance to venture out together with our cameras. It is probably going to be one of the last excursions since I´m starting my 8th month now..Can you believe it??

Once I can´t move so much around anymore and it is getting colder I should have plenty of time to tell you from my comfy sofa about the recent fun and challenges of (a pregnancy in) Shanghai.

For now I invite you to take a peak into my recent published gallery with pictures form old Shanghai, taken whilst Zack was here.

Click HERE Snapshots of Old Shanghai

Vicky, Buidling Sites and "Aufbackbrötchen"

We have only just been back from our 2 weeks holiday in Cambodia and Koh Samui (which was awesome and I will share with you in the next post) but so much has happened since our return.

First of all when we the  taxi dropped us of in front of our door last sunday we were stunned by the looks of our house: It has turned into a building site! The little cafe below our kitchen - which only recently had been turned into an art galery for leather sculptures (whatever that was supposed to be) -has changed owners again and is right now in the process of beeing redbuilt into a new clothes shop.It must be an exclusive store because they are putting a  hell of an effort into changing the place.

Walls are torn down, new windows broken trough, the old floor and sealings removed. I don´t know how many containers of dirt they have already drilled out of this little place. The noise is only just bearable (I feel a bit sorry for the baby who apparently can hear since a couple of weeks amd until now was used to listening to the sounds of the ocean from a hammock..) And I´m a bit concerned that one morning we wake up and our kitchen has sunk one floor. There can´t be much left for them to drill out anymore.

Mr. and Mrs. Jing and I hope they stop soon, because  the dirt is now also coming throught the windows (and our floor!! wonder how thin it is already??). However the excitement of getting a new neighbour is there and we can´t wait to see what fancy place it is going to be when it is ready.

When we returned from holiday  we were also happy to find out that the weather in Shanghai is currently at it´s best. With about 23 degrees Celcius during the day, sunshine and bright blue skies perfect to spend the days outside.

Today I used this nice day to meet up with Vicky, my Chinese teacher. She is no longer my official teacher as I didn´t sign up for another mandarin course with school, but we agreed to continue meeting up every now and then to keep on practising.

Chatting to Vicky is always interessting because besides practising Mandarin it gives me a chance to get some insight into what´s going on in China beyond what I can understand. She has a fairly western view also because she is in a long term relation ship with a French guy. But every time I see her she surprises me with some comments.

Today she told me that she and her boyfriend are considering moving to France for a couple of years to study French. She doesn´t want to go there forever because she feels like the future lays more in China than in Europe. She may not be wrong. However one of the concerns she has was that she heard that Chinese people get robbed by French because they believe Chinese people are rich...

I gently tried to explain to her, that yes, Shanghai is probably  one of the safest cities in the world but that if someone wants to robb someone they probably go by whoever shows it most and that this would not be a France related problem. Maybe it is unlucky that the Chinese like luxury handbags and like to show it off. I bet this case was built based on one case and hit the media here.

So I tried to explain this to her based on an example: If a Chinese eats dog and makes the news everyone in the rest of the world thinks all Chinese eat dogs. That made a lot of sense to her. Already because she is tired of explaining to her French relatives that this statement is simply not true (and she is right!)

After 3 hours chatting in the sun at Tianzifang she was keen to show me a new import supermarket where she likes to go shopping. It´s a brand new "City shop" which is one of those import chains here.

Oh my god!! It is sooo nice! It is huge and to me the first supermarket where I felt like I´m going shopping at home (providing I ignore the prices). What a nice selection of cereals, coffe and tea! Cottage cheese and "Quark" on the shelf which is still soo difficutl to find here. But my heart nearly stopped beating when I noticed "Aufbackbrötchen" = Frozen bread rolls for baking before breakfast!!

I have never understood why no one had the idea of importing them before. I almost thought that the local bakeries had some involvement to bann the sales of frozen bakery products. And there - FINALLY! - there they were: propper "Koppenrath und Wiese Dinkelbrötchen" - with about 8EUR for 6 rolls costing a fortune, but worth every penny: Another piece of "normal"life had found it´s way to Shanghai. I could not help it - it made me feel like home.

Still in the supermarket I took a picture of the package and sent it by SMS to all our German friends. The reaction was sheer excitement. I think even the baby started dancing inside of me.

So the weekend is here and somehow for the first time  it feels like a normal friday night back home in the "old days". We are not going out, but will enjoy a nice lazy evening in our cosy home and forget about the big city out there. I´m already looking forward to waking up to fresh brewed coffee and the smell of roll in the oven tomorrow morning - providing the kitchen is still standing!

I wish you all a wonderful weekend!

Snapshots of old town

In September when the temperatures start to drop to a bearable level it is also time to get the camera out and explore the city. So just before the one week Chinese autum festival next week (and we take the opportuntiy to  go holiday)  I would like to share with you some snap shots taken in old town a couple earlier this month.

More to come via Angelika Lincoln Photography when we are back in two weeks time  :-)

 

 

 

 

"Kick off" for Angelika Lincoln PHOTOGRAPY

The problem which I mentioned in my last post was finally solved. And the solution was surprisingly simple: There was no virtual great wall in this case: The problem was caused by the domain provider in the US!! I´m very sorry, China, it´s become such a habbit to blame everything going wrong on you.

So finally I´m, ready to present my new (self built!) website, hooray! It is going to the new publishing platform for my "professional" pictures.

You might think: "Sure, there is plenty of fish in the photographer-sea already, why do you bother?" : My answer is simple: I feel like I should be doing this. Ever since I decided to move to China doors opened letting me walk in this direction.

Many of you know it has been my dream I have been going for and I will make it work. Future will decide where it will take me. But if I don´t try it out I will never know what "could have been". And life is too short to not find out.  

Therefore I warmly invite you to follow my first steps on this new path. Make sure to check out the new BLOG on the site which will tell you a little more about the actual story behind my photos. In the ABOUT section I desribe my key portfolio and talk a bit about this crazy person behind the lens :-)

Everything big starts small one day - here is my exciting little start:

Angelika Lincoln Photography

ENTER HERE

The VIRTUAL Great Wall

 

China used to be surrounded by  a great brick wall, stretching  for thousands of kilometers  across the northern east of the country. It´s  purpose twas o protect the country from evil enemies trying to come in. All that is left from this  great wonder are sections of  ruins, fulfilling a much happier purpose these days: Tourist attractions and theme parks.

But the middle kingdom of the 21st century  has a new great wall - a virtual one , endless high and well protected  saving country from false information coming in. You can not see it, but it is still there: On the internet and is called censorship.

It is usually no big deal for us, but today I feel the urge of writing about it because today I was personally affected by it: After weeks of preparation I noticed that I built a a webiste behind the walls of China - and my Shanghai based clients can not access it.

The control of information coming  in to  China is something well discussed in the rest of the world. Particularely now. And yes it is true,  this country has it´ s virtual eyes everywhere. Mostly we don´ t notice it.  We can google, we can listen to our favourite radio stations abroad and  we can watch international TV - but the information you are getting is filtered. Depending on how much it is filtered the web is every day  a little bit faster or slower.
Some friends have told me that sometimes  even when watching TV and there is critical talk about China, the screen goes black for a few seconds.

So how come I can freely write this blog (this site  is actually banned in China)  you can find me  in Facebook and can access no censored news? The answer is quite simple: We dig a tunnel underneath that virtual wall and get out the country.

It is part of my every day procedure. Along with switching on the computer I open up my VPN and dive through an electronic "tunnel" to Europe. So despite me sitting here in China, I´m writing this blog  actually out of the UK which is the other end of the line.

There is nothing wrong in this. A lot of foreigners (and you can be sure a lot of Chinese, too) do this. The only thing that can happen is that the "eyes" find  your tunnel and shut it down… which is when you start looking for another tunnel and life goes on as normal.
So despite an extra click on the computer we are not really affected - until today:

For many, many weeks I have been working on my new photography website. Sunday was going to be the big day when I wanted to publish it. After good 9 hours of work I looked at the rebuilt website and phoned Paul proudly to take a look at it for reviewing on his Ipad which does not acces a VPN.

A couple of minutes later he called me back and said: “What have you done? Your page is not loading any more. It is blocked!!”…It took me a moment to realize- without thinking I had introduced a  new blog into my website which was going to be my publishing platform for new photographs.

The word “Blog” and “Censorship” basically go hand in had here. But because I had been working with the VPN switched on all the time  I had not noticed that my proud work was not acessable to anyone within the "great Wall" .
I rarely get frustrated, but when In noticed what I had done I felt like it BIG TIME!

But I have also lived here long enough now to having established  a network support who I know can help me to fix the problem. There is always a way round.

And I assure you, we will find it!

Window washing with a view

(picture from Cityweekend Magazine)

 

There are more than 500 skyscrapers in Shanghai and all of them are somehow in the need of window cleaning. You wouldn´t really think about it until you spot something that looks like tiny little insects crawling up and down those concrete giants which can be up to 300- 400 meters high.

When you look at it you think that this must be a hell of a scary job - and when you look closer you find it hard to believe that all of these windows are washed BY HAND!!!

Cityweekend Magazine has just released a great photostream (not mine) with an interessting article  about the "window-washing-scene" in Shanghai which is well worth sharing with you.

Providing hights don´t bother you you get some awesome views of the city and behind the scenes.

ENJOY!!: Click  HERE: High rise window washing Article

PS: I can´t help but wonder about how they keep the skyline of New York sparkling and hope that on a day like today (we are expecting a Typhoon) the poor guys in Shangers get a day off..

News from Middle Kingdom

You may have noticed that I was a little quiet in the blog for the last weeks. Well, I had good reasons for it: We were on holiday - yes I know: "again" :-).

June is already not my favorite month, but by the beginning of July the city has been taken over by a heatwave which is not leaving for several weeks. When you open your windows in the morning it already feels like someone with a huge hair drier is standing in front of it, blowing toasty 35°C into your face.

The choices you have is to either stay indoors or - stay indoors. Shanghai has parks and also some outdoor swimming pools. But the heat feels so unbearable you don´t feel like laying somewhere outside. - or would you sunbathe in front of your hair drier?
This is why most foreigners decide to leave the city to return home to lovley "cool" Europe in our case. Last friday - after 6 weeks at home and Paul having travelled round the world nearly twice in the same time - I finally made it back to our Chinese home.

Six weeks is a very long time in Shanghai. So much can happen and I´m always startled by the rapid changes that this city undergoes within days.

This is what´s new:

Queue for the train:
When we took the metro (subway) this week we were prepared to push our way into the carriage - as the crowds usually do here. But when we tried to position ourselfes on the platform we noticed that we were the only ones not "in line"!!...It took a moment to realize until I said to Paul "Hey look, they have formed two lines for boarding - revolution!!".. We wondered if China has taken the Olympics in England as example to give it´s citizes a lesson in queing manners..??? - In any case: A very pleasant change!


New neighbours:
The next change we noticed was that the little cafe below our kitchen has now been converted into a "leather-skulpture- gallery".. I leave it up to your phantasize about what a "leather skulpture" could be. When I last looked inside I noticed some strange pictures hanging on the wall - or having fallen off in the heat already.. The door says it is open every day from 1pm - 1am..Hmm..not seen anyone inside so far.. maybe I have a wonder down there one day myself and practise my language skills.
My bet: Give it 6 months and we will see someone new moving in inside again. This is now the 3rd change since we moved into our apartment.  I keep wondering if I  should take over and open a photo studio?? :-)


Typhoon:
One floor up the gallery, in our apartment,  I was amazed to see at my return that the Typhoon we had whilst we were away had not blown over a single plant on our balcony. Thypoons are normal for this time of year here. When I heard last year that one was blowing over whilst we were away I was a little worried but for no reason. This is the good thing about living in a 60 year old house. It has survived already several storms in this time. I would be more worried living in one of those 60 store high rise apartments where our friends told us a satelite dish sailed passed their window on the 26th floor - it had been blown of the roof!.. our banana plant on the contrast seems to have had a real good time in the hot and wet weather.


And than, last not least there is some real news from US:

We are going to be a family!

Paul and I found out 4 months ago that a little "souvenier" had sneaked itself on board on the Philipines :-). First we were a  little surprised but than extremly happy about that little wonder that happened. This is by the way  the actual reason why I ended up staying so long in Germany - I thought some German bread and lot´s of fresh air might do us good in the process :-)

We all feel really good and are ever so grateful that the little one seems to be growing nicely and develop also into  a fine traveller so far :-) - fingers crossed that it stays like that!!

In any case it opens the door to a complete now journey  

and will make our time in Shanghai a little extra exciting! :-)

 

 

 

 

I

I Mandarin!...at least I try...

Summer is here and I feel like a kid leaving on school holiday. Just in time for summer I finally completed lesson # 120 and therefore achieved level 2 with my Chinese teacher Vicky, Whohoo!

I really enjoy my lessons with Vicky who is not just a fun teacher but also a good character who  makes sure that I don´t loose my face by pretending that she is understanding me.

Somehow she seems to be the only Chinese in Shanghai who is able to talk with me. Let me tell you why I think that: According to the schoools guide line by now I should be able to have easy conversation in various kind of situations. But let me explain to you what reality looks like outside the classroom:

This is what the school promotes I should be able to do.. and my reality:

Upon completion students will have learned 500 new words and phrases - wherefrom I remember about 100 – words only and not a single tone - and 50 grammar points – are they sure about this???

Topics include:

Self-introduction
 – yes I can say „my name is Angelika" and more complicated things like "this is my my husbands brother´s wife..."

Making an appointment
 – like when I sucessfully booked a train ticked for the wrong day and-  yes! I can order water by phone because they can see my customer profile as my phone number  popping up on their computer.

Ordering in a restaurant
– nothing is still easier (and safer) than pointing at the menue and saying „Zhe ge!!“ - THIS!“

Speaking with your Ayi (housemaid)
– sure but she always frowns when I try to explain something and ends up doing  the opposite to what I asked her to do. Yes I can hear you saying "Do it yourself!!! :-)

Talking about the weather
– easy: The weather is simply always „hao = good“ or „Bu hao“ not good

Sports 
- Sorry, but I still don´t play golf, tennis or any other sport using a racket

Speaking with the taxi driver
 – which still sounds more  like me shouting "Hengshan Luuu" "Hengshaan Lu", "Hengs haan lu"  in various different tones. But most of them speak Shanghainese anyway which is when I unpack latest; "Hengashaaan LUAAA" (that is the Shanghainese version)

Shopping 
- How much? .. and do you have this in a larger size??

Getting a foot massage
 - Well, my chinese massage vocabulary was naturally developed by experience

Talking about your plans and ideas:
- That´s concering holidays and that´s what I chat with Vicky most about :-) 

So here I am at the end of level 2 - of 12!!! There are 18 months gone, 18months to go. Where will that take my mandarin skills by the time I´m leaving here???

After our last lesson Vicky and I went for dinner. And over some very nice food from Vickys home town in north east of China, Vicky managed to convince me that all is not lost and that there is still hope that I can make my dream come true: To be able to invite our elder neigbours, Mr. and Mrs. Jing, and have a nice chat over a cup of tea!...

Zuo ba! Let´s do it!

Give me some light!

When I looked at the calender yesterday I noticed that the Europe just enjoyed the 21st of June, start of Summer, longest day of the year and I caught myself thinking:  I can´t help it, June is the most depressing month of the year in Shanghai.

Back home I  love June. Not only because it is my birthday month but I love the long days and beeing outside. BBQ´s,  fresh strawberry cake,going camping,  lazing on the river until late at night.... I know that the summer so far was not to everyones expectations in Europe. But let me tell you what June is like here:

Imagine the greyest November day - but leave the leaves on the trees. Than you bring in 80% humidity, so bad that mold is actually growing on the pavement - and than you heat it up to about 28 degrees.
To top that you now add the smell of zillion people, the drains from bottom and fumes from top.  By 7 o´clock the day is over and it is pitch black outside...you have the picture ?

So to light up at least our life indoors we have just been to Ikea to buy some stronger lightbulps for our kitchen. The family who used to live in here before was also from Germany and did not only install nice looking lamps but also managed to somhow set up a dimmer (which honestly was a selling point to me when we looked at the apartment :-). But it was never really bright enough.

So we went up a couple of watts and invested into some enviromentaly friendly light bulps.The result we just got was: Our kitchen is a disco! It appears that the electric circle can´t handle energy saving light bulps and every time we try to fix a new light bulp we either end up with a a ballroom effect when the light is switched on - or even better - the socket sparks when the light is switched off!!

So it seems like we have to be brave, and continue living in a slightly winter-like but cosy enviroment (depending how cool you turn the aircondition you can actually achieve that effect)... or we just escape the city for a couple of days and hope for some sunshine in Nanjing this weekend :-)

And if that doesn´t help than there is a plane waiting soon to take us back to enjoy the European for a while, hooray!

When Paul leaves..Sherpa comes

Paul has left for a business trip for 10 days leaving me with no one cooking for me. I know I´m VERY spoilt from my husband who despite me not working still fills pole postion for chef in the kitchen. But  what shall I do? He is so talented, he loves cooking and I can always think of more exciting things to do than that. So why take it away from him :-) ?

The other night I really fancied an Indian curry. Sure I somehow could have assembled something by myself (after all Paul made me a survival cook book once for when he is not arround)  But Shanghai offers a much better and faster solution.  It is called "SHERPAS" and it works as follows:

Sherpas is a "Take away" delivery service. But not only for Pizza, Chinese or Mc Donalds (MC actually have their own delivery service here!), but for more than 60 favorite restaurants in the city which are  listed with their menue in the Sherpa-bible:

It is extremly easy to use which is one reason why it is so popular.
All you need to do is to pick and choose a dish from your  favorite restaurant...

... call the hotline or just order the whole thing with 3 mouse clicks on their website.
You get an order confirmation by email and than you wait about 45 minutes until the doorbell rings and an orange dressed men delivers your (still hot) food on a scooter...

.. and enjoy your meal!...

The only thing you are left with are the dirty dishes afterwards

But if you are lucky,you have an Ayi who does even that for you :-)

The concept is genious. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner - you can really order everything.If you choose to order from different restaurants. The little scooters pick it up and bring it all at the same time to you.

But just to get the picutre right here:

I will go shopping now and try myself on a Chinese stir fry tonight :-)

If you want to find out more about Sherpas, take a look under

http://www.sherpa.com.cn/index.shtml

´

Let´s dance!

I have decided to take up dancing. "When did you come up with that idea?".. I hear you say.
My answer: "In India - it was prescribed by the doctors"..nice prescription if you ask me :-)

I love to move to a good groove. But with dancing I don´t meant the shaking with a drink around a nightclub - I mean PROPER dancing with a teacher and everything.

The Chinese love to dance and therefore finding a dance instructor here is not a too difficult task. You have the choice of going into one of many parks here in the city and join the groups during their daily "Open Ball room dancing practise".. or you go to one of  dance studios.

Not too far away from where we live, in a loft on Maoming lu, there is a dance studio offering a wide range of different dance classes. Ballet not beeing my sort of thing and "Sexy dancing" not really what I was looking for, I decided to grab my friend Judith to try out one of the Salsa classes there.

The internet described this class as following;

In our Salsa Class for Beginners, you will first practice the basic steps without a partner, then quickly progress to partner work

Basic rhythm, timing and steps

Secrets of being a great Leader or Follower

Partner Connection

Cross-Body Leads

Open Breaks

Basic Right and Left Turns

Cross-Hand Hold

Combinations that put it all together

And more…

Now, I wouldn´t write about this experience if it wasn´t a real China one which happened as follows:

We arrived at the studio and registered. The lady at reception looked up and down on me and asked " have you danced before?"..."Yes, I have" I said proudly. "I did Hip Hop for some years and took also some Salsa lessons"..No need to tell her that all I remembered from the salsa lessons was me and Paul arguing ..."Oh really???" she said and giving me a look like "you don´t come across like that".. "thank you, Bit...".. I thought and beamed back to her in excitement.

We went into the room with maybe another 15 people. When the instructor came in we quickly noticed that we had seen him before dancing away  during a salsa night in JZ bar. He is a tiny chinese guy who, unusual for the folks here, is very good in shaking his hips.

Our little group of students excisted of a bunch of Chinese girls, a couple of Chinese guys and a few lao wais (foreigners) from Spain and Brazil - surprise..and Judith and myself. In summary 70% women, 30% men.

But we were not worried because this was a beginners class and partner dancing was not expected..that´s what we thought.

After about 4 minutes of simple warm up steps the teacher very quickly moved on (and encouraged us by loud shouting) to partner dancing and - even worse - switching partners over and over.

With not even a hand ful men in the room, and knowing that the male "lao wai" species was just too keen to practise with one of the chinese light feathers, Judith and I decided to stick to ourselfes as partners. For me that was very conventient because Judith is actually a quite exprienced Salsa dancer!

Another 15 minutes later the instructor increased the challenge level and we found ourselfes nearly breaking our backs in a what I consider "advanced" position.

Thanks to regular yoga practise I could almost meet the expectations!

But if you think this was  great - than wait for what comes next:
The next move was going to be a lift up pose. The teacher demonstrated it to us with a tiny chinese girl and it goes as follows:

1. The guy knees in front of the woman
2. The woman lifts her left leg up on his shoulder
3. The men stands up, wrapping his arms around the womans hips
4. The woman leans back against his arms with leg on his shoulder and head and arms hanging graciously towards the floor.
5. The men swirls the woman around - and everybody is happy..

Seeing this the guys in the classroom whent a little white..and so did I when the teacher decided that the best way to encourage his fellows was to give another demonstration by using - ME!

Of coarse I could not say no to the invitation in order to not loose face. Just as I stood in front of him I sweetly smiled and hissed at him " whatever you say, be nice!!).
So instead of using words, he spread out his arms with  a "Tadaaa..look-at-this-big-lao-wai-woman which-I-tiny men-am-about-to-lift-up, look"...before I placed my leg on his shoulder....

...and so it happened that a whole bunch of Salsa students have now a picture on their I-phone showing a short men, lifting up an "enormours-feeling-woman" and her head is nearly hitting the floor.

Latest when the group moved on to the next step - which was basically jump on your (male) partner wrap your legs round him  like a squid and bend your back to the floor, Judith I had enough.
This was not Salsa, this was acrobatics! Even Judith agreed: This course is not for us.

But if you think I give up than I must tell you wrong:

Will try bally dancing next!!  :)

Return to Moganshan

About a year ago Paul and I ventured out to the Bamboo forests of Moganshan, a good 3 hour drive from Shanghai. This year we decided to ask our friends Benno, Kerstin, Atilla and Judith to join us.And so it happened that last Friday the 6 of us boarded a  hired mini van loaded full of goodies like beer, wine,  crisps and BBQ essentials.

It took us over one hour to get to the outskirts of the city. But once we hit the motorway we had the road all to ourselfes.

3,5 hours later we arrived at Moganshan House #23.. a beautifully restored villa up on the hill in the forest which I can highly reccomend if you consider visiting Moganshan.

We had been very excited to go and all had been fantasizing  of long warm nights outside in the garden and outdoor BBQ´s especially as the weather in Shanghai looked ever so promising during the previous weeks.

But Murphys law struck us: We left the city in beautiful sunshine - only  to wake  up on saturday morning in pooring rain...

.. and mist...

But this didn´t stop us from going hiking anyway!

No weather in the world could stop Paul from having a BBQ in the evening.
And  afterwards we enjoyed a good games night in front of the open fire place

On Sunday the  weather was even worse and of coarse as it could be any different: When we arrived back in Shangers in the evening we were welcomend by "blue" skies..

But nevermind: We had great fun up in the woods and one thing for sure we all appreciated over the weekend:  The green, the space and the fresh air!