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! :-)

 

 

 

 

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