Hannah´s day...and a BIG thunderstorm..

 Hi this is Hannah "speaking"!! Finally I get a Chance to meet you personally!

My Mummy is busy doing some photo stuff . But I had such an exciting day, I have to tell you right now about it!

A couple of days ago Mummy bought me a large playmat - finally! I started getting fed up moving around in my little bed and latest since I fell of my parents big bed, it was clear there is no way round: A larger Play area for me must be created. Let´s face it: Eventually I will take over the apartment amyway!

And it´s great! Within only a couple of days I have learnt how to sit myself up without banging my head on anything.  My "Opa" in Germany was even watching me live on Skype and could whitness it!

 

Not long now and I will be crawling all over the place. Mummy sent an Email to our landlord today to ask for  help making our home "Hannah-safe".. I have a feeling that there will be a lot to do..
And I feel a bit sorry for them. They really like their decorations , mostly souveniers from all over the world.. They probably need to retire them for a while somehere in a cupboard.

Did I Mummy tell you already that I got my first tooth?..Another 3 are on the way!!!.. That´s why I like stuffing EVERYTHING in my mouth right now...

 

Eventually I got tired and around lunch time I took a little snooze..

When I woke up, Mummy had cooked my lunch for a change. Today she tried courgette puree.
The mother of my friend Liam had told her that aparently he really likes it... Well I don´t know what he is on about.. it´s definately not my Cup of tea!

After lunch we got ready to go to the hongqiao flower market. My mum loves going there. It´s one of the great things of living in Shanghai. You can get a whole bunch of  exotic flowers for really cheap.

So she packed me on her hips in the sling and grabbed two huge bags containing plant potts for re-filling. She called a taxi and just as we were going down the stairs to leave Jing Tai Tai (= Mrs. Jing) came out her Apartment. She thought we were a little crazy to head out in this weather. It was really not great. About 30 degrees and 80% humidity. This is what it says already IN our Apartment.. Outside is like a steamroom (if this is what steam rooms are like, I will never go there!).

Maybe Mrs. Jing was informed us also about a weather warning. But our chinese is not good enough to understand. So kind Mrs. Jing helped us with our bags and off we went in the taxi.

At the flower market we picked loads and loads of flowers. Way to many for both of us to carry. But fortunately the shop vendors know Mummy and thought I´m so cute that they helped us one hour later back to the taxi.

What a shame that we didn´t take a picture. The boot (trunk) in the back was loaded with flowers, and on the back seat we were sitting surrounded by orchids. Fortunately the taxi was freezing cold so we didn´t have to suffer from the heat and the orchids were happy, too.

Half way home we saw this huge thuderstorm coming up over the city. It started already a bit on our way home. Such big rain Drops!! I couldn´t help staring out of the window. And Mummy was mumbling something like "Oh no, not again".. I think she remembered when we came back  from the Supermarket the other day and it was tipping it down with rain. Shopping bags,  pushchair, me and no umbrella... we got soaking wet!!

We made it just in time back to Gao An Lu. But only because we jumped out of the taxi, ran to the door, shouted for Jing Tai Tai and handed me over to her that mummy could run back to the car and unload the flowers ..Only seconds after we and the flowers were safe, it got pitch black out there and heaven open it´s gates

It was a real big and loud tropical thunderstorm...just the right weather for another afternoon nap

And my mum got the Chance to arrange her flowers in the Apartment.

 

 

When I woke up the bad weather  was still around! It was just like  plum rain season. It was so exciting: It didn´t matter which window I looked out at.. there was "Splishy Splash" EVERYWHERE!!

But even the most exciting storm can get a bit boring..

I was getting hungry.

 

 

 

I love Food!...

 

Banana and Chinese Apricot muse especially!!

I´m sure there was something else I wanted to tell you about...

Hm.. slipped my mind...

It was STILL raining when I finished..so we started to get a bit silly..

Mum likes putting stuff on my head and playing hide and seek..

 

 

When we finished it was time for a round of skyping with Nan and Grandad in the UK. Most days we end up chatting to someone at home. I´m starting to get the hang of it..It´s great! I can see all my friends back home and hit or walk on all the Buttons of mummy´s new mac book!

It is now coming Close to 7pm.. my bedtime. Daddy won´t come home tonight. He is out on some sort of team building with work. Probably means that he gets back super tired tomorrow evening.
I just hope he survives the chinese "wild water Rafting" well :-)

It´s still raining outside and the roads are all flooded. It´s also getting a bit boring.
I better go and tell Mummy to get me ready for bed or I will get grumpy.

Oh, I just noticed that it was friday 13th!

Well, seems like I got away with it and had a really good day!!!

 

Good night!
 

ooohh.. we are going to the zoo!

Last sunday we decided to take Hannah to the  Zoo for the first time. We had recently noticed that she starts to react very happy when she sees animals. So we decided that Hannah was ready for this experience.

The weather was ideal for a visit with blue skys and loads of sunshine (yes, it does exist here!)

Originally we were a bit worried that Shanghai Zoo would be a bit sad and scary. But much to our surprise the place turned out to be more of a real nice park with not even too many visitors (relatively spoken).

So here are a few impressions from this visit:

Paul and Hannah, excited at the entrance:

because :we are going to see a ....

... what is that?????

here it is:

At first Hannah didn´t get the idea with the animals at first and kept on looking at all the other children instead...

But than we took her to see the penguins, and she really liked them

 She kept wiggeling  legs in excitement. 

Animals AND splish splash water!

How much better can it get??

She also showed great interest into fish:

Lucky fish:

and not so lucky (gold) fish beeing carried around in a tiny plastic tank:

next were the owls

but Hannah wasn´t too impressed and seems to prefer her own Owl

Elefants!!:

and tigers.. this one had just haunted a plastic giraffe.. poor bugger..

there were many more animals to look at.. But the biggest attraction was too busy to look at. 

The Panda bears..Will show them to you next time!

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!!