Hangzhou Dec. 21-22 2008

We went to Hangzhou on Monday and Tuesday 12/21-22 about 3 hours southwest of Shanghai. It is considered one of the most beautiful areas of China. Marco Polo even commented on the beauty of Hangzhou back in the 1300’s. The main attraction of Hangzhou is West Lake and the manmade lakes and causeways. The area is considered “heaven on earth”. The weather was frightfully cold – 30 degrees F. but we managed to walk a bit around the lake and even take a 30 minute cruise on the lake.

The other attraction in Hangzhou is the Tea that is grown in that region. We went to a tea plantation and had a little tour and then tasted the tea with water from the Dragon Well. A ‘mystical’ well. Actually it’s just really good well water, unlike the water you get in Shanghai.

Our lunch was at a restaurant that served typical Hangzhou style food. You must understand it all tastes like Chinese food to me. Some dishes better, some worse. Here is a picture of the Beggars Chicken, which is a famous dish of the area. The chicken is seasoned then wrapped in 20 sheet of paper and then clay is packed around it to form a ball. Then it is placed in the oven and cooked. It is brought to the table after the clay is removed and the paper is cut open. It use to be when the small chicken was served the pieces were distributed thusly: the wings for the daughter, the legs and thighs for the son, the breast meat for the wife and the head and neck for the husband. Please note this bird arrived cooked with all its ‘pieces’, unfortunately we could not convince Tony that it was good luck to eat the head. The flavor however was very nice, nothing unusual just a nice roasted chicken. Unfortunately the restaurant had just opened and I guess they turn off the heat at night because we kept our coats on while eating as it was so cold inside!!!

By the way the pretty asian lady is our tour guide Melody.

Hong Kong

Sunday December 21, 2008

We are back from Hong Kong and it was a fantastic trip! We arrived at the Renaissance Hotel on Thursday late afternoon, the hotel was gorgeous and the views of Victoria Harbor were breathtaking.

TJ contacted his classmates and organized a time for them together later that evening. We really weren’t hungry so we decided to have cocktails and ‘dinner’ up on the club level where there was wine and hors d’ouevers aplenty between 5:30 and 7:00. A short walk around the hotel area and then TJ’s friends arrived at 9:00p to take him around town. They had a great time walking around Lan Kwai Fong a pedestrian area chock full of restaurants and bars. It has a great night life scene and the boys really enjoyed themselves. TJ and Mike (college mate) came in at about 4:00am, Mike just found a corner of the floor in the room to sleep and TJ fell right into bed. They said it was an awesome time and TJ can’t wait to come back to Hong Kong just for the night life in Lan Kwai Fong.

Friday TJ and I walked around Hong Kong, found an interesting market selling Xmas items as well as the usual open food market items. We took our time and just did a bunch of window shopping. Prior to that we had met Tony and his colleagues for lunch. I bought these pretty ornaments for our tree.

Tony worked a full day on Friday so he met us after work and we headed back to Lan Kwai Fong,…. the scene of the crime. Tony took us to a great Vietnamese restaurant that he enjoys to when he is visitingn Hong Kong, it was a nice treat.

Saturday we headed up to Victoria Peak the highest point in Hong Kong and what a view!! And what a day!! 80 degrees and sunny. After the picturesque visit we headed to Stanley Market on Stanley Beach. A little shopping, walking along the beach and then 3 hours sitting at a restaurant overlooking the beach just talking and hanging out and drinking beer.

Frugality

I read this great article in the Herald Tribune on Thursday and wanted to share a few parts with you, I thought it was laugh out loud funny! It seems the Indian Culture does it best - have a good laugh:

The first tip of the Indian frugalist is to wear your money. One rarely misplaces funds when they are kept in gold and hooked through your nose or strung around your neck. Some Indian women wear saris woven with gold thread. The danger of nudity discourages whimsical spending.

The truly frugal segment friends and associates into two camps: those who merit their money and those who don't.

Cellphone calls may cost a cent a minute in India, but why call people who only rate a text? Why text when you can make a "missed call"? Millions of Indians dial and quickly hang up, hoping for the other person to call back and foot the bill.

Your upholstery is not for everyone. Sofas fray and stain; there is, in the final analysis, a cost per posterior. So cover your sofa with bed sheets and remove them for only the best behinds.

So, too, with crockery: Buy a set of expensive plates and keep it in a case where your friends can see them while they eat from the cheap plates you actually set before them.

When eating out, order soups fractionally: a certain number of soups split by a certain number of people. Start with "one into two".
Of course, if you can, avoid restaurants altogether. Weddings are big here, and Indians who keep an ear to the ground can eat free every night. Wedding crashers are not a movie in India; they are a way of life, and I'm told it takes three successful blend-ins before guests begin to take your presence for granted and invite you to their own weddings.

In India, nothing cannot be recycled. Wedding gifts, birthday gifts, anniversary gifts, gifts for Hindu festival of Diwali: forwardable are they all. Presents are opened carefully so that the wrapping paper can wrap again. Plastic shopping sacks are reincarnated as garbage bags. Used, licked stamps are enlisted for further tours when the post office fails to mark them.

And what cannot be reused whole can often be recycled for parts. In Dharavi, the Mumbai slum, workers in dingy rooms sort the jettisoned - plastic spoons, watches, mobile phones.

Every shard of every ware has a value. Each piece is disassembled, then the pieces are melted, reassembled and sold - all for a profit, not as a tax-guzzling government program.

Within the household, Indian frugalists think strategically, like MBA's. They do not let their children study art history. Children are equities, and good investors build a diverse portfolio by rearing one police officer, one software coder, one retail clerk. They sequence their educations such that the eventual profits from each child subsidize the schooling of the next one.

With all their thrifty proclivities, it was inevitable that Indians would one day make the world's cheapest car. But Tata Motors, based in Mumbai, did not revolutionize the car so much as squeeze $10 savings hundreds of times over.

It took out one of the windshield wipers, used glue instead of nuts and bolts in places and stripped out air-conditioning despite the blazing 120-degree Fahrenheit (49 Celsius) summer heat.

And yet my favorite choice was the analog, rather than more accurate digital, speedometer. It was not a huge savings, and a speedometer's accuracy can determine life and death. So I put it to Ashok Taneja, a Tata supplier, some months ago: Why scrimp on something so vital?

"So what if I'm going at 65 or 75?" he said.

I assumed, and hoped, he was speaking of kilometers per hour, not of the duration of a frugally lived life.

TJ Has Arrived!

Wednesday December 17, 2008

TJ has arrived! His plane landed at 3:00 and he was through customs and out the door by 3:20, not bad! We took him back to the apartment and after the “tour” of the place he jumped in the shower to freshen up.
We decided to take a nice long walk to dinner. There is a wonderful little outdoor pedestrian mall with tons of restaurants about 45 minutes away by foot. We headed out the door and the sights the smell of Shanghai enveloped us immediately and we all knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore.
Dinner was at the German Bier Garten – I know I know, Chinese anyone? But really you don’t want to eat the Chinese food that the Chinese eat, you wouldn’t really like it. Anyway for those of you who don’t know, Chinese is NOT one of Tony’s favorite foods. He’ll eat it but if there is a choice………
Tomorrow we head out to Hong Kong, Tony has work and TJ will be visiting some of his college mates who studied in Hong Kong for fall semester. Weather in Hong Kong 75 degrees and sunny, and hey we’ll be on an island, we love that!

Bulk Food

Wednesday Dec. 17 2008
On Monday you may recall I took a trip to Carrefour, the grocery store, it is Walmart-ish in size and style. What I did not tell you about was my experience in the meat department. I had told you that all in all the shopping experience was good but there was this one small moment that made me wonder how the Chinese all have not fallen ill with some sort of awful bacterial poisoning.

Here I was slowly pushing my cart through the meat department and truly my mouth was agape and my mind was exploding. Was that an open refrigerator case loaded with chicken legs and thigh parts……loose, some frozen, some thawing, water and blood melting in the bottom of the case? Oh my word, an open refrigerator case with large racks of beef ribs thrown together in a mass? Name an animal and a part and you can find it loose, sort of in “bulk” form if you will. The Chinese ladies were shoulder to shoulder pushing a bit (they all push here in China) reaching in with bare hand and selecting their favorite piece, pushing aside one raw chicken thigh to reach to the bottom of the case and grab the “premium” piece. They would then place their prize in a plastic bag. At this point I just walked to the veg. department. I have no idea where they wiped their hands. I feel ill just writing this for you. Oh and the smell, well, there was a smell but on reflection you would have thought the smell would have been much much worse.

I was in a bit of a daze at that point. I was supposed be buying some ingredients for dinner and now I didn’t want to eat, anything. I was completely grossed out. I must have walked around the vegetables four times before I finally figured out what I could cook with a little tomato sauce.
I will take a picture of this unendorsed FDA procedure of selling poultry and meats in a grocery store. I had my camera when I was there I just forgot to take a picture due to my mind exploding at this time.

I also just want to tell you this is not an open air, local yokel market, this is a modern store. There were no live animals running around or whole chickens with their heads and feet still attached. The meat was cut up as if it were to be packaged, American Style, and then thrown in the case for you to select your choicest piece.

December 16, 2008
Happy Cow
Happy Cow Cheese looks just like Laughing Cow Cheese, one of our favorite snacks. And they even have lite! I paid 14.90 Yuan = $2.20, not bad. Today I am going to buy an xmas tree per Tony’s request. Who knew he was feeling so sentimental, what a sweet guy!. I saw some trees at Carrefour yesterday but they were a bit scrappy looking so I am heading out to another part of town, Yu Garden, I had read about this area in That’s Shanghai Magazine, apparently they have some plastic trees. If the selection or price isn’t as good as Carrefour then I will go back and buy one at Carrefour.
Here is a typical cucumber, size and length of an “English” cucumber in the states, but has small soft spines sticking out of the skin. Easy to peel, tastes just like it should. Cost 2 for $1.00. Maybe we’ll live on cucumbers!
Mr. Gu helped me buy this wonderful tree and the lights and ornaments. It was quite an adventure.
Here is the area of the market that we explored to find the perfect tree.
There was a lot of negotiating but the final cost for 1 tree, 5 strands of lights, and some ornaments: 270 yuan = $39.71


Our Tree!!

Sour Breasts

Monday December 15, 2008

Sour Breasts

Today I headed out to Carrefour the large grocery store about 40 minute drive through the city. The store is located in Shanghai and is probably only 15 mile away but the traffic is terrible hence the 40 minute drive.

My driver Jason (aka Mr. Gu) is learning English and he and I have agreed to teach each other. His English surpasses my nonexistent Chinese but we are both game and having a good attitude about the whole communication thing. Mr. Gu dropped me off for shopping and we agreed that he would pick me up in 2 hours. Two hours was not nearly enough – it’s so confusing this shopping business. Different floors for different items pay as you leave each floor. And who can find anything, forget that it is in Chinese. I managed to get 70% of the items on my list and all in all it was a good experience although I was very tired at the end. Mr. Gu happily put my bags in the car and noticed my purchases. He was trying to make conversation by saying: oh you bought eggs, and sour. Sour? Soup? I replied No no?

Mr. Gu has a wonderful little phone which has a dictionary translator function. He can type in a word in Chinese and it will show him the English or visa versa. So he typed in his Chinese words and showed me the screen – sour breasts, you bought sour breasts. So I said breasts ? and pointed to my chest. He said oh no sorry sorry. I thought about this sour breasts word and said Yogurt? Bingo! Sour Breasts in Chinese = Yogurt in English! And yes there was yogurt in my bag, I could not stop laughing!

I am going to have a very good time here in Shanghai!

Our first coffee at home

It’s been a whirlwind so far, everything so new and different. Everything tastes different even the skim milk.

Yesterday morning (Sunday) our first morning in the apartment we had our first coffee and it had its challenges. I brought my favorite flavor in my suitcase, Hazelnut and we had bought milk the night before at City Market or shall we say Overpriced Market. ($2.65 for one single serving size blueberry yogurt.)

As I perked our first cup I realized I did not have any sugar or sweetener for my coffee. Tony drinks his black so he was going to be fine. What to do what to do……ah ha! I had a few Werthers candies in my purse, a perfect sugar substitute. And it really was quite yummy, just crush it up add to hot coffee, melt and add milk. I really enjoyed the coffee – oh did I mention it was 3:00am in the morning. A little trouble sleeping with the time change and all. So we started our day, Tony doing homework while I checked email and screwed around on the Internet. We headed down to the gym at about 6am and got in our workout then showered dressed and started the next part of our day. We headed out to Paul’s – a French bakery located a few steps from the front door of our apartment building. You know Shanghai is the Paris of the East! A quick cappuccino as the coffee from 3:00am had worn off and we were off to the shopping mall to look at hairdryers, and grocery prices. We thought it had to be cheaper if it was away from the Ritz Carlton Hotel. As we found out not really. More on that later.

Here is a pretty picture of the holiday wreath that was sent to us by one of Tony’s colleagues as well as a nice poinsettia given to us by the apartment staff. This picture is of our dining room living room area. The door you see is to the small balcony. The wreath is so fragrant and fills the apartment with a nice fir sent. Since I didn’t have any hooks or any way to hang the wreath I am using it as a center piece. Pretty nice don’t you think?

Sunday Dec. 13 2008

Holy Cow, what a week. We have arrived in Shanghai and it all went smoothly.

The flight was 14 hours long leaving Friday Dec. 11th at 10:30am out of Chicago and it was uneventful, thank you very much. The movie selection was not great and I wondered why as there are so many good movies out on DVD at this time. I watched Journey to the Center of the Earth and part of Mamma Mia both frivolous but entertaining. Food was semi edible - good salad and nice smoked salmon appetizer. Main course, Mahi Mahi with rice and a yellow spicy sauce, not so tasty, accompanied by a side of sauteed peppers. The time past and I read a book and a half - The Choice by Nicholos Sparks and White Out - Ken Follet; And slept maybe 4 or 5 hours of the 14 hours. We touched down at 3:00pm Sat. Dec. 12th. Weather partly sunny and 50 degrees. Not bad!

Customs/passport control was a quick process and we headed over to the luggage carousel to pick up our 7 bags. Fortunately they all arrived and we headed out the door to meet Mr Gu (pronounced Goo) our driver. Mr. Gu had a beautiful bouquet of flowers for me and I was very touched. (Not to be confused with my normal mental state - slightly 'touched'!) Hee Hee.


The drive from the airport to the apartment was 40 minutes with minimal traffic. We were in the apartment and unpacking our bags by 4:30p and then headed down to the gym at 5:30 for a quick workout. It was necessary for me to fill out some paperwork to sign up for the gym membership and surprise surprise they wanted to take my picture for the ID. Oh was I a pretty picture. Travel weary, stringy hair, slightly oily face, no makeup, hair pulled back with band - I love that look! And now it has been captured forever on the gym membership id computer. The process itself was quick albeit ugly.

Our apartment is located on the 28th floor of the East tower and the gym is located on the 8th floor of the main/center tower. An elevator ride and a short walk, past the beauty farm gets us to the gym - someone should have warned me that they were going to take my picture as I would have made a quick stop at the beauty farm for a quick freshen-up!

We showered (finally!) and headed downstairs to one of the many restaurant located in Shanghai Centre complex. One of Tony's favorite - Element Fresh. We shared a hummus appetizer, Tony had a Greek salad and a carrot juice and I had tuna tartar and a warm spinach salad with caramelized apples.

Just a quick update for those who don't know: We had an unexpected trip to Washington, PA to go with TJ to see his neurologist and the fantastic super news is that TJ is going to be fine and with the exception of some headaches and some slight memory issues (minor) he IS fine and IS going to be fine. The headaches will subside and the memory with right itself in time. For those who don't know TJ took quite a blow in October at Lacrosse Fall Ball, a concussion, he was quite dazed. Although he seemed to have felt ok through Oct and Nov when he play some touch football over Thanksgiving he got "jostled" and at that point began having some headaches. The MRI is clean and he just has to let his brain rest and heal. TJ will be coming to visit us in Shanghai arriving Wednesday Dec. 17th!!! We are so excited!