Shanghai - Part 1 - The Shopping

I'm finally getting around to posting some pics from our trip to Shanghai back in April. It felt like I had to pack our whole lives into 4 suitcases and about 6 carry ons.
You have to understand that I never ever wanted to ever in my whole life go to China. I'm not one of those Asians who feel like they're not complete until they've been to the Mother Land. Middle Earth to me is somewhere in a Tolkien novel. It just never appealed to me. John would ask if we could go and I would say no, never, no thanks! So it was all thanks to my good friend Christina who paved the way for this trip to happen. Her sister happens to be working at a company in Shanghai and Christina had a chance to go visit her sister last November. Christina came home and showed me the amazing deals she got in Shanghai and I was hooked. Six months later, our whole family was on a 13 hour plane ride to China.

We were able to use the miles we've been saving up for years and years to get 4 roundtrip tickets for about $100 in fees. And we got to stay with John's parents in their condo for free for almost 2 weeks. Their complex is in the middle of a busy shopping district and very convenient to all the other parts of Shanghai. Here's one of the buildings in the complex.
There are tons of little shops everywhere and they sell everything you can imagine....even this mugger's mask....But my favorite place in Shanghai would have to be the fabric market. Oh my! There were 3 floors of small shops selling every fabric imaginable. You would walk around and find the fabric you liked and after haggling over the price, they would measure you and have you come back in a couple of days for your garment. I got coats and more coats and pants and jackets and curtains and roman shades, and even dresses for the kids. Everytime I'd go back to pick up the things I had made, I'd see something else and have them make that too. It was an unending cycle. We ended up going to the fabric market 5 days.

Then there's the fake market. It's in the subway station by the Tech Museum in Pu Dong. There were a dizzying amount of small shops selling purses, jeans, clothing, jewelry, luggage, everything. Some shops were a little more secretive than others. We were led to one shop where the lady took us to a room in the back and knocked on the back of a row of shelves and the shelves turned out to be a door to another room where they had the "A" quality inventory - usually the Louis Vuitton bags. You couldn't take the bag out of the secret room until you purchased it. At another store when John was looking at watches, someone thought they saw police in the station and so they shoved us out of the store and turned off all their lights and locked the doors. But all was well and it was a false alarm.Most vendors are really nice and if you're buying a lot they're even more willing to bargain. We went with Christina's sister Deborah to both the fabric market and the fake market and she is definitely the master. She doesn't speak much mandarin, but for what she knows, she can really make it work! Her classic lines were, "We're all Chinese." and "We're friends!" And if you walk away, they'll usually come after you and give you the price you offered.

While we were shopping one day, I saw this and thought it captured the essence of the fake market.If you can't read that, it says "Barbara and the 12 Dancing Princesses".

More to come in Shanghai - Part 2 - The Eating

Sydney's Painting

Sydney's been working on her painting skills lately. She couldn't tolerate it at all when she started, but now she really gets into it.

This picture makes me smile.

Genentech Chinese New Year HoHo

We picked up Lil from her office and spent about 30 minutes driving around the Genentech campuses looking for the site of the Chinese New Year HoHo. We finally found the site and discovered that they weren't letting cars park in the lot. Everyone had taken shuttles to get there or had parked far away and walked. But since we had Lil on crutches, John asked the guards if they would let us drop her off. After they let us through, we just ended up parking next to the entrance.
Sydney got a hold of a huge plate of sesame balls that Auntie Rose had saved for us and had a good time! I think that's all she ate that night!

When the HoHo was over, Auntie Rose was trying to get rid of all the stuff that was left over, but no one was taking anything. Apparently they didn't have anywhere to store the stuff or any official group to claim it, so it would've been tossed. So instead of Red Envelopes, which they ran out of, we came out with a stash of goods from the HoHo that no one wanted. So we started stockpiling. Lil kept her leg on top of our stash and we kept adding to it.

Here's a picture of our stash - it's about 1/3 of what we ended up taking home.

I kept wondering why no one wanted to take any of it. It's like going to Costco for free! But then I realized it's b/c everyone took a shuttle and walked, so they couldn't carry anything back! Which made it great for us! John backed the van up to the loading dock and we stuffed the back of the minivan.

Random Conversations...

Lauryn: Mommy, do you want to come to the book store with me and daddy after dinner?

Me: That's ok, I think I'll stay home with Sydney.

Lauryn: Why?

Me: I think I'm going to do our taxes.

Lauryn: What are taxes?

Me: Mmmmm....taxes are when we tell the government how much money we make and then they take part of it.

Lauryn: That's stupid.

Doodlebops LIVE!

Our friend Kev thought he was buying tickets for a 50's Doo Wop concert for his dad's birthday, but ended up with 4 tickets to see the Doodlebops LIVE in concert! So thanks to that slight mishap and his tremendous generosity, I took 3 happy little girls to see their first real concert.

Amazingly, they are really just like they are on tv - that always surprises me for some reason.

Lauryn and Ashlyn danced the whole time. Naomi was a little more reserved.

While we were walking back to the car, we ran into some policemen on horseback in the park who graciously allowed the girls to pet their horses.

Ice Skating

Lauryn's latest activity is ice skating with her friends. Her gymnastics buddies are now her ice skating buddies!

Sydney also enjoys walking around the ice rink while we wait. Sydney eventually will pull us outside and head towards Red Robin.

Heavenly Village

Our most recent trip was to Tahoe to use our trial timeshare package that we had purchased at a fair for $199. It included a 3 night/4 day stay at the Marriott Timber Lodge right next to the gondola (we stayed across from the Lodge at the Marriott Grand Residence Club - pretty much the same thing) and paid an extra $99 to upgrade to a 1 bedroom suite with a full kitchen. We had to attend their timeshare presentation, but got $100 back from it. I love nice vacations on the cheap!

We were so thankful that our friends decided to go up that same weekend. We put the 3 girls in ski school for a day and let the teachers do all the work. John, Sydney and I rode the gondola up to the top. That was the most expensive ride ever- just to see our daughter on skis. John actually got to see Lauryn ski. I had to take Sydney back down the mountain b/c she was freezing so I missed Lauryn entirely. But John took lots of pictures and video.

I remember my first ski lesson was when I was in my early 20's. I also remember that it was HARD! and TIRING! I remember how anxious I was every time I had to get off the chair lift. I would try so hard not to fall in a heap immediately after standing up from the lift so they wouldn't have to stop the lift and wait for me to get up and out of the way, which, unfortunately, has happened.

So I wasn't sure how Lauryn would fare. But the slope was nearly flat and they got to ride a "magic carpet" back to the top each time. Lauryn didn't quite get the concept of turning or slowing down, so she would usually just parallel down the hill and then fall over to stop, whereas everyone else would make their wedges big and go down slowly. It seemed the girls got the hang of things by the end of the lesson and were making it down fairly well so I was more than happy!

We all thought the girls would be exhausted after the day's lesson (8:30am-3:45pm), but they still had enough energy to go to the arcades after dinner. Sydney even got in some DDR.

Note to Self....

Don't wear a red sweater and khakis when you go to Target. People ask you all sorts of things.

Life will never be the same again....

I was so devastated by this news that I felt the need to write a note of preparation/warning to my fellow Costco lovers out there.

I recently decided to try out a digital SLR camera. Of course, I went straight to my beloved Costco, knowing that I could buy it, try it out and then return it if I decided not to keep it. What I love about Costco is that you can return anything and they'll take it back, and there's no time limit! What other company has that kind of return policy or service?! It's what makes Costco, Costco.

So I bought 2 cameras: the Nikon D80 and the Canon 400D/Rebel XTi. I took them home, charged their batteries and only opened what I really needed, keeping everything else in plastic. I shot several dozen of pictures on both cameras, and not feeling the love, so to speak, decided to return them the next day. The teller promptly accepted my return, but with a stark warning:

"Costco will only accept returns on electronics if it has been less than 30 days from the date of purchase, starting NOW." She emphasized, "NOW."

OMG! What has happened to my beloved Costco?? John will ask me now and again if I would consider moving to some random place, like Shanghai, NY, London or Seattle. I always tell him the same thing, "NO. But if I had to, I would only move if there was a Target and a Costco within a 10 minute drive."

So imagine my devastation. If I had decided to keep those 2 cameras a little longer, maybe take them on our trip to Tahoe at the end of January for a little comparison test, and then tried to return them, I'd be stuck with 2 digital SLR cameras and a tab for $2300! In the past, even laptops were given a 6 month window for returns. But that is no more.

As I waited for a salesperson to open the boxes and check to make sure everything was inside as it should be, a lady came up to return a dead plant. It was a stick inside a pot of dirt. The clerk said, "Lady, that's just wrong." He had her money refunded and told her to throw the plant in the trash next to her. The woman after her had a package of kodak photo paper and 1 small watermelon. The clerk, whose name I've now learned is Edgar, asked her, "Ma'am, where's the printer that this paper goes with?" I was distracted by the salesperson checking my boxes so I didn't hear her response, but when I turned back to her, she was saying how her watermelon was all watery when she opened it and so had to return the other that it came with. When her return was processed, she walked away with approximately $220.

So yes, I understand that Costco would feel the need to set some limits on their returns, but the ONE thing that set Costco apart from all the rest was their spectacular return policy. They were unique in all the world! Now that it's been compromised, well, I feel there is less security in my life. Now, anything electronic that you buy is at risk.

So I have to walk away from all those items that I had planned to return: my point and shoot camera, the TV we bought for John's parents, my bluetooth headset, our new Panasonic phones (I just saw that they're now in a bundle with 3 handsets for the same price as I bought our set with 2).

I'm not sure if Costco will have any backlash from this change. It seems to me that now we can buy our TVs and phones from any other store with the lowest prices. Even Best Buy has a 60 day lowest price guarantee on HDTVs.

So, what does this mean?! Does this free me to move anywhere in the civilized world? No!! I want my Costco back!

Newt and Newt

Lauryn's friend from preschool had her 5th birthday party at Coyote Point recently. We saw lots of bees and the inside of their beehive. We saw badgers and herons and snakes. But best of all we saw a Newt. So Newt took a picture with Newt.

Trick-Or-Treat

Halloween seems to go on forever this year....

I took Lauryn out to Trick-or-Treat and ran into some friends from church. It was so much more fun to go trick-or-treating with friends.

Parade!

Here's Ariel and Darth Vadar at their school's Halloween parade.
The kids had a party back in their classroom afterwards. My little girl is eating her fruit before digging in to her cupcake. Good job Lauryn! Hmmm... I wonder if she did that because I was there???

Sydney's Class

The kids got to dress up and go Trick-Or-Treating from office to office. They got goldfish and animal crackers which they ate during snack time. Yay, no candy!

My little piglet was very hot in her costume. A couple of her teachers came dressed as Pooh and Tigger. All they were missing was Eeyore.

Pumpkins!

Lauryn and I carved pumpkins for the first time this year!

It seriously takes A LONG TIME!

I was going to make pumpkin pie with the filling, but after a couple of hours I was sick of pumpkins, so I'll just have to get mine from a can.

Halloween Ho Ho

Lilian invited us to the annual Genentech Halloween Ho Ho this year. And we brought our friends Sarah and Jeffy.

The scene was a bit loud and crazy, but a lot of fun. They had a jumper and a slide for the kids, a pumpkin patch and free food, drinks and ice cream bars for all.
John's in the white trying to score a free light-up necklace for his darling daughter. Alas, he was too far away. I'm telling ya...we should all go work for Genentech.

Auntie Rose, whose been at Genentech going on 20 years, promised to invite us back for their Chinese New Year HoHo which she says is even better. It must have something to do with the fact that she's on the planning committee. =) But she says they give out Red Envelopes to everyone, so we'll be there!

Kidz Love Soccer

Lauryn's enjoying soccer this fall with one of our neighbor's sons. She doesn't get much done in the way of goals, but she runs around alot and loves yelling, "Water Break!" along with her coaches. Coach Adam reminds me of Ben Affleck.

Arata's Farm

Sydney and I went on the field trip to the pumpkin patch with Lauryn's class in early October. Sydney was fascinated by the animals and the bales of hay. Lauryn, on the other hand, won't grow up to be a veterinarian, that's for sure. Actually, Lauryn's favorite thing was getting to ride on the school bus for the first time.

When we had to walk through the corn field to the Hay Ride, I could see how easy it would be to get lost. Those things get tall!