Street Food

David, Solomon, Abraham were on our way to Saturday Night church.  Triniti was at her friend Costanza's house for a sleepover.  We were hungry.  The boys wanted "meat sticks" from the local street vendors.  They wanted me to have some too.  So we found some vendors in an alley between shops.



                                                                          The selection

Going left to right we have bread, potatos, mushrooms and
an array of meat...chicken, pork, steak.

Solomon bought at apple from a fruit vendor just a couple carts down from the meat vendor

China National Day

As you can imagine China National Day here is really big.  There are red lamp decorations and red banners with yellow chinese symbols everywhere.  They are pretty at night... soft yellow glow inside the red ballon style lanterns, it makes me feel "Chrismassy."   :-)

This is one of the 3 entrances into our apartment complex.

 National Day is a lot like our July 4th, except it lasts for almost a week. School is closed for the week.  Fireworks go off all hours of the day. We have seen and heard fireworks going off between our apartment buildings.  When we hear them get started we just put on our show and jacket and walk outside to watch.  Kinda of crazy, not the safest location in my mind.  The city has a massive fireworks display in Century Park several evening this week.  We have heard and felt the booms and could see the smoke through the tall building around us.  The buildings block the view of the sky so we can't see the fireworks from our balcony... to bad.  We went to Kerry Parkside and then drove down to the heart of the show at Century Park. The show lasts almost 2 hours.  It is realy loud and amazing.

IKEA

We have made many trips to IKEA here in Shanghai.  Our apartment is full of new items bought at the IKEA store and used items bought from the Shanghai Second hand shop. Here is Triniti modeling my new laundry basket. 

Walmart in Shanghai

Visiting the local Walmart.  China National Day is just around the corner so there are red festive decorations everywhere, even at Walmart Supercenter.

 On our way in we passed an elderly gentlemen putting a large plastic bag of rice into the basket on the front of his bike. David noticed that his rice was running right out of the bag and throw the wire basket to the ground.

David and Triniti went back to help him.  David flagged down a lady that was passing by and she had a couple extra bags so they were able to salvage most of his rice. You can see in the picture below that he was happy about the help.

Cruising with our new wheels

The Bialik Bunch has a new car. Its a Volkswagon Polo... not quite the same as our Chevy Suburban in Saudi. Everything is smaller here. :0)  We went to the Concordia school campus where our church was having a big family.  Triniti was hoping to win a prize at the raffle drawing, but it was not our lucky day.

Settling in

David has been on one long shopping spree since our arrival in Shanghai. He of course is loving it.  He is now quite the on-line shopper.  He has discovered two expat grocery sites that deliver.  You can get some of the foods you miss from home, but you definitely pay for it.  Before we left the U.S.A. he found a second hand shop on line.  We have made several purchases from them, they deliver too. Rugs, fans, pots & pans, cups, lamps, a desk and chair for Solomon, clothes hangers...etc.  It all gets delivered by a little old Chinese man that speaks rapid Chinese to me with each delivery. We recently scored some great storage bins for our closet.  The best purchase of all has been our counter top oven the replaces our dollhouse size original oven.

David and I went for a breakfast date to "Julies" a Canadian Restaurant.  We had pancakes, bacon & fruit. It was good but a bit pricey.

First Day of School



Abraham, Solomon & Triniti ready for the frist day of school in China!

As you can see they are dressed in their "very British" mandatory school uniform.  This is tyhe summer uniform.  There seem to be fall pants, then winter pants & long sleeved shirts for all 3 of them. Along with summer PE clothes and winter PE clothes.   If you think you might play on a sports team you have to purchase a sports KIT for the year.

This is just outside of our apartment complex.  This is the bus stop.  The kids ride the teacher's bus to school with David.  I was on the bus to my school watching out the window when David took this photo.  It was a totally different experience for me having all three kids go to school with David while I go off to a totally different campus alone. It made me a bit teary eyed.  Good job David for taking the photo.

All the people in the are also Yew Chung teachers and most of them will be teaching at least one of the kids. 



Outside the Apartment

Okay so it is crazy hot and humid here.  So if the pictures are hazy it is the heat. I took a few pictures outside our apartment building in our immeidate area.  It is so green here in China and the city streets are clean.

Our 4 bedroom apartment is on the 7th floor of the closest corner of this building.

There are only two aprtments on each floor. 

If you count up 7 windows, the small window far right is the master bathroom, next to it is Trinit's bedroom window seat, then our dining room that look like it has a balcony but it does not. Next the small two section window is over my kitchen sink and the is pretty much the width of my kitchen, maybe add about a foot.

The entry for our section of this building.  We live in Bldg 7, Room 702.  That's they way they say it here. The ramp was so wonderful with our 10 large wheeled suitcases and 5 pull behind carry-ons. The 5 extra large duffle bags had to be hefted up the stairs.

Our security system. so far the doors stay open during all hours so not sure how this box adds security.

The playground and little decorative canal

View from our doorway... the elevator and the neighbors electric scooter.

The neighbor's door and storage closet.

Thumb Plaza

We've been here a little over a week. We have a big shoping area close to us.  It takes 9-10 minutes to walk or 14 RMB, approximately $2 to take a taxi.  There is a large variety shops from Carrefour to more expensive clothing and houseware stores.  Repair places, banks, and U.S. fastfood.  In the picture of the "Thumb Statue" below on the right side where you see two ladies with an umbrella.  This is Pizza Hut. At the corner take a right to get to Burger King.  Further back is Papa John's Pizza. Upstairs you will find Subway. To the left of the statue is Starbucks, and in the same area is KFC. For about $6.50 you can purchase an ice cream cone/small cup from Cold Stone Creamery or Hagen Daas.  Across the Street in Laya Plaza you can get an ice cream at Dairy Queen for a much more reasonable price.  There are many other restuarants with food Greece, Italy, Japan, India, Korea, China... etc.

Downstairs by Carrefour is the Food Republic (food court)

Our Arrival in Shanghai, China

On the 21st anniversary of our marriage, we arrived in Shanghai, China at the Pudong International Airport.  Do we know how to celebrate or what? We were met by a school representative and a bus to haul our 13 large suitcases, 5 carry-ons, 5 personal bags, and the five members of the Bialik Bunch to our new home. Our bus ride was about 1 hour.  During the ride we learned that we would be living in an all Chinese apartment complex, not with expats as we had in Saudi Arabia.  Also that there were only 2 other children of hired teachers.  This news was surprising, we definitely wished there were more teachers kids and some other westerners around but we wanted a new experience where we would be more a part of the culture and it sounded like we were going to get what we asked for...  :0)
I was definitely a bit nervous about our housing when we arrived at our apartment building, but in my head I kept thinking "don't judge a book by its cover."  I rolled the first suitcase up the ramp and parked it next to the apartment building entrance.  Here we faced our first big shock.

The entryway was very dirty, dingy and smelly.  The kids and David began to arrive with more bags.  I was fervently praying the apartment would be better than the entry. 

Solomon won a contest to guess what floor our apartment would be on... so he was the first person in our family to see the apartment for about a minute... during that time he claimed his bedroom. In true Solomon fashion, he picked the smallest room for himself. Triniti picked the bedroom across from Solomon and Abraham picked the room by the front door. The master bedroom for David and I was at the back of the apartment by Solomon & Triniti.  The kids excitedly showed me their rooms when I got into the apartment. I volunteered to stay outside with all the bags. The elevator is small and could only fit about 4 bags a trip, and honestly, I needed a moment to be ready to be positive about our new home for the kids sake.

Go USA!

Today was "International Day"  at DHS.  Students brought in food and wore the traditional dress from the home countries.  Abraham wanted me to make chicken casserole.  :0)