Cynthia's dancing partner

Cynthia met this woman while we were walking in Fu Xing park. The woman was giving her friend a back massage (more like a beating) and Cynthia took an interest only to find herself now the subject of the Chinese "beating". Afterwards, the woman grabbed Cynthia's hands and they began dancing. I'm not sure that the old woman was all there but then again I think the same about Cynthia sometimes! (just kidding!)

Scott with a calligraphy artist.

Fu Xing Park

Yesterday we hired our friendly Shanghai tour guide - Lisa - to take us around the French Concession area.  We started in Fu Xing park where every morning hundreds of Chinese gather to dance, debate, draw, do tai chi and basically just hang out.  The majority of people there are over 60 but later in the day the younger generation comes out with their one child to stroll in the park.  The dancing is probably what the park is most known for - they play music on a loud speaker and literally hundreds of couples ballroom dance up and down the paths.  The park is sort of divided into sections depending upon the activity being undertaken - there is the ballroom dancing area, the political debate area, the badminton area, the singing and tai chi area, the tea drinking area, the Chinese yo yo area, and the poker and chess area.  We spent about 2 hours in the park and really could have spent the entire day - in fact, we did come back in the afternoon to let the boys have a second round in the hamster water wheels (see the pictures).  From Fu Xing park we took a walking tour down a typical neighborhood street visiting a wet market, (butcher shop), a vegetable market and then strolling down a couple of the side alleys to see how the locals live.  The highlight was getting to go up into one of the homes and see how little space they really have.  It made us feel very guilty and thankful for the spacious abode we have.  We ended the tour at a local restaurant called Chu Chu Yuan which serves northern Chinese fare.  We enjoyed a beef noodle, some meat pies, and dumplings but we most enjoyed the menu with the chinglish translations of the menu items - like "Burn a pot of meat" or "The hot pepper steams a fish head" or "Literally Soup"  We finally made it home around 3pm.  The boys were exhausted and Cynthia and I were feeling the efffects of all the walking as well and decided to go get a massage.  We ended the day at a friends house playing spades and hearing all about their trip to Harbin to view the ice show.  It was a very good day in Shanghai.

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Happy Chinese New Year!  The new lunar year was brought in with a constant barrage of fireworks that started sometime around 6 pm on the 2nd of February and continued throughout the night and into the 3rd of February.  Just when we thought the explosions were over they began again at about 7am!  Amazingly, however the street cleaning ladies had all the remnants cleaned up by the early afternoon.  Of course, we got in on the action with our own fiery display and thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the celebration.  Over the last couple nights there still have been sporadic eruptions of fireworks and I am told that on the last night of the New Year celebration there is another massive night of explosions.  It really was amazing - there were so many explosions going off that it sounded like standing behind a jet engine - one constant roar combined with the flashes of light creating a strobe effect.  The smoke from all the displays hung in the air creating an eerie sort of "London Fog" effect.  I think we will go buy some more ammo for the final night celebration - like they say "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" 

Shanghai Water Town

Seeing as nearly all the expats have departed China for the New Year's Holiday we decided to take advantage of the relatively unpopulated period to take a tour of one of Shanghai's famous water towns - Zhu Jia Jiao.  We hired a local - Lisa Zhu - whom we met at our Christmas Eve dinner to take us on the tour.  The town is about a 45 minute drive outside of downtown Shanghai and this was our last day with Driver Dong before he takes off several days for the holiday.  The weather was overcast and the temps were in the low 40's but there was no wind and every once in a while the sun would pop out and it made for a warm walk around the town.  The water town is about 400 years old and is filled with small shops selling everything from antiques to local food to live chickens.  We sampled much of the local fare including pork & rice cooked in palm leaves, smoked frog (only minus the head!), pork dumplings, baked sweet potatoes and sesame seed candy.  The boys were pretty good about trying everything with the exception of the frog.  Only Cynthia and I had that and I had to finish Cynthia's portion.  We took a boat ride around a few of the canals and Cynthia even tried her hand at rowing - no collisions or groundings - so it was a success.  On our way home we stopped at a local "junk shop" that Lisa knew about.  It is literally filled with old Chinese furniture, knick knacks, curios, doors, windows, carvings, sculptures etc.  You name it and I am sure this guy has it.  We will definitely be going back there to make some purchases.  He had quite a few items from the cultural revolution period that were engraved with Chairman Mao's slogans - small chairs, stools and doors that people would display in their homes to show their loyalty to the party.  Very interesting.  On Thursday we will be taking a tour of the French Concession in downtown Shanghai in the Puxi (poo-shee) region. 

I have posted a web album on Picasa and added a link on the blog if you'd like to check out all the photos from the watertown.  Take care and have a great day!

Lets party!!

We were invited to a surprise birthday party this past Saturday.  A friend of ours is turning 60 and his wife wanted to have a big "60's  Theme" celebration for him.  Everyone needed to arrive by 6:30 pm in some sort of attire appropriate to the theme.  Well, we didn't have time to get any costumes done so we decided that we would tell everyone that we were confused and thought it was an "Act like you are 60" themed event.  We would tell everyone about our latest "procedure", talk about our newest ache and basically laugh off the fact we didn't have a 60's costume.  We caught a cab to the hotel where the event was taking place and made our way to the front desk across of an extremely empty lobby.  We inquired about the Woodburn party to which we received nothing but blank stares and the repeated phrase "Mei you" (which means "We have no party by that name).  We then tried the equally empty restaurant and had 4 waiters and a manager try to get us a table until we finally walked away wondering where they could be.  We decided to wait near the lobby doors looking for someone we knew to come in but being very careful not to be seen by the birthday boy should he be escorted into the hotel.  After 10 minutes of not a soul crossing the threshold, we decided to call Regan who was at home and asked him to look up the e-mail invitation and tell us where the party was being held.  "Dad, it is at the Parkyard Hotel." "Yes, I know that. We are there".  "It starts at 6:30pm"  "Regan, we know that - it is now 7:15. What else does it say?"  "Dad, the party is on FEBRUARY 26th - you guys are such idiots! CLICK.

And so we were.  After laughing about our situation we decided to make the best of it and got back in a taxi, headed to a local restaurant, split a salad and steak then had a massage and closed out the night with a couple margaritas at the new Mexican place.  All in all it was a very good night.  (You know, maybe Cynthia knew all along the party was in February.  I bet she just wanted a night out!)