Jinqio 8k & Upcoming Great Wall Marathon

OK, I am bit behind in reporting news! Last Sunday, April 20, the Bramer's and the Miller's participated in a local event, the Jinqiao 8k. At 9:00 am there was a funwalk that the kids and Tom participated in. The walk was 2k which was basically around the block. Kathy and Brian Miller walked the 8k and I actually ran it. Since 8k is the MOST I have run at one time since high school, I had low expecations. My goal was to finish in 50 minutes. My results were:

• 45:36
• 90th woman overall (out of 197 women)
• Not sure where combined overall since the mens times on the result sheets showed that ALLL men finished by 42:03, yet I know that there were men behind me. Bu there were 557 Male entries, combined to a total of 754 entries. I surely finished in the top half anyway!

So, not too bad. I felt ok, but was very tired by the time we came back and ate. I slept hard for 2 hours that afternoon.


So why all the running? Well, we have the Beijing Great Wall Marathon coming up on May 17th. We are actually doing the half-marathon. The half-marathon is 13.1 miles or little over 21k. My friends, Kathy Miller, Raquel Thueme, Ceyda Yuce, and I are heading there on a Friday, walking Saturday, and returning home on Sunday. We have been walking for several months leading up to this. The race is partially on the Wall itself, and partly through the local villages. Kathy and I headed to the Radisson Hotel, which is a couple of blocks away from her apartment, to walk up and down the stairs as that part of the trainin has been the hardest to duplicate. Of course, heading to a Chinese hotel to train was interesting in itself. It took us 15 minutes (not kidding) to figure out where the stairwell was! We asked several employees, but they would guide us back to the escelator or elevator. Probably should have learned the chinese word for stairs before we went! Regardless, we did find our stairs and after about 35 minutes of huffing and puffing, decided our hearts had enough! I want to go and do this a couple of more times before we go. I have been afraid to put my time goal as I really don't know what to expect. However, I have been thinking of shooting for less than 4 hours, but not sure if this realistic. If you analyze prior year times of women my age, I think that 4 hours is probably realistic. This race does not necessarily draw a lot of "walkers" and I think that will be what I will be doing most of the race. For sure the plan is for Kathy, Raquel, and Ceyda to walk the whole thing. But I hope to walk to three hours and then run the final hour. That is the plan anyway. More to come...

One week and Three days

Meant to get this out here this weekend, but this weekend just seemed to be filled up. Anyway, it gave me some time to gain perspective on the events of the week and to see if this week was also going to be as interesting!
Day 1
I covered some of the first day already, but thought I would share some thoughts. The week started with Tom flying to Beijing at 6:00 a.m. That meant that my first few dys of my new job were spent flying solo with Natalie. But that turned out to be no problem. Plus it meant the driver was available to take me to work and pick me up and night. Much more convenient. We headed off to Puxi around 7:30 after dropping Natalie at the gate to catch the bus. It was a bit melancholy to see all of the mother’s walking their kids. But, it was a decision I made to give up so I have to learn to adjust to it. Then there was the minor accident on the way to school. Check that summary out here.. So, the first day was interesting as it always is when you start at a new job. HR takes 2 hours of your life away by explaining all the things you can’t do, how not to get fired, and that your annual salary is so high already you will never a pay increase on their current compensation programme. Different country, same story! Sorry to all my HR-professional friends out there!

Then to my desk. Which didn’t exist. Nor any equipment. Oh, and no supplies. Luckily I brought a pen and my “professional management note taking device” (known as an account book for those of you in the know). And I was off and learning! I will admit that I had a huge headache at the end of the first day. I probably should have stretched my brain out a bit more before I made it run for 8 hours. Home to the house and Natalie. Oh, and the Ayi. She had dinner ready and Natalie had already eaten. So we ate together while Natalie chatted on about her day. Natalie did ok that day though she told me she missed me. Truthfully though I think she tells me that because she hears me say that to her. Anyway, we both survived. And we were both in bed by 8:00. I was so tired. And I slept like a log!

Tuesday was more of the same, but no headache this time. I did realize that navigating the roads at rush hour in Puxi is not a fun thing to do. But I knew that I was moving transportation mediums soon anyway! It is hard to describe the mass of humanity that exists the businesses here to head home at the end of the day. So few people live near where they work. But more on that later..

The third morning I had the driver drop me at one of the subway stations that is not too far from our house. It was about 7:45 when I got there. I got my ticket and headed downstairs. . I have ridden the subway quite a few times, but never at this time of day going to the heard of Shanghai. Not too many people waiting around, so I felt good about maybe it not being too crowded I was lucky enough to get behind one other person waiting, so I was pretty close to the front. Then the train came. OH MY GOD. There was so many people already on that train. I felt there was no way that the the 10 of waiting to get into that particular car would never fit. But then the rush of the other 8 behind me pushed me right into the car. I have no idea how it happened, but soon I was crammed into the middle of the car. No need to hold onto anything to keep from falling since you are so jammed in, there is no way to fall. And it got worse. We had three more stops before we even crossed the Huangpu river and 5-10 crammed into our car at each stop. The good news was getting from Pudong to Puxi in 15 minutes. Finally we got to People’s square, where I had to change trains from line 2 to line 1. I have decided that streaming of people moving from one train to another would be fabulous to watch from above. The throngs of people ebb and flow and rarely do large collisions happen. Anyway, two more stops on Line 1 Shaanxi Lu. It took me only 40 minutes from subway station to subway station to get a block and half away from my building. Pretty nice! Plus there is a Starbucks across the street from the subway so I treat myself to an American favorite as a reward for transporting myself in a very Chinese method! Don’t get me wrong. The first few days of riding put my personal space issues to the test. But, it is not too bad and it really was a matter of finding the right times of day to take advantage of it. After I got into the office Wednesday I had a laptop. So another half day of figuring out how to change some of the applications language to English.

Tom returned Wednesday night and Thursday Natalie had Student-led Parent / Teacher conferences. So, after three days at the grindstone, I took a half a day! What a life, right? After her conference I had plenty of time to take the subway at a much better time of day! I ordered my supplies. This consisted of looking at pictures of supplies that the admin took with a camera. The pictures all have the product number and description in Chinese on them and I just copied that file info into a form. So, it was not too hard for me, though I accidentally ordered a case of coke!

Friday morning, the driver dropped me at a different station where I purchased a transportation card (called Jiao Tong Ka). Now I felt like an official Chinese worker. I just scan my card and it automatically debits against the amount I placed on it. I keep it in my purse and I just wave my purse over the reader. Also, we changed to this other station for pick-up and drop off as it is much smaller and quicker. Though on the other hand the other station also had a large fake market in it where I could shop a bit after a hard day of work (Ok, I only bought 2 bags that week).

First week was pretty good. I love my job and what I am doing. The people are nice, though I feel uncomfortable about my inability to speak their language. Probably 95% of the communication among the rest of the staff is in Chinese. And I miss my girlfriends here. I am still on the email chains and see all of the fun places they are going and things they are doing.

Visa or Not to Visa, that is the Question
This week started with another visit from HR. Apparently there is “minor” issue with my Visa. The HR manager asked me if I could fly to Hong Kong this week and get “a Hong Kong” visa. Needless to say, I was more than a little unsettled. I was actually so confused, I wasn’t able to get stressed out. I always keep in mind that this is China, and you never hit a wall, you just have to be prepared to meander through situations. So, I listened to HR and told them I needed to check with Delphi as my visa is currently being sponsored by them. Anyway, long story short: I am now getting an official work visa, but it by no means resolved yet how I am going to do that. And yes, I keep coming to work anyway!

France Sucks
Also this week there was an email circulated by a department employee (for all I know he sits right next to me!) that contained pictures of the protests occurring around China at the Carrefour stores. I heard a little about that from Tom, but was not that familiar with the whole issue. Everyone in the office stood around and chatted about it all day. I couldn’t really understand what they were saying, but I picked up a lot of angry tones. For or against, I do not know. I will admit to currently being immersed in a culture that I do not always understand. This sense of nationalism is just not something that we experience in the U.S. At least not on the scale that they do here.

Natalie’s Emergency
And finally, Tuesday came. Natalie has gone to school now for 8 months. And in that 8 months never once did I receive a call from the school nurse. But today, on my 7th official day of working, the nurse calls at 2:55 to tell me that Natalie has fallen in P.E. and acquired a large bump on her head. I am at last an hour away. School is out in 15 minutes. Do I send her home on the bus and have the Ayi deal with it? Do I call Tom and see if he can get her? Do I run out to the street to catch a cab to head there? Whew. I talked to her on the phone and she said she could ride the bus, but then she started to cry again. She was trying to be sooooo brave. What a trooper. I decided to call Tom, and he of course was able to leave work and get to the school in 30 minutes! I also headed home a bit early as everyone know that father’s can’t be trusted to truly assess a child’ health. But she was fine. She talked at dinner as much as she always has, so I took that as a good sign that she felt alright.

Summary
Going back to work was the right thing for me to do long-term. So far the hardest adjustment is missing the extra time with Natalie and not getting to see my friends very often. I feel like I am growing personally by making myself use the public transportation and to try and be as self-sufficient as possible. Don’t get me wrong. It was wonderful to have a year off and to totally de-stress. It is up to me now to keep that balance and try to learn how to work without letting stress build up!

First Day of New Job for Shelly

Today was my first day of work at Roche Diagnostics Shanghai Limited. Yes, I have finally gotten my lazy self back to the grindstone. I am helping Roche start up a PMO within the Shanghai business area. I came upon this opportunity through a friend's husband (xiexie Mike!) and was lucky enough to be qualified for it. I have known for a few months that I really needed to get back to work. Not that I was not having fun with my friends, but I came pretty quickly to the realization that I was not ready to give up my career permanently and so I felt I needed to take any good opportunities seriously. Ideally I would have gone part-time, but that didn't work out this time.

My office is in Puxi on HuaiHai Lu. That is pretty far from Pudong. This morning Tom had to fly to India so I am lucky enough to have the driver available these first few days. So this morning, I dropped Natalie at the gate to catch her bus and headed on the long ride to work. Right before we crossed the Nangpu bridge, a car slightly brushed our van. Man, was Zhong Biao pissed! He told me later that the other driver was newly licensed and didn't know anything about how to drive. So of course after the van was hit, he put the van in the park right there in the middle of the bridge entrance and started arguing with the other driver. Too funny! In the U.S. you would exchange insurance, take a picture and be on your way. These two guys argued about how much the other guy needed to pay. Zhong Biao wanted 800 RMB. But he ended up settling for 600 RMB. It was just so funny to watch the exchange. We had one and a half of the two lanes blocked for at least 15 minutes before they pulled to a median. It took a total of about 20 minutes to resolve since the Police showed up. Which meant that I was 5 minutes late to my first day of work! Ta da. How to really impress your new company on the first day of work: be late! But it turned out to be no big deal as HR was still making some final tweaks to my final contract terms. Of course I feel bad now about the car and feel like I need to pay the 200 difference. Though later this evening when I looked at the mark, I could barely even see a scratch!!! Such is life here in Shanghai...

When I got home, the house was totally clean, the Ayi cooked my dinner, and then picked up all the dishes. Needless to say, that made transitioning back to work WAY easier than it would have been in the states. I did have to spend most of last week working with the Ayi to transition cooking responsibilities! Of course in reality she is probably a better cook them me, so I really have no worries there. In fact, Tom is excited about eating Chinese more nights during the week. Natalie usually dictates our meal content, but I have decided that she too must learn to adapt her palate. And Natalie behaved well for the Ayi which I guess I expected though 5 year-olds are very good at MANIPULATION. Just ask her grandparents...

Well, I am pretty tired, so I guess I better get this posted and up to bed. More to come....

Thailand Vacation

We just got back from our family vacation in Phuket, Thailand. What a great trip! It was my first time traveling in Asia outside of China. We left on Tuesday, March 25 at 8:45 a.m. and got back Sunday around 4:30 p.m. The only bad part of the travel was that both Tuesday and Sunday were full travel days. The flights we had were on Singapore airlines and went through Bangkok. Be prepared for a long day of travel if you decide to make the journey from Shanghai! It takes about 5 hours to fly to Bangkok and another hour to Phuket. And we found out that Natalie still gets a bit air sick, though she didn't actually vomit this time! We stayed at Laguna Beach Resort. There is also several other hotels really close that are part of the area referred to as Laguna Phuket. The beach there is called Bang Tao Bay. I would guess that all of the hotels there are nice.

The hotel is a 5-Star hotel, but again, in Asia that does not mean the same thing as in Europe and America's. The hotel itself was beautiful and the rooms were nice. But our room smelled overwhelmingly of mold. There was very little hot water in our shower, which really didn't matter after coming in from the 90-degree beach. And there was a woman in the room above us who we referred to as the "Clacker" as she apparently wore high-heels all day and all-night long. We could hear her before she left for the evening around 9pm and then again when she returned around 3:00 a.m.! Too funny.

We really liked the beach there. It really is nice. And the food was good, though I had enough lemongrass by the time I got back. Natalie loved the pool at the hotel as it had a big water slide. She must have ridden on it several hundred times. Unfortunately she was a bit too small to be in the pool all by herself. There were too many other kids and people. She played in the ocean a lot too. She loves the ocean! She only got wiped out by the waves a couple of times. I had to admit that we didn't leave the Laguna Phuket property. We hung out at the pool and beach at the hotel and grabbed lunch and dinner at the cheaper restaurants right on the beach. We thought about going and doing some sight-seeing, but frankly it was nice for Tom to just lay around and do nothing. Maybe if we go again we will venture away from the tourist location. Every day, the hotel had two small elephants brought to the property for the kids to ride. Natalie didn't ride (surprise!), but she did touch them both a couple of times. Tom and Natalie had a sailing lesson one day. Unfortunately it was during a time when there was no wind. So, the guy teaching them did a lot of paddling off the front of the boat. After the sailing they took out a kayak and rode around the the lagoon. Tom was pretty tired by the time they got back. It seems that Natalie did NOT do a lot of the paddling.

I did get a chance to play around with the camera. It was quite fun trying to capture good pictures of the sunsets. You will have check out all of the pictures on shutterfly. I added a few videos out to youtube as well. Enjoy!

Natalie's School Homework

OK, I take a risk on publishing this blog entry and offending all of my family and friends who are even a bit religious, but it was just too funny to pass up. So BIG apologies up front!!!Natalie brought home some work she had completed in class the other day that stated the following:

Jesus Helps at a Wedding (John 2:1-11)

One day Jesus, His disciples, and his mother attended a wedding. All of them had fun until the wine ran out. Jesus' mother knew He could help and He did. After Jesus told the servants to fill the water jugs with water, a miracle happened. The water became wine! The wedding guests were very happy.

We can always take our problems to Jesus. He will help us, just as He helped the wedding guests.

So, what do you think the five-year old said to me, the wine drinker? She said "See mommy, Jesus can make you happy!" So I decided that it was interesting choice to use on a kindergarten color by number page.

Out of the mouth's of babes...

Harry Connick Jr. Concert

My husband is awesome. Most of the time. Ha ha. Seriously, he got us front tickets for a recent Shanghai visit of Harry Connick Jr., one of my favorite artists. Maybe you know him from the music in When Harry Met Sally, as Grace Adler's boyfriend (and later husband) Leo Markus on the NBC Sitcom Will & Grace, or from the Broadway revival of Pajama Game. Not only did he get us tickets, but we got FRONT ROW tickets that were right in front of the his piano. No better seats in the house, unless you count the view from the saxophonist's chair. The concert was in a smallish stadium, the Shanghai Gymnastics stadium. Maybe there were 2500 people there. So it was rather intimate. The concert itself was only about an hour and a half. Pretty short. But I loved it. And Tom liked it too even though some of the jazz standards were a bit slow for him.

Sorry, the pictures are a bit unfocused. Tom had to sneak it out the best he could. Check out the YouTube videos that I added. Pretty cool!

Oh, and before we arrived, we went to dinner on the 57th floor of the JinMao building. Does my husband love me or what? It was a pricey evening out, but I think I must be worth it because Tom did not ask for his money back the next day! I will let you think about that for a while...

Recipe: Oven Roasted Cauliflower

This recipe is very simple and low in calories. It is a quick way to prepare a side vegetable for your lunch or dinner. Also, it tastes good room temperature or even chilled. You can add the leftovers to your salad the next day! The parmesan and chives or spring onions are essential to achieving wonderful taste in this recipe. And be sure to keep your oven hot to get the nice golden brown color!


_________________________________________________________
Oven Roasted Cauliflower

Ingredients:
5 to 6 cups cauliflower florets, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter (from 1 medium cauliflower)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon sliced garlic
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
Chopped chives or Spring Onions, 2-3 tablespoons

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F.

Place the cauliflower florets in a roasting pan or a glass baking dish. Whisk the olive oil with the garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Drizzle over cauliflower and mix well. Place the pan in the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes until fork tender, stirring occasionally to ensure even roasting. Don’t over cook! You want the cauliflower to be a bit firm. Remove from the oven pour onto a serving platter. Sprinkle with the Parmesan and garnish with chopped chives and serve immediately while still warm.

New Career: Cooking Classes???

A week ago, Friday, February 22, I held my first "mock" Cooking Class here at the house. What a hoot! I am seriously considering hosting a few friends here occasionally for a class or two. I had four of my friends, in the picture Deb, Sherie, (me), Angie, and Kathy, come over as guinea pigs to see if I could actually do it! By the way, thanks to Kathy for the beautiful hats! It actually turned out pretty good, though I definitely need to prep each item a bit better. And if the Ayi had not been here to help wash dishes between, it would have been quite a mess. I think that just takes some practice. Plus, I am not a clean cook anyway and need to improve that anyway!

So the menu was:

• Soy-Lime Chicken
  Chicken Breast - marinated asian-style, served with the marinade sauce on top
• Sautéed Brussels Sprouts - Simple sauté of brussels sprouts with honeyed walnuts
• Asian Slaw - Cabbage, radishes, and snow peas combine for a great side dish
• Zucchini Bread - American classic! Moist and tasty, especially when served warm

I am not a very good dessert maker, and the oven I have to work with is not very helpful! The Zucchini bread sunk a bit in the middle, but it still tasted OK.



So, now that I have tried it, I am going to try to hold my first class in March. I have organized my recipes as a result so even if I don't hold a single class or make a single RMB, it was worth if for that! I will post the recipes and progress out here as well!

CRASH!

Well, it was inevitable. One of us was going to get hit by a car or something! Don't worry, there is not bad ending, but read on to hear about how life really works here in Shanghai...

Wednesday started off great as my Mandarin teacher was sick (that is not what made the day good) and having a whole morning free, I decided to meet Kathy, Angie, and Ceyda for a long walk. After our healthy walk, we decided to meet for lunch. So I headed back to the house, took a shower, and jumped on my bike to head back to Hongfong lu. I had exited our villa entrance and was crossing the street at YuShan and Mingyue. The cross light showed about 5 seconds left when I was 10 feet from the bike lane entrance on the other side of the street (you have to go up a ramp to the "sidewalk" which allows for bikes and walkers to get out of the street). There happened to be quite a bit of traffic stopped on my right at the light. Unfortunately it meant that the scooter that had decided to run the red light didn't see me coming and I didn't see him until I passed the truck that was stopped at the light. CRASH! He slammed his breaks as my front tire came into view, but he still wiped me out! Luckily I partially jumped clear and only took the bike seat to my right rear thigh. He laid his scooter down, which was a pretty good size. All in all, his scooter the bulk of the wreck. It leaked some gas and the left side muffler got some dents and scrapes. But my poor bike (just the Decathlon cheap one thank god) ended up with a bent rear tire. He jumped up from his scooter immediately and I am sure was thinking "CRAP I JUST HIT A WESTERN WOMAN! I GO TO JAIL LONG TIME! But I told him no problem and being American, I apologized for not seeing him. Probably not a lot I could do about that, but that's my Midwestern values coming out! I limped the bike back to the house and parked it. The funny thing was that I had to change bikes and head to lunch! And no, I did not have on a helmet. Not defending, but in this case a helmet would have done nothing. I was much more likely to have my leg broken if it had stayed between my bike and the scooter.

Now I have to remove my tire and figure out how to get it fixed...

Daddy Daughter Dance

Last night was Natalie’s first formal, a Daddy Daughter Dance sponsored by the Girl Scouts. She and her dad had to get all dressed up. She looks grown up doesn’t she? I had bought a dress for her at the Nihong Children’s Market for 88 RMB, or about $12. The girls all earned a “night on the town” patch for the evening’s outing. They were told that they needed to take their Daddy’s around and introduce them to their friends and their Daddy’s. If you notice, I even got her up up into a decent looking bun! I had to watch a bunch of videos on the Internet to see how to do that. Hair styling is definitely NOT my forte!

It was funny to see how much Natalie’s expressions mimic Tom’s. The closer we got to leaving, the more anxious Natalie started to get. Tom said once they got there, Natalie was a bit shy. But she didn’t really want to dance to with him. She told him to “Go away!” Just like every other little girl. She did dance with her girlfriends though. Natalie told us that they played 3 High School Musical Songs, 2 Cheetah Girls songs, 1 Hannah Montana. And 3 songs she didn't know. Natalie felt that the dance was just ok. She is saying this morning that she did like it and dancing with her dad. Not sure she would want to do it again in the next few days though!

I uploaded all of the pictures to Shutterfly. There are some pretty

cute ones of Natalie with her Dad. Enjoy!

Harbin

We took a great family vacation to Harbin, which is in northern China. Four families went, the Bramer's, the Miller's, the Fansett's, and the Yuce's. So there were 8 adults and 5 kids (all girls!). Harbin is VERY cold we all had to buy lots of stuff before we went. We flew in on Friday morning and got to the hotel in time for lunch. We picked the Shangri-La as it is currently one of the few hotels with some western food. Plus it had a swimming pool (which I will get to later). After we loaded the kids with carbs from the lunch buffet, we all piled into taxis and headed across the river to our first ice park on Sun Island. The weather, while cold, was actually pretty good. The sky was clear and the sun was very bright. Of course many people took pictures of our kids, especially Grace Fanset and Natalie who attract a lot of attention due to their blonde hair! They had a replica of the Forbidden City that had four large ice slides on them. After negotating for about 10 minutes, the kids got to ride. Hannah didn't want to ride alone, so I volunteered to ride with her. The hard part was carrying the inner tubes up the steps! The ride down was fun. Even the two little ones, Grace and Natalie, went one time. As you can see, they were too busy having their pictures taken to be bothered with silly slides! After having some hot chocolate and peanut butter sandwiches we had brought with us, we had to head back to hotel. We found out AFTER we got there taht the park didn't have any night lights, it closed at 5pm. The funniest part of the day was trying to get taxis for all of us. A woman came up and offered us a "van" that would hold all 11 of us for only 40 RMB. We thought, "what a great deal" until we saw the "van". It looked like a clown car! But we decided to chance it, so we piled the moms in with the kids on top of us. the guys took the slightly larger seats near the front. It seemed like a lot longer ride to get back to the hotel than it did to get there! I am sure there were no shocks at all in that little van! So we took the kids back and took them swimming. Which was harder than you think. In the U.S. hotel, you could get the kids dressed and head down to the pool, no worries! But here, you had to sign in at the desk, buy swim caps for all who were getting in the water, go to the locker room and place your stuff into a huge locker with a key, then pass into the pool area. See, indoor swimming pools in China are really more for exercising as opposed to playing in. So the whole time that the parents were sitting at the tables watching the kids play, the girl who was mopping the floor was hovering around us, nervous because not all of us had on appropriate shoes (barefoot is bad). But we snuck in a few beers and the guys drank some Scotch anyway. After the swim, we got the pj's on the kids, piled them all into Bramer's room and ordered room service pizza. We put in a DVD on Tom's laptop and they all zoned out! The parents then headed down to the restaurant for some well deserved food and wine. [note that the we left Lauren in charge upstairs, she is eleven, very responsible, and had a cell phone ready to dial us if there was a problem. There was no problem!].

The next day we first headed to what is known as the "poor man's ice park". It was the old one at Zhaolin Park. The kids could ride many slides for free and play on a few of the sculptures. The park had advertised ice skating, but there was no skaiting to be found! But the kids had fun anyway. Again, hot chocolate and peanut butter sandwiches signaled the end of our playing.

Later that afternoon around 4pm we headed to the BIG park, also across the river, the Ice and Snow World. If you have seen pictures of Harbin, more than likely it came from this park. We got there early so as to not have to wait in line, whcih we heard happens at dusk. To call these building sculptures was a bit under describing. They were huge buildings made out of big locks of ice. At this point in the season, some of the sculptures were closed due to the fact that the ice just evaporates over time and is not so safe. But the kids didn't seem to care. This is one of my favorite shots of them, lined up in a row. Once it started to get dark, the lights came on. And it is very amazing. When the Chinese do something, they always do it BIGGER than anyone else. So while you might have been to an ice show in the U.S. or other country, I assure you that the scale of this one is much bigger! But it was also very cold. One by one, the families started heading back to the hotel. But first they got to hold Artic foxes, slide down a few slides, run through an ice maze, and eat frozen strawberries covered in frozen candy! Unfortunately the biggest slide, which you had to use a plastic sled for, was too big for the any of the kids to ride. Luckily we found that out before standing in line too long! All in all, a great park!

Once we headed back and again, got the kids ready for bed, we ordered hamburgers from room service for them and then the adults all headed back down. That night we all at in an Ice Bar, called the Ice Lantern Resteraunt. The table and chairs were in an igloo what was outside (though conncected to the hotel). We ate Hot Pot in -10C! We had to keep our hats, gloves, and boots on during the meal. It was pretty good (I am not the biggest hot pot fan) but not something you would want to do more than once a year! We had lots of laughs and generally enjoyed each other's company.

The next day, the women headed out for some shopping. Little did we realize that in being so close to Russia, the two things you could buy were Russian stacking dolls (very cheap) and plastic replicas of russian guns. Who knew? Literally there was nothing to buy. Not even the standard pashimas, bags, scarves, jewelry, etc. that you find here in Shanghai on every corner. But that was ok, we had a nice walk and spent no money. We all left for the airport around 1:30 and got home around 6:30 p.m.

Overall, this was a great short trip. Not sure I would want to go for more than two days as it is cold and just getting bundled up to go out takes 45 minutes. But the parks are worth it and it is a good vacastion for the kids as the iceparks are really all you can do up there. There is a Tiger Park that we opted out of as usually there are tourists who buy a chicken, a goat, or a cow to feed the tigers while your bus drives by. None of the girls were interested in seeing that!

We are now uploading many of pictures on Shutterfly. To check them all out from this trip use this link.

New Toy: Nikon D40x

This year I got a real surprise for Christmas. Tom was gracious enough to purchase me an awesome gift, a Nikon D40x SLR camera. Though frankly I know nothing about real photography! So, it is my new hobby. Or will be when I figure out enough to really do something with it. I thought I would blog some of my progress for both sharing with my friends who are helping me out with my education on photography (thanks Kathy K.!) and for those of you who have to hear me talk about it. Now you can see it and comment on it!

So everyone says to not be afraid and to just go out and play with it. So I did. First I captured some pictures of Natalie just out riding her scooter. I am using a zoom lens to really capture some detail. Nothing exciting here, though I love how the camera can focus on a single subject and "blur out" the rest of the picture. It really draws attention to the subject. See how much I have learned?

I also went across the street and took some pictures along one of the many canals that run

near our house. In the picture here on the left, you can see the JinMao off in the distance with the new even taller building to the left, the Shanghai World Financial Center. It is hard to see, but the Pearl Tower is visible right at the end of the canal in the skyline above it. It was pretty quiet out there as it was a Sunday as well as part of the New Year holiday still. As you can see, I really liked trying to capture the sun shining into the water. The water was pretty still and the reflections of the trees

made for an interesting subject. I took about 75 pictures while freezing my feet and hands off. I was trying to play with the light and I was amazed at how hard it was to get the picture focused correctly! I have a much greater appreciation for professionals or even amatuers who take good pictures. I hope some day to be there...