The Restaurant Downstairs

We have two restaurants at the bottom of our building. One advertises itself as a Chinese fast food, and the other seems more of a sit down place. The 2nd day we were here we still didn't have much food to eat and poor Jimmy was starving so we decided to check out the fast-food place. He got a meal with kung pao chicken, rice, broccoli and some kind of stiff, gelatin egg concoction. Ali and I just had a couple tastes. He said it tasted pretty good, but the aftermath was a little undesirable. It didn't sit well with the insides, if you know what I mean. The next day we were coming home from something and happened to look up in the window of the restaurant. We noticed this sign:I don't think we'll be eating there again.

Mary Alice's First Steps!

What an exciting day! Mary Alice took her first real steps today. We could tell it was coming sometime because she is so steady holding our finger and walking but it was still such an exciting surprise! I left her standing a couple steps from the bed to go over and get some books to read. I put them on the bed and when I turned to look at her she was walking over to the bed! I called Jimmy in and we watched her take little steps all over the room! I was so proud I almost started crying. I had no idea I would feel like this when she started walking. It's just such a cool thing.

(you can also check out our awesome carpet)

Week 2: Off to a Great Start!

A girl in our ward emailed me and asked if we wanted to borrow a highchair. YES! We were about to go to IKEA to buy one because Mary Alice just hasn't been eating the same without one.

We went over in the morning to pick it up and also got to ask her a bunch of questions. In addition to the highchair she gave us some baking powder, vanilla and cinnamon! YAY! Now we can eat pancakes and make some tortillas! I just cannot believe how much I took for granted until we moved here. It seems like an exaggeration to say that you cannot find these things here but you really can't. There is a store called City Center that has some imported stuff but it's 4 times the price. For example, they have a box of cereal there that is half the size of a normal box and it is $10. Outrageous! We were able to find some oatmeal at a local grocery store for $3 so that's what we're eating for breakfast.... but tomorrow we're having pancakes! =)

I could probably make a list of 20 items and that is what is in every store here, nothing more. That also seems crazy, but here is a picture to illustrate how this can be possible.

So this shop is pretty small. It has a total of about 6 aisles. 2 of those aisles contain home goods such as dishes, rags, toothpaste, etc. 1 aisle contains crackers and those sorts of things. The point is, is that there is 1 whole wall dedicated to oil! In a larger shop like Tesco there would be two long rows filled with oil. We went to the store several times before we were able to buckle down and buy one. There were just so many to choose from.

1 Week Anniversary!

Yesterday was our 1 week anniversary of moving to China and it was the best day ever! We finally collected enough ingredients to make a full meal, I talked Jimmy into getting ice cream bars, and we got Kung Fu Panda for under $1! Fun night! We have a favorite Asian restaurant back home and there are some particular noodles there that I LOVE... well we found what looked like the same thing in the market and it turns out, they are! Delish! I'm so happy we found them!

We're glad that Ali can still get her puppy fix.

A man outside of the tea house next door, entertaining the baby.

The glorious ice cream bar!!

Everyone had to have some because it was a big event!

We survived week 1!

Fat Camp

I know I have put on a little weight with these babies but fat camp? Really? If this is a joke, it’s not funny, and if this is a trick, it’s a dirty trick! This place has practically zero treats! How cruel. And these are the days I need them most! It’s a bit stressful and chocolate always soothes the soul… so do the scriptures, but chocolate soothes the chocolate side of my soul. Why would a country decide that it doesn't need sweets? I think that’s why they still have communism here. A piece of chocolate cake would do these leaders well.

Day 5 (Sunday 9/3)

Our baby at 4 in the afternoon.

Our baby at 4 in the morning.

Sunday mostly consisted of church.

getting to church

+ being at church

+ getting home from church

= 6 hours

We left our apartment at 9:30 am and got home at 3:30 pm. I’m sure it will be cut by a little bit next Sunday because we chatted with the members.

We walk to the metro stop, ride for about an hour and then walk to the church building.

Ali fell asleep during Relief Society and slept the whole way home. It was a perfect nap. Since then we haven’t had to worry about her (or us) sleeping 5 hours in the afternoon.

It was GREAT being at church! It always makes you feel like you’re not too far from home. It’s exactly the same everywhere. I know everyone always says that but it’s true. The members were really nice and it was good to see families there, surviving in Shanghai. Everyone has such a different story but each has something valuable to share with new residents. I met a girl in Relief Society who has been a huge help. She and her family are living on a very tight budget (and she is pregnant) and she has emailed me some helpful tips about where to get food and a few stovetop recipes. I don’t know if I have mentioned it or not but ovens are very uncommon here. We do not have one so we’re trying to come up with creative ways to make meals. We have heard that our rice cooker can also cook chicken so as soon as we can find some safe chicken to eat we will try it out.

Day 4 (Saturday 9/2)

This is how you do it. Anything you need hauled goes on the back of a bike or scooter. We've seen some crazy stuff being moved around town. One guy had his whole house loaded onto the back of a scooter. No joke! A bookcase, chairs, a dresser, bed- it's was crazy!

There are a lot of city workers cleaning the streets throughout the day and this is what they have to sweep with. It is a bamboo stick with branches tied to it. I think I made one of these when I was the Wicked Witch of the West for Halloween a few years back. Who knew I could have saved it for housework?

The branch-broom in action.

We really hadn’t bought much at Carefour. We’ve since wondered why it feels like all we do is visit the markets but I think it’s because back home you can fill your car once a week but here it’s just as much as you can carry on your back. We had mostly been eating PBJs, rice, noodles, carrots and yogurt. Not bad, but we wanted to see if we could make an actually meal sometime. Plus we need to start finding things that Ali likes to eat. I had brought a box of oatmeal for her so at least she is getting that in addition to the other stuff.

Anyway, we set out for Tesco. I was really excited because Tesco was like my favorite store in Czech Republic. Even though the Carefour was a fraction of the size that I was used to seeing in CR I still had hope that Tesco wouldn’t let us down! And it did not disappoint! Oh Tesco, if you were a person I would write you love letters! It was a glorious site! Two floors or stuff!!! Clean stuff! Stuff that didn’t make me fear for the life of my baby and my fetus! Until this point I had been pretty worried. We had walked by a few hospitals and I was beginning to wonder if either of my babies would make it out of here alive. Seems strange to make judgments of future hospital visits on the appearance of a grocery store but that’s just the way it is. There were a lot of fruit and vegetables here that we could eat and they weren’t that expensive. There is the question of whether or not they are safe to eat, but we needed to eat something. So in addition to some groceries we picked up a couple kitchen items and I got to look around at the kid’s sections. I love the little Chinese things for kids.

The walk to Tesco wasn’t bad. I think it was only about 10 or 15 minutes and I could avoid the big intersection with the flights of stairs but getting into Tesco by myself would again, be a problem. So frustrating! How hard is it to just have a shop on street level or make it accessible to everyone!? You have to go up a few steps to get into the building and then down a flight of stairs. From there, there are escalators. And this is NOT like Czech Republic where people will help you with your stroller. They just stare at you. So while I was super excited to have a Tesco nearby, there was still no way I could make the trip with Ali unless Jimmy was with me. If I wasn’t pregnant I’m sure I could manage, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be huffing a 50 lb thing up and down stairs several times a week. We’ll see. Something will work out.

We took another nap but it was a little shorter this time. I wasn’t too worried about it since I knew church would help keep us awake the next day.

Day Three (Friday 9/2)

(Some random table set out next to the street. Funny stuff!)

I honestly can’t remember what we did Friday morning. But when Jimmy went to Mandarin class in the afternoon the baby and the mommy went down for a nap and again slept way too long. But it just felt so right! At this point I’m totally not bothered by sleeping, eating and playing at strange times.

Jimmy came home from class around 4:30 and that same girl from student services came with him to translate the instructions on our washer. She told us that there was another metro stop and a Tesco in the other direction from where we had walked the other day. She also said that it was probably closer! Yay!! I saw a glimmer of hope that I was going to be able to go to the store by myself!... and maybe even the metro. Our part of town is not really a place you want to be stuck in. I know there must be cooler things to see around the city than men in their underwear sitting in the alleys. She also told us that there were two markets about a 5-minute walk from us. That was also great news!

We figured we didn’t have enough time to make it to Tesco tonight so we decided to go for a walk to the two markets to check them out. We usually have to go out on walks in the early evening so that Ali doesn’t sleep from noon to midnight and then want to be up all night. The markets were ok. Not a place to do big trips to but places to go if we need to pick up noodles or rice or something Chinese-y like that. We also got a broom, mop and other cleaning supplies. So they do having cleaners here, they just don’t use them.

We went home, ate some noodles or something and went to bed with vision of sugarplums dancing in our heads… or a turkey and gravy and chocolate cake!

(Our little Chinese baby having some rice before bed. What a cutie!)