Bike parking

Basement motorbike parking at a local shopping mall. Bike parking spots almost outnumber car spots.

Christmas 2011

Taken beside the tree at Portman Hotel Shanghai

Zara samples Hot Chocolate at the Portman Hotel

Present opening

Baby Lucinda

Neighbours from the apartment above ours welcomed their new baby girl a couple of days before Christmas. We paid them a visit at the hospital on Christmas Eve. Zara was most pleased to have a hold while Max busied himself unwrapping the baby's present! Later on he was happy to have a hold though - even wanting a second go before we left. We are always glad to have more Aussie kids in our building!

Cigars and chai

A Shanghai shopfront advertising smoking pipes and tea. Or so the pictures suggest. Laws prevent smoking in many public places; though it isn't enforced as strictly as in Australia. I have noticed that toilets in restaurants or shopping centres are a favorite spot for men to light up.... and this seems to be condoned by the vast majority of people despite poor ventilation and airflow!

Board games

The day after Christmas 2011 is being spent at home - Tanja has 3 days off as public holidays - so the kids are enjoying having Mum at home. We celebrated on the 25th with a big lunch at a hotel in Shanghai with some friends. There was a fantastic "kid's area" at the restaurant so the kids were well occupied. With a belly full of good food, we were all in bed on Christmas night before 7pm.

Non-white Christmas

No snow in Shanghai this year by the looks of the forecast. A pity as it almost seems cold enough.

Bouffant - the result

Thankfully the curls only lasted a matter of hours. Seems Zara has inherited the Ferguson "straight as sticks" hair.

Cars

Spotted in a shopping mall. New model Mercedes Benz.... price tag 1.6 million rmb - converts to over $200k aussie. Insane.

Make pretty

Today Zara is having a session at the hairdressers to tidy things up. This is part of our week of school holiday activities. Will post a shot of the result providing she is in the mood to have her photo taken.

Hangzhou week-end

In mid December, we travelled to Hangzhou, a 180km distance from Shanghai.  We covered the distance in a little over 40 minutes via China's efficient and impressive fast train network.  We travelled with our friends Gilles and Dana.  It was winter, so we had to rug up.  Hangzhou was absolutely spectacular as the photos below attest - with most of our sight seeing centered around the lake.  We hired a row boat (and obligatory row man) for a 30 minute cruise around the lake.  A lowlight (as opposed to highlight) for Max was reaching over to point at something in a pond and seeing his mitten drop off into the slow moving water.  A couple of minutes later and thanks to a large stick, Max and mitten were reunited albeit a bit wet.

On the way to find our hotel: a cabin in the woods by the lake.

Our cabin - highly recommended.  See www.lotusglades.com 

Zara

Zara

A surprising find.

Bonsai

Reflections

Reflections

Boat ride on the lake

Boats

Tanja has no idea who these people are - but they wanted to have their photo with her.

And autographs.  (ok, email addresses).

Morning tai chi

Reflections

Max had it.

Tanja and Dana

Weekend away

This weekend we are in Hangzhou - a city about 45 mins from Shanghai. We caught a 9am high speed train (travelled at 300km/h) and we will spend a night here. The West Lake is the main attraction, and it is indeed beautiful. Rugged up too - temp has been 3-4 degrees all day.

Made in China at its finest

Heaters for sale at Carrefour supermarket - 29.90 RMB. Believe it if you will, this converts to less than $5 Aussie dollars. For a whole electrical appliance. In the dead of winter - no summer runout sale. Amazing.

Random (useless) Shanghai fact

Cotton buds come in black!

Think quick

I've said before that Shanghai is a clean city, and the number of rubbish bins around the place helps keep it that way.  Most bins are divided into recyclable and non-recyclable compartments, meaning that when one wants to dispose of something casually while walking by a bin (at the same time texting, balancing shopping bags and pushing a pram FOR EXAMPLE...), one needs to employ ultra-swift thinking in order to decide which compartment to throw it into.  Does the plastic label around my glass juice bottle and plastic straw inside it mean the whole thing is banished to the non-recyclable bit?  Banana skins... compostable yes but recyclable?  Plastic shopping bags?  All these decisions need to be made in a split second for fear of the pram losing momentum and kids, noticing the change in speed, looking around and wanting to hop out.

Taste of home?

Have no idea whether this is a chain of a corner coffee shop from coastal NSW, but it caught my eye today down Fengyang Rd.

Shanghai Marathon

Marathon in Shanghai.... tick!  An early morning rise one morning last week-end, dressed in warm (but not too warm) running clothes and headed down to the Bund, the starting line.  An incredible 26,000 runners reportedly participated - and it was quite an awesome feeling being one of such a large number.  Taking a last convenience stop at a line of porta-loos, I lined up with thousands of others around 7.15am waiting for the 7.30am hoot to indicate the start.  The race indeed did start at 7.30am but it took me 11 minutes to cross the official starting line - simply because it takes a while for the throng of people to move.  No disadvantage though as everyone has a timing chip tied to their shoe, so my time is only recorded from the moment I step over the sensor at the start line.  So around 7.41am I set off on the 21.5km course up the Bund, over the Lupu Bridge, then into Pudong and through the 2010 World Expo site, finishing at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Stadium.  Along the route there was plenty of encouragement... teams of factory workers dressed in bright colours and waving pompoms, or rhythmically banging small drums.  I crossed the finish line in 2 hours and 16 seconds - unaware that I was so close to running under 2 hours.  The only other time I had run this distance before the day, I clocked 2 hours 15 minutes, so this was a reasonable improvement.  After finishing, receiving certificate and downing lots of water and two Snickers (part of goodie bag for all finishers compliments of the organising committee), I hopped on the Metro and headed home.

Spotted about the 11km mark... He-Man carrying a big chunk of tree.  This was after passing the guy running backwards, and the guy dressed as Spiderman.

Lupu Bridge: longest single arch bridge in the world

A botheration

At Decathlon sports store this morning, Max rides an oversized shopping basket on wheels, drawing even more attention to himself. Here a Chinese child visits with him. He was indifferent. We bought some extra winter supplies like coats, gloves, thick socks and beanies. Zara refused anything that didn't have pink in it. Temp didn't get above about 5 or 6 today.

Off we go

2011 Toray Cup - Shanghai Marathon. Attempting to run half mara - 21km.

New piano

Saturday heralded the arrival of our new electric piano - a Yamaha Clavinova - CLP-S306PE. We sold our regular upright piano before leaving Australia in June - primarily because it spent more time in storage than out of it, given the in between tranches of time we spend overseas. After being chastised while in Australia for "selling off the family heirlooms" I was spurred to look more seriously at buying one in Shanghai. A look at a number of music shops, plus some online research led me to the Clavinovas because of their reputation of key technology that gives a likeness to a real piano. And at around 80kg it's far more portable so can hopefully follow us wherever we go in the future. Max insisted on "helping" the delivery men.

Taken for Max

Because this is the sort of stuff he lives for...