So our third day in China was pretty low key, which was nice after the bombardment of sights, sounds, and smells from yesterday. We started out the day with breakfast at Starbucks (didn't I tell you that we'd go there!). While having breakfast we saw all sorts of runners and eventually figured out it was the Shanghai International Marathon. It was perfect weather for running a marathon, but I have to say I was glad to not be running it myself.
We wandered up and down the pedestrian shopping street a bit in the morning, but not for too long since we had to leave around 10am to head to the airport to catch our flight to Beijing. The flight was uneventful, which is always nice when it comes to flights. It was weird to actually get a meal on a flight that was only 1.5 hours long!
Once we arrived at the Beijing airport, we hailed a taxi for 6...that was interesting, seeing as how the van probably really only needed to hold 4 plus the driver, but oh well. We made it to the Park Plaza Wanfujing in one piece thankfully. Orientation for Jerry's program was at 6:30. That's when we finally met up with everyone else in the program. We were glad to have flown over a couple days prior, because those that flew over that day were looking rough! It was Keith's birthday (one of the students in Jerry's class), so he got a birthday cake while we were getting the rundown on the basic plan for Beijing. That was thankfully only about 30 minutes. Then we decided to scope out the food situation...
Luckily, we have a few really good restaurants right across the street from our hotel. One is "Fresh Hot Pot HK Style" Did we have any clue what hot pot was? Absolutely not, but we tried it out. I'm glad we did because it has turned out to be one of the best meals we've had so far. It's basically like Chinese Melting Pot. You pick out a broth base and they bring it to you in a big pot and place it on a hot plate set in the middle of your table. Then you pick out your meats, veggies, etc. to throw in there and cook. We weren't too adventurous and only got beef tenderloin, dumplings, kale, and some egg fried rice (which is WAY better than fried rice at home - not nearly as heavy). There was another group of guys from Jerry's program that had gone over there before we did, but as they didn't know what hot pot was either they just ordered the fried rice and were jealous when they saw all of our food.
So that concluded our first day in Beijing. Tomorrow is a group trip to the Great Wall...
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
China Day 2
So today was our very first full day in China, and what a day it was. I started out by waking up at 6:30, bright & early. I’m not sure why, but since I was awake and Jerry wasn’t I decided to go check out the gym (not only to work out, but rumor had it that you could get free bottled water there which is important since you can’t drink the tap water around here…good thing the rumor was true!). I came back and dragged Jerry out of bed and down to breakfast. We had what we are now dubbing the “million dollar breakfast.” Turned out the American buffet is targeted to take advantage of foolish Americans eating in the hotel. I don’t think I’ve ever had a breakfast that cost roughly $70…and never will again. Mental note – Starbucks tomorrow morning.
After breakfast we grabbed our backpacks, camera and guidebook and ventured outside. We weren’t 10 steps from the hotel when we started getting accosted to have Jerry’s shoes shined or asked if we wanted to buy a cheap watch/purse/DVD/fill-in-the-blank. I am not kidding when I say it was incredible how many times we were confronted by random people on the street asking us to look at their stuff (and every single one of them had the same laminated piece of paper with the offerings, so you know they were all in cahoots to screw Americans out of money). This happened no less than 30-40 times while walking down Nanjing Road, the big tourist road that leads to The Bund. After we successfully navigated the tourist trap, we arrived at The Bund which is a nice riverfront area with lots of parks, old buildings, and just generally good people watching. We wandered up and down that area, checking out the local vendors. Here you could buy kites, skates, and pretty much any kind of food on a stick imaginable or otherwise…a popular choice with the locals was what appeared to be squid on a stick. No joke. Needless to say, Crohn’s girl did not partake in that little local delicacy. Instead we opted for a nice Chinese restaurant where we both had beef & noodles. I can’t imagine us getting Chinese take out when we get back to the states at any point in the foreseeable future.
After lunch we headed to the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium. While it’s no Georgia Aquarium, it was pretty nice. But it was here that Jerry and I realized a very important point. Kids here in China are allowed to pretty much do ANYTHING they want. I am not joking about this either. I guess it’s because they are only supposed to have one child, so that one child is spoiled to the hilt. These kids were running WILD in there. And the parents didn’t care one iota. I mean, I know you see kids doing that in the US on a daily basis, but there’s usually one mom that at least looks like she’s ready to jerk a knot in her kid’s neck if said kid doesn’t sit down in the stroller and quit the whining. Not here. All the moms were laughing at everything the little princes and princesses did. I however was ready to do some knot-jerking but obviously couldn’t. :)
Another thing we realized yesterday – they aren’t kidding around about respecting elders. This little epiphany came to me while waiting in a ridiculous line for a public toilet (which I later found did not have any toilet paper – queue the pack of Kleenex) and an older woman decided that she didn’t have to wait in line and could break in front of the roughly 10 of us standing in line. I was glad to see, though, that I was not the only one in line that wasn’t terribly pleased with that turn of events.
The final epiphany we had on Day 2 – there are no traffic rules in China. Sure, they have traffic lights and signals that tell you when you should and should not walk. Pay no mind to those. They are merely suggestions, and not closely followed ones at that. There were plenty of times that Jerry and I found ourselves walking with the masses and before you knew it you were standing in the middle of the road with cars honking at you.
All in all it was a very overwhelming, intimidating, but enjoyable day. China has a lot to offer, but there’s a LOT to take in all at once. And because of this, I’m tired and must go to sleep…but I have to remember to relate the story of Jerry and the tea ceremony before this blog is done at the end of our trip!
After breakfast we grabbed our backpacks, camera and guidebook and ventured outside. We weren’t 10 steps from the hotel when we started getting accosted to have Jerry’s shoes shined or asked if we wanted to buy a cheap watch/purse/DVD/fill-in-the-blank. I am not kidding when I say it was incredible how many times we were confronted by random people on the street asking us to look at their stuff (and every single one of them had the same laminated piece of paper with the offerings, so you know they were all in cahoots to screw Americans out of money). This happened no less than 30-40 times while walking down Nanjing Road, the big tourist road that leads to The Bund. After we successfully navigated the tourist trap, we arrived at The Bund which is a nice riverfront area with lots of parks, old buildings, and just generally good people watching. We wandered up and down that area, checking out the local vendors. Here you could buy kites, skates, and pretty much any kind of food on a stick imaginable or otherwise…a popular choice with the locals was what appeared to be squid on a stick. No joke. Needless to say, Crohn’s girl did not partake in that little local delicacy. Instead we opted for a nice Chinese restaurant where we both had beef & noodles. I can’t imagine us getting Chinese take out when we get back to the states at any point in the foreseeable future.
After lunch we headed to the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium. While it’s no Georgia Aquarium, it was pretty nice. But it was here that Jerry and I realized a very important point. Kids here in China are allowed to pretty much do ANYTHING they want. I am not joking about this either. I guess it’s because they are only supposed to have one child, so that one child is spoiled to the hilt. These kids were running WILD in there. And the parents didn’t care one iota. I mean, I know you see kids doing that in the US on a daily basis, but there’s usually one mom that at least looks like she’s ready to jerk a knot in her kid’s neck if said kid doesn’t sit down in the stroller and quit the whining. Not here. All the moms were laughing at everything the little princes and princesses did. I however was ready to do some knot-jerking but obviously couldn’t. :)
Another thing we realized yesterday – they aren’t kidding around about respecting elders. This little epiphany came to me while waiting in a ridiculous line for a public toilet (which I later found did not have any toilet paper – queue the pack of Kleenex) and an older woman decided that she didn’t have to wait in line and could break in front of the roughly 10 of us standing in line. I was glad to see, though, that I was not the only one in line that wasn’t terribly pleased with that turn of events.
The final epiphany we had on Day 2 – there are no traffic rules in China. Sure, they have traffic lights and signals that tell you when you should and should not walk. Pay no mind to those. They are merely suggestions, and not closely followed ones at that. There were plenty of times that Jerry and I found ourselves walking with the masses and before you knew it you were standing in the middle of the road with cars honking at you.
All in all it was a very overwhelming, intimidating, but enjoyable day. China has a lot to offer, but there’s a LOT to take in all at once. And because of this, I’m tired and must go to sleep…but I have to remember to relate the story of Jerry and the tea ceremony before this blog is done at the end of our trip!
Saturday, November 29, 2008
We Made It!!
Wow. So that's really all I can say to accurately sum up the past 48 hours. It's been a crazy wild ride, so let me update you....
Our trip started out the night before Thanksgiving. We had not even started packing yet, so that started after we had family dinner for Whizzy's birthday. That was lots of fun! Carrie was the hit of the dinner with the rest of the patrons at Old House Smokehouse, we had yummy birthday cake, then got home around 8:30 or so. I was of course dreading putting her to sleep. Whizzy et al gave Carrie-boo her bath while Jerry and I attempted to start packing. Once they were done they gave us a call and we headed over. Before we even got into the room I was crying :) I'm sure Carrie thought I was a weirdo, but whatever. We read The Hungry Caterpillar & Where the Wild Things Are, then we snuggled for a few minutes and we put her down. Ugh. She was fine, I was not.
So then we went back over to the cottage to pack. The entire process took about 3 hours. Why, I'll never know. It's just two weeks, but you would have thought it was two years. We weren't ready for bed until about midnight. Jerry of course immediately fell asleep, but once it was all quiet, that's when I started thinking about Carrie again...so off to the couch I went to watch a couple of episodes of Top Chef I had DVR'd. I think I fell asleep around 2, and the alarm clock went off at 3:30. Bailey was thoroughly confused and wanted to eat since everyone was awake. He could tell something was up with all of the activity, though, so he was a little pokey. We left the house at 5am promptly!
Thank goodness we were going through security at Savannah airport instead of Atlanta. We arrived at the airport around 5:30 and were through security and sipping on Starbucks by 6:00. The flight to Atlanta was uneventful. We grabbed some Chick Fil A in Atlanta, and got to the gate as they were boarding the flight to Shanghai. The flight was COMPLETELY full. Jerry and I were in the middle row on the plane, and he was in the middle seat. Despite me trying to switch seats with him the entire time, he stayed in the middle and didn't sleep a wink the whole flight. Me? I watched one movie, read some of my book, and slept about 3-4 hours. It was definitely nice to get the heck off the plane. Everyone else with Jerry's class took a taxi to the hotel which, for a 20 mile ride, apparently took over an hour. We took the Maglev then the subway and were at the hotel well before they were. The subway was an experience...a complete mass of humanity. In hindsight it probably wasn't the easiest way to get around with our carry-ons and luggage, but it was a good way to immediately get immersed in Chinese culture!
Once we arrived at the hotel it took all we had to not just pile on the bed and go directly to sleep. We met up with a few of the others from Jerry's group and went to dinner at Jade Garden, a place recommended by the hotel. There were 7 of us, so we traipsed over to the restaurant. We were immediately intimidated. It's bad enough being in a foreign country where you don't know the language....but here you can't even wing it by attempting to decipher the language because you have absolutely no clue what the heck the characters mean. Thankfully they have prepared for stupid Americans and have lots of pictures in their menus :) The restaurant was family style so we ordered all kinds of different dishes - pan fried noodles, a couple different types of dumplings, roasted duck, short ribs, soup. We were sure that at the end of this dinner we were going to owe an arm and a leg...turns out that it was a grand total of $11 a person. Sweet.
Dinner was over and we were back in the hotel by about 9pm. Jerry and I were asleep by 9:30, and were up and at 'em by 9am the next day! I'll blog about that tomorrow...right now it's 12:30am on Sunday here, which means it's 11:30am Saturday back home, just a short 30 minutes from kickoff time for GT-UGA. We're considering listening to the game for at least a bit...till the next post, I've created a Picasa album for folks to keep track of our travels!
Monday, November 24, 2008
WANTED: Rogue Kid in Carrie's Class
I really love the school that Carrie goes to. She seems genuinely happy whenever I take her there/pick her up (that is, when Whizzy doesn't!), it's nice and clean, blah blah blah. I got home today and went over to Whizzy & Pop Pop's house to pick up Carrie. The teachers in Carrie's class send home a report card each day indicating how long she slept, whether or not she enjoyed her lunch, diaper changes, and what they did for the day. There's also a place on there for any additional notes the teacher needs to write; these are generally something to the effect of "Carrie needs more diapers/wipes!" or "Don't forget to bring fruit for the party on Friday!" Today there was a brand new note written on there....
"Carrie was bitten by another student today on her lower right back. It was unprovoked...." I believe there was much more written on there, but honestly how could I pay attention to anything else? Some kid BIT my kid on the back, hard enough to leave a mark on the poor child!! What the hell is that about? I could not for the life of me believe that happened. The teachers were of course very apologetic, and admitted that the kid who did this was a kid they've been working with to stop him/her from biting. It doesn't seem to be phasing her, although we did slather it with Neosporin before putting her PJs on.
Whizzy said the same thing happened when she took Jerry to a Junior League meeting. She said she was pretty livid when it happened. I think I was just so in shock I sort of brushed it off when she originally told me what happened, but now that kid is a wanted kid. Good thing they didn't call out the student by name on Carrie's little report card :)
On that note I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of what happens when you leave Carrie alone for 2.5 seconds...she becomes the next spokesmodel for Clinique. Thankfully I caught her in the act before she could get too carried away!
"Carrie was bitten by another student today on her lower right back. It was unprovoked...." I believe there was much more written on there, but honestly how could I pay attention to anything else? Some kid BIT my kid on the back, hard enough to leave a mark on the poor child!! What the hell is that about? I could not for the life of me believe that happened. The teachers were of course very apologetic, and admitted that the kid who did this was a kid they've been working with to stop him/her from biting. It doesn't seem to be phasing her, although we did slather it with Neosporin before putting her PJs on.
Whizzy said the same thing happened when she took Jerry to a Junior League meeting. She said she was pretty livid when it happened. I think I was just so in shock I sort of brushed it off when she originally told me what happened, but now that kid is a wanted kid. Good thing they didn't call out the student by name on Carrie's little report card :)
On that note I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of what happens when you leave Carrie alone for 2.5 seconds...she becomes the next spokesmodel for Clinique. Thankfully I caught her in the act before she could get too carried away!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Panic attack
I think I'm having a panic attack.
Jerry and I leave for China exactly two weeks from tomorrow (on Thanksgiving for those of you interested). Without Carrie. Ugh. I'm having quite enough Mommy Guilt right now for the fact that I only get to see my child two hours out of the day as it is (and that's been progressively turning into a devilish two hours, but that's an entirely different post). Now I'm going to be gone 13 days.
Don't get me wrong - I am truly excited about going to such a foreign and interesting country. I've told many people that China never really was on my "must visit" list, at least not like New Zealand was. But the opportunity presented itself through Jerry's MBA program, so I selfishly took it. Am I worried about Carrie? Absolutely not. I know she's probably in even more capable hands than mine, being that she'll spend time with both sets of grandparents. No, I'm worried about myself. I start to think about putting her down for night-night that Wednesday before we leave, and I get teary-eyed (just like I am right now). We bought webcams to use. The intent on buying those was for when Jerry ships out to Portugal, but this is the perfect chance to test them out. Now I'm not so sure I want to even do that. All these things keep running through my mind - will she understand being able to see me but not get to me? will I turn into an absolute puddle each time I see her (I already know the answer to that one). will she resent me for being gone this long (can a 19 month old experience resent???) will she forget about me? And the one that really kills me - will she even notice that I'm not around? I'm not saying I want her to be an absolute terror for her grandparents while we are gone, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'd be a tad bit happier if she exhibited at least a little unhappiness at the lack of tickle sessions with Mommy and singing The Hoppity Song at the top of our lungs while driving around town.
So while I'm totally loving searching out things on the internet for me to do while Jerry's off doing his MBA thing (sorry, honey), that's tempered with the fact that I'm reminded that I'll be away from her for about 330 hours all told. But who's counting?
Jerry and I leave for China exactly two weeks from tomorrow (on Thanksgiving for those of you interested). Without Carrie. Ugh. I'm having quite enough Mommy Guilt right now for the fact that I only get to see my child two hours out of the day as it is (and that's been progressively turning into a devilish two hours, but that's an entirely different post). Now I'm going to be gone 13 days.
Don't get me wrong - I am truly excited about going to such a foreign and interesting country. I've told many people that China never really was on my "must visit" list, at least not like New Zealand was. But the opportunity presented itself through Jerry's MBA program, so I selfishly took it. Am I worried about Carrie? Absolutely not. I know she's probably in even more capable hands than mine, being that she'll spend time with both sets of grandparents. No, I'm worried about myself. I start to think about putting her down for night-night that Wednesday before we leave, and I get teary-eyed (just like I am right now). We bought webcams to use. The intent on buying those was for when Jerry ships out to Portugal, but this is the perfect chance to test them out. Now I'm not so sure I want to even do that. All these things keep running through my mind - will she understand being able to see me but not get to me? will I turn into an absolute puddle each time I see her (I already know the answer to that one). will she resent me for being gone this long (can a 19 month old experience resent???) will she forget about me? And the one that really kills me - will she even notice that I'm not around? I'm not saying I want her to be an absolute terror for her grandparents while we are gone, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'd be a tad bit happier if she exhibited at least a little unhappiness at the lack of tickle sessions with Mommy and singing The Hoppity Song at the top of our lungs while driving around town.
So while I'm totally loving searching out things on the internet for me to do while Jerry's off doing his MBA thing (sorry, honey), that's tempered with the fact that I'm reminded that I'll be away from her for about 330 hours all told. But who's counting?
Monday, November 3, 2008
Mommy's Little Yellow Jacket!
Halloween was a big hit this year, even though we had a slight fever and hacking cough. We just had to go out even for a little bit, and had a GREAT time. At first Carrie wasn't too sure about the whole trick-or-treat thing - why are all these kids dressed up weird, why am I dressed up weird, and why do I have to carry this orange bucket? Once she realized that each trip up to a house meant more stuff dropped into her bucket, she was game. We went to Oldfield, and all of the houses are up steps. Carrie couldn't be bothered with walking up the steps herself. When she arrived at another house, she stopped, looked at me, and said emphatically "UP!" As in, "please pick me up and take me to the top of the stairs, as that is much quicker!" Here are some pictures of our little Yellow Jacket:
All dressed up and ready to roll!
Mommy & Carrie (Daddy unfortunately could not tag along since he was in Atlanta for school)
So excited about Halloween!
No, I did not put her up to this - but how perfect that she's dressed up as a bee and sniffing the flowers?!
Trick-or-treating in luxury!
All dressed up and ready to roll!
Mommy & Carrie (Daddy unfortunately could not tag along since he was in Atlanta for school)
So excited about Halloween!
No, I did not put her up to this - but how perfect that she's dressed up as a bee and sniffing the flowers?!
Trick-or-treating in luxury!
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