Shayas in Shanghai

Zippity Doo Dah!

Big Brother Wu is finally allowing me to post some entries to the blog - so sorry for the long delay in updating you on pictures from Phuket. Thusly, right on the tail (!) of the elephant blog, I bring you the rest of the vacation.

Here we are as we arrived at the hotel in Phuket. Max is beginning to think that all hotels offer wet towels and cold beverages upon arrival!

The beaches were amazing. The sand was soft and soooo hot!  We would get to the edge of the sand and then run as fast as possible to the water!  Another thing to check off list:  "Walk on hot coals!"

 

My baby lost his first tooth in Phuket. The tooth fairy was so confused - didn't know if she should exchange his tooth for Baht, Yuan, or US dollars.  She went with US dollars!

The boys playing Dino-golf and making a new friend!

Sarah's cute braids! (She wanted her whole head done, we convinced her otherwise).

Jeff and Sarah went zip-lining in the jungle! Some of the lines were over 40 feet high. Sarah was fearless! And Jeff at least pretended to be!

At at the end of each day, there was this beautiful sight:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

 
 
 

The Elephant Whisperers

Ever since The Detroit Zoo appropriately sent the elephants permanently to warmer climates, I have missed my regular elephant fix.  That was well taken care of on our trip to Phuket where we had actual contact with elephants on a daily basis. The resort we stayed at had two pet elephants who wandered around the beach and hallways of the hotel as well as attending breakfast every morning where the children were able to gather fruit from the breakfast buffet to feed to the elephant.

We also went on an elephant ride which is much scarier than one would think! There was a portion of the ride going down a somewhat steep and muddy hill, and then back up again. I know you are going to look at the pictures below and say "Steep? That's not steep!" However, strapped into a seat on top of this huge animal I had flashes of him stumbling, toppling over and landing on top of us. And then that joke that Zach used to tell - the only joke he used to tell for about a year - went through my mind "What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence? Time to get a new fence!" only insert "family" for "fence". Fortunately, I found the elephants to be very cautious, thoughtful animals and I can now check "Ride an Elephant" off my list of things to do in this lifetime!

Cool shades, huh?

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster...

Continuing the Shaya Asia Tour, we fled the booming fireworks of Shanghai and headed to Thailand for a week of hot, sunny weather and leisure-filled days. Our initial flight landed in Bangkok in the wee morning hours and we chose to spend a day checking out Bangkok before heading to our true destination, Phuket. It took just moments of Bangkok heat to warm up our Shanghai-cold bodies. Its astounding how mood uplifting a little nice weather can be! Here are some pictorial highlights of our day in Bangkok:

Water taxi:

 
We went by water taxi about 15 minutes up the river to where the Royal Palace is located. This palace looked like every other temple/palace we have seen throughout asia. Ornate buildings which you can only view the outside of, or a brief peek at an alter inside. Honestly, they all look the same and it is very difficult getting the kids excited to see yet another building, but it is a must do nonetheless. We find the presence of soldiers to be both interesting and unnerving:

We asked permission before taking this one:

Here I am proving to Max that he does not know where our hotel is on the map and thus should quit running away from us in a country where nobody in authority can speak his language:

 
Still as a statue:

Figuring out the subway - which was actually an elevated metro-rail and super slow.....

Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs....Do this, don't do that! Can't you read the sign?

Yes, Zach found that one all on his own!! We made it to our destination (the mall) where we began a search for shorts for Sarah. We never did find any. There seems to be this gap between little kids and adult women leaving the Sarah's of the world at a loss for clothing here in Asia. But what I really don't get is that the women's clothing stores do not have sizes small enough for Sarah even though a significant portion of Asian women are size negative 2.  We did, however, find something Zach has been asking for the last few months:  sushi. Max insisted on pizza, so he and Sarah and I went in one direction and Jeff and Zachary went to the sushi/cook your own hot pot place. They had the best looking cook in the place!

 
Stay tuned for the next Thailand episode:  Bird poop and elephant plops.    
  
  

Chinese Things (a song)

Sung to the tune of "My Favorite Things" from Sound of Music:

 

Cars speeding

Horns Honking

Traffic lights useless.

Men spitting

Peeing all

Over the sidewalk.

Stores are not heated and so they're freezing.

These are some of the most interesting things.

Pigs feet

Intestines

I don't know what that is.

Buying things

Bargaining

The king here: cash is.

Learning the language is quite tedious.

These are some of the most interesting things

When this places gets very stressful, and I'm feeling sad.

I simply go out and get a foot massage, and then I don't feel so bad.

America

Owes China

Trillions of dollars.

Yet we

Sell arms and

Invite Dalai Lama.

I'm not political, but I know this.

China finds these very annoying things.

China

Was scarier

Before I came here.

People here

Are kind to

Me and my family.

Why can't we just hug and all get along?

Then I won't need to write a stupid song?

When the world gets very stressful and I'm feeling sad.

I simply go out and get a foot massage, and then I don't feel so bad.  

 

 

How NOT to plan your Chinese New Year vacation...

I often tell my children that they would be wise to learn from other people's mistakes because they won't have time to make them all themselves! I don't always follow my own advice. You know that old adage 'If you get the same feedback from several sources, then its probably true'? We were told repeatedly that you need to book travel well in advance for Chinese New Year.  Somehow I did little more than note that advice and toss it out to Jeff in that "Do you think there's anything to this?" kind of way.

CNY roughly corresponds to mid-winter break though its placement moves, like Hannukah or Passover. CNY is THE big holiday in China - like Christmas in the US. For six weeks preceding the stores are overflowing with red and gold everything. There are more shoppers, more traffic, more chaos (hard to imagine more chaos in China, but its true). When the actual holiday hits - everyone disperses. The expats leave the country. This is no time to travel within China as the Chinese people all travel home to rural areas to see their families: parents, wives, children. Many workers here only see their families once a year.

Though gifts are exchanged during CNY, it is really more about the cash. Cash is not just preferred, in some cases it is required. It is a criminal offense for a chinese '(adult) child' not to financially support his/her parents. I had to put that in bold because it is such an astounding statement. What does that mean? To financially support them? It means that you give your parents one-month's worth of salary - in cash - and that is what your parents live on over the coming year. This puts a whole new spin on that one-child policy. When hiring our ayi, I interviewed 5 women. Every one of them asked me if I agreed to pay the CNY bonus - which is......one month's salary! Fortunately, I had a guide who made it clear to me that this was standard. It went in the contract. I did not know at the time that my ayi would not actually get any of this money, but that it would be directly given to her parents. This is, of course, true of all Chinese and so there is a large increase in petty thefts at this time of year. Imagine getting on a train and knowing that just about every person on that train heading to the countryside has a huge wad of cash on their personhood.

So, back to the travel issues. By well in advance, I later learned, 'they' meant a year ahead of time. Apparently, most people book next year's CNY plans right now! That is a tough nut for this family who goes about vacation planning in a much more laissez-faire manner. This advice was also dished out for the October holiday and Christmas holiday breaks, albeit less definitively. In October, as you know, we went to Hong Kong. We booked the flights and hotels the day before we left. No problem. This served to further entrench our laid back planning approach. Christmas break:  Cambodia. Not only did we book it very close to departure, we didn't even secure hotels for the whole stay before we left! Played it by ear, worked out. Strategy still good.

At least considering the advice of the masses, in the beginning of January we did some initial investigation into February options. I had zoned in on the perfect choice post-oppressive Cambodia:  Laguna Beach Resort in Phuket, Thailand.  When we tried to make reservations, no luck. Completely booked. Hmmm. So I began to look at other hotel options in the area only to find that they were all completely booked. So we set our sites elsewhere (by that I should say everywhere) - Vietnam? Singapore? Phillipines? Ceba? Malaysia? Indonesia? Ok, Bali it is. Found some really cool hotel options. But - no ability to get flights. Wow. Tougher than we thought.

Then 'people' began to tell us to not worry. Many people book multiple places a year ahead of time (there's the trick - no real decision needs to be made, just a few options) and then cancel out of all but one a few weeks before. So we set aside the planning and waited until last week when we kicked it into gear again. There were several days where both Jeff and I, at whatever available slots of time in our days/nights were dutifully searching hotels, flights, hotels, flights, hotels, flights. Argh. Ok - ask the travel agents. Not even they could come up with good options for us, and we asked five! We had a couple almosts with the flight - by that I mean we found the flight and by the time we hit 'book online' they either disappeared or tripled in cost. I was beginning to think this was the year we would experience Chinese New Year IN Shanghai as I am told we should do once before we leave.  And just as we were about to give up, we peeked back at the Laguna Beach Resort in Phuket and sure enough, they had a few rooms available. Furthermore, Jeff found flights that were not full of strange detours or overly priced. So at long last, we booked the vacation we initially decided upon.

Hmmm. So what do you think? Does this mean our strategy is still effective? Did we err by not booking sooner? Or by bothering to look in early January at all? Perhaps I will ponder this while relaxing on the beach in beautiful Phuket!

The Random and the Mundane

Hello friends and family! I realize I have not posted an entry to the blog in quite some time. Part of  the reason is that I was having so much trouble posting the Cambodia pictures and several time-consuming entries just crashed into cyber oblivion, so I became discouraged. Then there was the inevitable getting back to daily life, work, school post-vacation. And that is where this blog begins...

I realize as I go about daily life here in Shanghai that things I once found odd and different are now becoming quite routine observances. Walking to the coffee shop one morning, I pass the city workers, women who spend their day pushing around wheelbarrows and wastebins with their completely homemade straw brooms cleaning up the streets. The sit against a wall or fence on the corner in the morning, before they must begin their workday. It is very cold, so they have many layers of clothing underneath their kelly green 'scrubs' - cloth lined hats on their heads, with dirty dish towels covering them and clipped beneath their chin (their version of ear muffs).

I cross the street and a man is turning around zipping up his pants and I am not shocked or uncomfortable. Because for men here, the world is their toilet. And they do not necessarily find their way to the corner of the building or in the bush, they just hop out of the car/taxi and stand in the middle of the sidewalk and pee. So now, whenever I see a man standing still outside with his back to me, I assume that is what he is doing.

The Chinese are very used to wearing layers, lots of them. In Carrefour at this time of year there are enormous amounts of long underwear for sale.  This is because heat is a luxury. Our home, like most homes here, have floor heating. So we have these cold tile floors that are toasty warm, but not in every room. The heated floors are in the living room/dining room/bathrooms and halls. The bedrooms however have this fake wooden flooring and that is not heated, so there are these radiators in those rooms that you can turn on and adjust. All the windows/doors are very drafty - so it makes for some really inconsistent heat (which, I might add, we still haven't figured out how to reliably turn on). Oh yeah, and the kitchen? No heat at all. Its kind of like walking out to your garage to make breakfast in the morning.  Also, they don't heat the stores here - most of them. The 'higher end' stores, yes. But the grocery store? The movie store? The hallways and walkways of the malls? The school halls ? None of those are heated.  The kids go from warm classroom, to icy hallway, all day long. Crazy.

Another funny sight, that has become the norm, is the Expat Family Car. Cars and drivers are leased through various companies here, but they all have the same car. When we first arrived they were ALL silver. In the past few months there have been more and more navy cars and a few white as the fleet is being replaced. Here is what they look like:

That's in front of the clubhouse, where the busses pick up and drop off the kids.

You can see why its important to know your license plate number! That's how you find your car/driver. We are very lucky because our driver has the eagle eye. It seems that whether I have been gone 5 minutes or 2 hours, the moment I walk out the door he calls my name and waves me over. Always looking out for us!!
 
 

Fish Massage and Family Cars

A must-do in Cambodia is the famous fish massage. Available everywhere these hungry fish are difficult NOT to find. Basically small tanks or inflatable children's swimming pools filled with these little non-descript fish who like to feed on the dead skin on your feet. The Cambodians tout it as "better than a foot massage" (its not) and "relaxing" (not that either). Pushing past the creepy factor will, however, give you some very smooth feeling feet!

Sarah and I ventured out to the Night Market our second day in Siem Riep (boys stayed behind resting) and Sarah was the first brave Shaya soul to try out the fish massage:

The fish were not all that interested in Sarah's feet. Then she convinced me to give it a try. Here are the results:

And just in case you are not fully grasping what these fish are actually doing, here's a close-up:

After the fish experience, Sarah and I wandered over to get a pedicure - which cost $2, $3 if you wanted polish put on! While sitting under a beautiful Cambodian blue sky in lounge chairs and a gentle breeze we watched some women unfolding flower buds to create beautiful flowers which they use for decoration and in their Lotus Flower Spa Bath (didn't try it). One of the women brought Sarah some buds and taught her how to do it.

This next picture isn't different than what you see in China, but riding in the tuk tuk gave me the opportunity to get some good shots of Asia's answer to family transportation:

 
 
 And now the family with the record for most people on one motobike driving through the very crazy, crowded streets of Siem Riep:

  
 

Children of Cambodia

Here are some alarming statistics for you:

• 41% of the Cambodian population is under the age of 15
• Less than 3% of the population is over the age of 65
• Less than 45% of Cambodian children complete elementary school

We took a boat through a floating village and were able to visit the local school. Here we are on the boat getting ready to depart:

Entering the village:

How kids hang out in the village:

A little girl - seemingly from nowhere - hops onto our boat with a basket of pop for sale. Here we are purchasing some, then she departs into the waiting boat with her mother:

That is our boat guide (there was another man driving the boat). His name is Hun and he lived on a floating village until he was 11 years old, at which point he said his father was able to get enough money to get a home on land. Hun is 24 years old, lives with and supports both his parents who can no longer work.

 

Going to the floating school:

This is one room with 100 students (though there were only about 60 present when we were there). There are two teachers who take turns teaching. The second teacher was up on the empty second floor of the boat sleeping in a hammock.

The view from the second floor of the school boat (where we found the teacher napping):

Sarah saying her goodbyes:

  
 
  
 
 
 
 

Christmas in Cambodia

 

We have been in Cambodia less than 24 hours, and already I can say it is somewhat of a surreal experience. I do think that having come here via Shanghai has lessened the impact of shock this would have otherwise been for us.

The only direct flights to and from Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, are rather inconveniently scheduled at the end of the day. Our flight out of Shanghai was at 8 p.m., landing us in Phnom Penh at midnite (less a one-hour time change). Though I had done sufficient research regarding the visa process, I was still a bit worried about this notion that we could obtain visas on sight at the airport. However, this is exactly what happened. For $5 (USD) each for the kids and $20 each for Jeff and I, within moments we had tourist visa stamps in our passports. We did have to pay $2 extra for Jeff because he did not have a passport sized photo with him. We assumed this was what they charged to take his photo. But no, they just charge $2 more because there was no photo. Hmmm.  We then walk about 15 feet to the immigration guy who spends longer looking at our passports than the guys issuing the visa. He gives us the go ahead and we walk another 20 feet to where the luggage carousel was with our suitcases. We then proceed to customs, which is completely un-manned, so we skate on through and walk outside where the driver sent by the hotel is waiting for us. All of this took place in the span of 20 minutes from deplaning to being on our way to the hotel. Twenty minutes and about 200 feet. Wow. Clearly Cambodia does not care who or what comes into the country!

We had only one full day in Phnom Penh, which I am told is about right with kids, so we tried to hit all the highlights. I thought that walking to the places nearby was a good option, but soon discovered that it was rather treacherous. What little sidewalks there are generally are covered in garbage, or street vendors, parked cars and motobikes, people sleeping, extended store fronts - not conducive to passersby. And to step into the street to walk is taking your life in your hands due to the cars, bikes, tuk tuks etc. that are zipping in and out. This was one of the areas I felt Shanghai had prepared me well for.  So we found our way to the world of tuk tuks - the taxis of Cambodia, but way more fun.

Standard street. Note the garbage - it is everywhere, everywhere. For more information on the Cambodia garbage issue see

http://cambodiamirror.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/experts-cambodia-has-not-enough-space-for-garbage-disposal-while-the-need-is-still-growing-monday-28-12-2009/

 

Here's a tuk tuk. Very fun in a life-threatening kind of way. Open air, no seatbelts, swerving in and out of traffic consisting of other tuk tuks, bikes, motorcycles, cars, and big buses! And, like China, it is every man for himself!
 

We started our day at the National Museum of Cambodia which lived up to its claim as the home of the world's finest collection of Khmer sculpture. We then went to the market which was uneventful, except for the super find of Ben 10 pajamas for Max. They were $6 - or 24,000 Riels. (What an exchange rate, he?) We also visited the Royal Palace (disappointing since you cannot get past the front entryway and the Silver Pagoda (nice grounds).

Zach in the courtyard at the National Museum. Blue skies, hot but not humid weather - everyday!!

Sarah in front of the snack shop inside the walls of the National Museum property. This is a very high-end version of virtually every snack/food shop throughout Cambodia.

Sarah and Max in the entryway at the Royal Palace. Converting already...
 

The Silver Pagoda:

Lots of kissing going on here...

And the monks - they all wear these orange robes and flip flops. All over Cambodia, if you see a monk, this is what he looks like:

 
  
Below is a very interesting looking instrument. Max was mesmerized by the musicians. At one point we thought he had fallen asleep standing up with his eyes open!

 

Late in the afternoon we took a disturbing tour of the Tuol Sleng Museum. This was a high school taken over by Pol Pot's security forces and turned into a prison. It soon became the largest center of detention and torture in the country. The rooms, cells, equipment, and mug shots displayed throughout are testament to the horrors of what happened in the mid 70's. For those of you concerned, the boys skipped much of the museum and did not grasp what had happened there. Sarah, who was keenly interested, took in much of the tour, though we limited her exposure as well.

I highly recommend the book "First They Killed My Father" by Loung Ung, a survivor of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-1979. Loung was 5 years old in 1975 and is a true survivor.  www.loungung.com/
 

One of the more interesting parts of the day was the long tuk tuk drive to and from the Tuol Sleng Museum. To think that Phnom Penh is the most developed area in Cambodia, and to see how poverty stricken it is, I wonder what the rest of the trip wll be like?

How Far Would You Go...?

...for a Krispy Kreme donut?  In the spirit of sharing global best practices Krispy Kreme has opened its first store in Shanghai, China! This was exciting news for Jeff and the kids who were making visits to Krispy Kreme back home a regular ritual. However, the locations is not close to where we live (imagine driving from our home in Birmingham to Ann Arbor just to buy donuts!).

But today Sarah and I were headed to Puxi for other reasons and we mapped out just how relatively close the Krispy Kreme shop was and committed to the boys that we would find it and bring back a little taste ofAmerica!

The manager was pretty geeked when we walked in, camera in hand, and clearly KK competent. He took our picture and then ran in the back to get Sarah and I fresh, hot donuts. Having never eaten a Krispy Kreme donut (they never last long in our house), it was clear to me why those little treats are so beloved!  Perhaps we will fatten up those Chinese after all!