Karaoke in the Park

When my parents were here we took a walk in one of the parks here and were lucky enough to hear the local talent belting out some tunes. My favorite part is the guy's friend in the background trying to help him keep time.



This is just a short clip of what lasted several minutes.

My Mom is a Winner

Here in Shanghai when you buy something you can ask for the official receipt, it's called the fapiao. On this fapiao there is a little area you can scratch off and potentially win some cash-money. I get really excited to scratch off the silver coating but I have never won anything but my mom has the magic touch! We went out to dinner and she won 20 RMB off the receipt. The owner of the place said he had never seen anyone win in his four years of owning the place.

Way to go mom!

20 RMB = $2.99 USD

Picture of the Day

My mom snagged this picture while we were at one of the markets in Shanghai. I was bargaining with the shop owner and this was my dad's response to his asking price.

Philippines Teaser

I realize we have been home from the Philippines for several weeks now and I haven't blogged about it. I am in the process of getting all the pictures together but just to get you excited here is a little taste of what to expect.


This is my lovely husband trying out a special snorkel mask with ear cups to keep the water out of his poor infected ears.

He is irresistible.

Wish List

Every few months I get a bad case of the "I hate everything I own" blues. I can't shop to my heart's content and remedy the situation so I just have to wait it out until the storm passes. I typically end up surfing the web and making wish lists of things I like; this may just fuel the fire but I also feel a little better afterward.

I've adopted the belief that my wardrobe can be way more interesting if I just invest in accessories instead of entirely new ensembles IE jewelry, scarves, belts, and hats. So here are some things I've been wishing for.





These next two aren't really accessories but I am still wishing I had some.





I know this has nothing to do with Shanghai but I promise I will have something interesting to post soon as we are going to the Philippines with some of Chris's family in a couple days!

Callings and The Bund

Quickly, I just want to say that Chris and I both got callings in our branch here and guess what? They are the exact same callings we had in our LA ward. I am teaching Sunbeams and Chris is teaching the Young Men and we are really happy about it.

A couple weekends ago we went to The Bund. FYI: Shanghai is split in two parts by the Yellow River and The Bund is the street that faces the river on our side of town. It's a fun place to walk around for the cool colonial architecture and fabulous view across the river (Pudong).

Pudong


The Bund

Did you know there are A LOT of people in China? Yeah, well there are and it is really fun when you get to walk in a river of Chinese people (see below). The roads to get back to the subway were packed with people and, to make it even more exciting, there were buses and cars trying to drive on the same road. It's also really hot and humid, yummy.

Here is a picture of me just in case you miss my face.

I've adopted the Chinese ways and like to throw up a peace sign for pictures.

And here is a picture of Chris just because he is cute.

PS - Can everyone see my blog header ok?

Sanya, Hainan Company Retreat

I'm sure some of you are disappointed that I haven't been blogging more regularly seeing as we are in China and probably doing some cool things. But, the truth is that most of the time life is just normal and we are saving all the "cool things" for when we have visitors. We did take a great trip last weekend to Hainan so I thought I would blog about it.

The LEK office in Shanghai does a mandatory retreat every year and we happened to be here for it and I am so glad because it was awesome! Way better than any party the LA office throws (sorry LA LEKers). Everyone from the office took a weekend trip to Hainan, which is a little island south of Hong Kong and similar to Hawaii. The hotel was gorgeous and so was the scenery.

Here we are riding the shuttle from the airport to the hotel. Riding through the towns you could tell they are very rundown but the hotel had everything we needed so there wasn't really a reason to venture out.




There were some seriously heavy rains while we were there but the weather was still warm and we didn't mind it so much.

AND, we took a little trip to the local hospital while we were there. Our first night there Chris woke me up at 4am saying he had been having some serious stomach pains for the last few hours. He decided to see if the pain would subside on its own but in the morning he wasn't feeling any better. We found out there was a nurse on staff at the hotel so she came along with a translator to check him out. We thought it was his appendix and our biggest fear was that it would burst but after some poking and prodding the nurse said it wasn't the appendix and probably not serious but suggested we still go to the hospital.

The hotel generously provided another employee to come with us to the hospital and we're so glad they did because there is no way we could have figured this place out on our own. It's hard to tell in this picture but the hospital was ummmm, not clean, I'll just say that. And not private either; in this room where Chris was examined there were at least 5 other people just waiting their turn.

This doctor also agreed that it wasn't his appendix but rather his intestine was inflamed and he suggested an infusion. They LOVE infusions at this place! When we walked upstairs there were rooms full of people hooked up to IV's just hanging out getting medicated. We weren't comfortable with this suggestion and we requested pills instead. Chris was feeling much better by the time we left the hospital but the real magic happened when we got back to the hotel and Chris saw a soccer ball. He started playing soccer as if he hadn't been in any sort of pain for the last 12 hours...strange how that happened.

Thankfully, we got to enjoy the rest of our trip without anymore hiccups. It was fabulous and I'm ready for another vacation like that.

So here is a weird China thing. We tried to watch some TV while it was raining and discovered that the government had canceled entertainment for the day in memory of those killed by the mudslide. The mudslide was a tragic event but it was still strange to us that the government had the power to cancel TV.