St Patrick's Day (when Irish eyes were not smiling!!)

Sam and I were lucky enough to be invited to the pre St Patrick's Day lunch reception given by the Irish Consulate in Shanghai. 

It was a great do and among the highlights were some propper cheese!, Murphy's and Baileys (which I couldn't quite bring myself to have a glass of at lunchtime!).

On St Patricks Day itself we were in a pub in Shanghai until the early hours of Sunday morning watching the rugby.  When Wales won it felt like we were in a pub in Cardiff! 

The England v Ireland game kicked off at 1am, local time.  At first it appeared that we were heavily outnumbered by Irish supporters dressed in varying shades of green and fancy dress.  Howerver, when we listened carefully we discovered that most of them were Americans, happily celebrating St Patrick's day and blissfully unaware of the white wash occuring in the rugby!  We probably should have downloaded it the following morning but were pleased we stayed even though it meant we crawled in to bed at 3!  Only to be woken at six!

The following day was Mother's day so we went out for lunch to one of my favourite restaurants and then I went for a two hour massage which was wonderful given the lack of sleep! 

“You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.” - Dr Suess

The last couple of weeks in Shanghai have had a very literary feel to them.  The Shanghai International Literary Festival has been taking place with well known authors flocking to Shanghai, among them Amy Tan and Matt Groning and I was lucky enough to get tickets to see Amy Tan and Mohammed Hanif.  It has also been Book Week at DUCKs.





Book week at DUCKs began with a visit from a real author who signed books for the children.  She read them a story and answered their questions.  Luckily for her bank acount William and Oliver are now hooked on her books! 

Over the course of the week there were lots of reading and book related activities.  However, the highlight was the Book Parade.  All the children in DUCKs were invited to come to school dressed as a character from one of their favourite books.  William and Oliver decided to go as Thing One and Thing Two from The Cat in the Hat. 



They enjoyed parading around the playground in front of the parents with the rest of the school.  There were lots of excellent costumes and the teachers all dressed up too.

Despite the itchyness of the costumes and the fact that the whole thing had to come off in order to go to the loo, Oliver and William kept them on all day.  In the afternoon parents were invited to look round the school library.  William and   Oliver were delighted to show us which books they like and we stayed a while and read a few. 

A Festival of Lanterns

The Chinese New Year celebrations drew to an end in the same way that they began - with a bang!  On the fifteenth day after the start of the new year, falls the Lantern Festival.  Traditionally, children went out to temples carrying simple paper lanterns and solved riddles written on lanterns.  Now the lanterns are more decorative and are often in the shape of animals and often sponsored by multinational companies!

The best place in Shanghai for the lantern festival is Yu Yuan, the oldest part.   They put up lots of decorations for Chinese New Year and have hundreds of lanterns lit up at night.  Sam and I went after the lantern festival, on the last day that it was lit up.

Despite it being the last day, it was still pretty crowded, but it was well worth seeing the spectacular Dragon and Phoenix lit up.

 The old tea house looked fantastic and you could just see the modern city towering over in the background

There were also lots of different lanterns everywhere.  Some were more modern in their decor while others were more traditional.




After seeing everything we decided that as the lantern festival is also known as Chinese Valentine's day we'd go for a meal!  Sam and I never pass up an opportunity to have some xiao long bao! 

The romantic occassion seemed to be lost on the couple at the table next to us!