A belated anniversary

Kaytie and Richie offered to babysit and we were not slow in taking them up on their offer!  We decided to make it a belated anniversary celebration. 

I left the Grants with all four children and met Sam after work.  We started off at the Glamour Bar and had cocktails.  Among others we had the Martini that won the 1951 Martini competition in Chicargo!  It lived up to it's name!! 


Note the I love you message to Sam in the background!

We then walked to Mr and Mrs on the Bund (appropriate for an anniversary!), a French restaurant, where we had a rather impressive shrimp cocktail and frogs legs followed by cassoulet - all delicious!

Rather romantically (!), Sam suggested that we spend the night at the Peace Hotel and, after overcoming the embarrassment of asking for a room with no luggage, we were turned away due to our lack of passports!! So we headed back home where we were woken by four children at about 630am!  Life goes on!

Richie rocks up!

Richie arrived in Shanghai on the tail of the typhoon and brought with him some spectacular thunderstorms.  Our swim on his first day was disrupted but it was pretty impressive watching the lightning.

I took the three eldest Grants to the market one evening where we made a good bargaining team.  Kaytie got a dress made and Riche got four shirts and a suit.  A follow up trip resulted in a collection of Mulberry bags and purses. 

Finding history in Shanghai can be difficult at times but you are always guaranteed some at Yu Yuan in the Old Town and no trip out is complete without tea and some Xiao Long Bao!

All of the Grants enjoyed the different dumplings on offer so we had a dumpling class where we made about 200!!

Kaytie and I also went on a cookery class where we made more dumplings and some spring rolls.

While the Grants were staying it was Kaytie's birthday.  Knowing what a fan of crispy duck she is we endeavoured to track some down.  We found a restaurant which claims to serve the best duck outside of Beijing.  The oven has been brought down from Beijing and the chefs trained there!  It was excellent!

As well as the duck, we ordered noodles.  On your birthday in China you are meant to eat long noodles to symbolise long life.  Luckily the noodles were long!

The birthday evening out was complete with some local style posing for the camera!

We were sad to say goodbye, although it was probably for the best on health grounds as otherwise our livers may have never recovered! Many tears were shed saying goodbye for a year but we all had a fab three weeks together.

We're going on a chicada hunt...

What a beautiful day! 

We're going to catch a big one! 

We're not sacred (much!)! 

Having been plagued by the noise made by the cicada's in the trees around where we lived William and Oliver decided to take Alice and Charlie on a hunt to track down a cicada.  We managed to spot a few in trees but the four children were delighted when we found a dead one on the path!  He is now 'living' in a shoebox in the hallway with food and water that are changed daily!  His name is Spencer!! Charlie declared he was going to take him home to England - going through customs should be fun!

A gathering of Grant's in Shanghai

Kaytie, Alice and Charlie arrived in Shangahi on Monday morning.  We were very impressed with how efficiently the Grant's had managed to pack!

Not a lot of sleep had been had on the aeroplane, but we were determined not to let any of them sleep during the day in order to overcome the jet lag!  Sam stopped for very strong coffee to keep Kaytie going and we fed everyone and took them swimming to distract them from the tiredness.  They all made it to bedtime - just!  Charlie crawled in to Kaytie's bed and fell asleep at 615pm!  He didn't wake until eight o'clock the next morning!

Over the next few days we went swimming, played at the soft play, went on the Shanghai ferry (very expensive at 20p each!) , explored the insect house and most importantly introduced them to xiao long bao!

Kaytie and I even found time to squeeze in a pedicure and a cocktail!

Richie arrived bright eyed on Saturday morning after bagging himself an upgrade!  This was a good thing as we whisked him off out for the evening to watch England allow the Welsh to beat us at rugby!!

Jim and Emma come to China

Jim and Emma arrived in Shanghai after a week of sighseeing in Beijing and Xian.  Sam went to meet them at the airport and almost missed them!  He realised that he is more used to being met and this was his first airport pick up.  He ended up at international arrivals at the wrong end of the terminal!  At least he now knows where to go to collect Kaytie, Alice and Charlie next week!

As the Emmison's arrived we whisked them off to the Fakes and Fabric market.  Jim was measured up for a couple of shirts and a pair of shorts and Emma developed a longing for a Mulberry bag! 

 

They were pretty tired after nonstop sightseeing in Beijing so they spent a gloriously sunny and unbearably hot day by the pool on their first full day.  Luckily they were not too tired for pre-dinner drinks in the pub with me!

  

After a trip to the world's highest observation deck the following day, William, Oliver and I introduced them to the delights of dumplings and in particular, Shanghai's famous dumpling the Xiao Long Bao.

The afternoon was completed with a boat trip during which the biggest storm I have seen in Shanghai broke out!  Oliver, William and I had sensibly declined the boat trip and had gone for an ice cream instead.  When we picked them up they were pretty soaked, much to the amusement of William and Oliver.  The rain was so heavy that a road on the way home had virtually become a river!

Jim and Emma spent a day sightseeing in the old part of Shanghai on Thursday.  They met Sam from work and he took them on the Shanghai metro in rush hour!  However, the crush was soon forgotten as they sipped cocktails overlooking the lights of Pu Dong. I joined them and we took them for an 'upmarket' Chinese.

After a busy (it was PACKED!) morning at the aquarium on Friday, Emma and I hit the market one more time where her bag longings were finally satisfied.  We had sent the four boys to the pool so there was noone to curb the spending!  In the evening we decided to try out local cuisine and went to a Shanganese restaurant round the corner where there were some interesting items on the menu.

  We didn't stay out too late as Typhoon Muifa was on its way and we had strict instructions from our compound management to clear the garden of anything moveable!

On what we thought was Jim and Emma's last day we showed them the delights of the Carrefour fish counter and more of the area where we live. 

We then spent the afternoon at the pub!  That evening we discovered that their flight had been cancelled due to the typhoon but luckily they managed to get on the Monday flight.

On the Sunday we visited the Shanghai History Museum.  It gave and interesting and sometimes biased account of the history of Shanghai and China.  If museum signs are like this it would be interesting to see the text books! 

Early on Monday morning we said goodbye to Jim and Emma.  We were sad to see them go and Sam took them to the airport and returned with Kaytie, Alice and Charlie!

There's nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing around in boats.

On Saturday night Robert, a colleague of Sam's, arranged for about 25 of us to go for dinner followed by a boat trip up the Hungpu, the river in Shanghai.  The plan was to eat early and be on the boat by 7pm so we decided to take William and Oliver too.  We had to convince them that we were not going to be swimming in the river and therefore they needed more suitable clothes!



William



Oliver



 

We all met in a Bavarian restaurant for dinner where we had sausages with saurcraut and the boys had meatballs.  The restaurant and food was so well done that we felt like we were in a Munich Beer hall!

After the food we went to the dock and got our tickets.  There was an electronic sign flashing up the time of our boat.  Unfortunately the time got later and later until we eventually boarded at 8! The wait was not helped by the fact that it was the hottest day of the summer so far!  It was still nearly 40 degrees at 8pm!  William and Oliver were pretty tired but managed to stay awake and it was worth the wait. 

It was amazing to see Shanghai  from the river at night.  The Bund looked very impressive

and the towers of Pudong looked amazing.

Everyone was impressed that I managed to put a special message for Sam up on one of the buildings!

At the end of the trip we asked one of the crew to take a group photo.  Photograpgy was clearly not her forte as in the first few attempts she just took pictures of our feet!  Finally we did manage to get a good photo, although this time some people were missing their feet!