A Tale of Two River Cruises

On Oliver and William's last day off school we decided to go on a river cruise on the Huang pu in Shanghai.  It is a great way to see both sides of the river.  We arrived an hour early for the boat and so did what has become a regular habit for us-we went for coffee!  It was glorious sitting in the sun watching the boats go by.

During the cruise it felt a little cooler due to the breeze but the views were fantastic and we all provided on board entertainment for the tourists! One couple paid more attention to William and Oliver than to the views from the boat.

 Jo and I were quite in demand for photos!

The previous day I (Sam) had experienced an altogether different boat trip experience when I attended my first Chinese Wedding.  One of my colleagues, James,  who had organized our dance at the Chinese New Year banquet was getting married and he invited all of his dance friends!!

Chinese weddings are slightly different to British ones, as they typically happen in 3 stages.  First of all the couple do the legal part of signing the marriage paper work, but this is often done about a year before they actually have their wedding ceremony and reception.  Part two is the wedding photographs, which as you will have seen in many of our previous blogs happen in any number of beautiful or random public places.  Finally they have the ceremony and reception with their family, friends and colleagues.

James invited me to join him for the whole day and accompany him and his best men in the wedding car to go and pick up his wife and bridesmaids, but as we had guests I opted to just meet him at the boat.  I arrived at the dock and after a chat with the ticket collectors, was allowed through and boarded the boat.  I was greeted by a life size photograph of the couple and was given a raffle ticket and was asked to sign a guest book.  I then made my way up to the top deck to meet the couple.  James introduced me to Alice and we had our photo taken

Once everyone had arrived the couple went below deck and after a little bit of waiting around suddenly some very loud and dramatic music started playing, which was the cue for the couple to make their way up and the ceremony began.  The ceremony was not dissimilar to a british civil ceremony, although instead of a registrar there was a compare talking over a microphone, in a TV host style, with various backing tracks to set the mood.

After the ceremony we all made our way below deck for the banquet.  I was on the Ford table and there were a couple of other tables with people from his current and previous companies and then some with family and friends.  The meal was a traditional Chinese wedding banquet so the dishes just kept on coming.

After the meal the speeches started, which is when it got interesting.  Firstly the groom got up to speak and this was followed by the bride’s brother-in-law; cue over-head projector and music video and karaoke.  Next the two best men were called to the front and instead of giving a speech the compare got them to have a race to see which one could stack cups.  This was followed by them having to dance along to Gangnam Style. 

Following this I discovered that our table was next up to perform!  The girls had prepared a song so we all had to stand up at the front and sing.  Once complete I went to sit back down, but it turned out we were also to have a competition, so the compare split us into two teams and we then had to stand in lines with a bread stick in our mouths and had to see which team could pass the most onion rings from one end to the other in a minute.  Our team won, so we each got some chocolates and Kleenex baby wipes (James now works for Kimberly-Clark!!).

We then returned to our tables and the the bride and groom went to talk to each table.  However the main focus of this was that the groom has to down a shot of Chinese rice wine (which is similar to vodka) with each table; when he got to our table it was then decided that he should do 2, one Red wine and one rice wine, and then finally an extra one with me, I assume as I was the only westerner!  In Chinese, instead of saying cheers, everyone shouts Gan Bei, which literally translated mean Dry Cup.

Finally the groom made one final speech, which mainly involved him crying and saying how lucky he was, the rice wine had clearly had an effect. 

A Shanghai Christmas

 

 

 

 

The Christmas season started in Shanghai in late November with William and Oliver's Year 1 and 2 Christmas production 'Hey Ewe', an alternative nativity! 

Once again they performed it in the Junior school theatre.  This year they were all less shell shocked and trod the boards like true professionals.

Sue and Suresh arrived at the beginning of December which was exciting, particularly because it was Suresh's first visit to Shanghai and we were looking forward to sharing it with him. 

There were a few mad days of sightseeing and then they headed to Guilin for a few days.  Oliver and William broke up from school and began to help me prepare for christmas.  We had decoration sessions with Henry, Charlie and Ria and we also baked lots of mince pies just before the oven broke again! 

Sue and Suresh arrived back in Shanghai and the weather began to get colder and more Christmassy. We went for afternoon tea on the 39th floor of the JW Marriot which was a fantastic way to start the festivities.

 Our new oven arrived just in time for Christmas eve. We speant a lovely day on Christmas eve with the Hughes family.  We managed to cook the ham before the door of the new oven broke rendering it useless.  Luckily our neighbour offered their oven!

 

On the evening of Christmas eve a group of us went to our local for a few drinks which was fun at the time but didn't feel so great when we were up at 6 the next morning (before William and Oliver!!!) for Sam to run the turkey round to next door!  We then slumped on the sofa waiting for the boys to wake up and realise it was Christmas which they did by about 7!

Making trifle

The morning was spent playing with stocking pressies, eating smoked salmon with scrambled eggs and drinking bucks fizz.  The food preparation ticked along nicely and Sam disapeared at intervals, in his dressing gown, to next door!







The rest of the day followed the traditional route of food, a walk, pressies and more food. 

Watching the pudding go up in flames!

On Boxing Day we dispensed with tradition and Sam, Sue and Suresh went for a walk along the Bund and the boys and I met them for a dumpling lunch!  After lunch we hit the fakes market!

The following few days were spent doing some more sightseeing and on Sue and Suresh's last night we had a takeaway.  The following morning I travelled to the airport with the luggage and the rest travelled on the mag lev at speeds of 400km per hour!

New Year was celebrated with a party of friends who had stayed in Shanghai for Christmas at our house.The boys had Henry staying as poor charlie was in hospital (he is now fully recovered) and Sam and I aimed to get to bed as soon after 12 as possible. After everyone left at 1 we cleared up and decided that a skype session with the party at Poyle Road (Smiths, Clarks, more Smiths, Jarman's and Matt!)  would be a good idea.  At 2am here 6pm there we had a half our chat, it was impossible to tell who had had more to drink!!!

The three boys woke up at 6!!!!!  I'm not sure how Sam and I managed to keep going after so little sleep but we went to lunch at a friends and kept going by taking the boys for supper at the pub!

 

 

The next week before school began was spent relaxing and catching up on sleep! 

Supply, Suzhou and swimming

John and Jo arrived at the beginning of November and found me midway through eight days of supply.  They went off and explored some of Shanghai, ordering curtins and a suit, and meeting Sam for lunch, whilst I taught year 1 and learned about disecting eyeballs! 

On one outing the need for coffee was so great that John was seen in a MacDonalds!  They also had some lovely weather which Jo made the most of.

William and Oliver had the good fortune to have a couple of days off when Grandpa and Granny were with us and we went off to Suzhou, a town near Shanghai famous for it's silk, gardens and canals, for two days.  We travelled by bullet train, completing what would have been a two and a half hour car journey in 25 minutes!

After checking in at our lovely hotel we set out to explore the area nearby.  Unsuprisingly we stumbled accross lots of couples having their wedding photos taken.  This has now become such a common sight for us to see!








We spent the next couple of days exploring old Suzhou.  There are many Chinese style gardens to explore and we chose the largest, the Humble Administrator's garden.  There were lots of hollow rocks and secret pathways and despite the number of people they were quite peaceful.

This was followed by a meander along the main canal in search of a cup of tea and hairy crab for lunch.  We stopped for tea first in a primely located hut on the canal and then continued our search for hairy crab. 

Hairy Crabs are a local delicacy only available at this time of year.  In the top hotels you can pay up to £40 for a crab but if you go local you can find one for £5!  After cracking, sucking and generally getting very messy we decided that the crabs were tasty but you didn't get much from them.  Oliver and William tried it and said they liked it but they were far more interested in looking at the body parts!  Bizzarely our lunch for six people came to only £3 more than our cup of tea for six!

Each day after having a morning exploring we returned to our hotel and spent the afternoon in the pool and jacuzzi. 

We were lucky enough to have a suite with a fab bath which we could all fit in!

William and Oliver loved watching the TV in the bath!

In the evenings we had supper in the club lounge, where the boys enjoyed picking their own food from the selection of canapes and we all tucked in to the free flow drinks!

The morning after we returned to Shanghai, William and Oliver took part in their first swimming gala.  They have only been having lessons since September but the swimmming instructor felt it would be good for the class to experience a gala.  As they are all 5 they were in the youngest catagory and were entered for the 10 metre freestyle dash!  William and Oliver were in separate races.  They began the race in the water and got to swim 10 metres in to the arms of 16 year old girls who then carried them to the side!  I think the boys in the race appreciated this more than the girls! 

All of the participants won medals and when Oliver took his in to school the next day, he told the class that he had beaten everyone including William, despite the fact they were not in the same race. 

Gunpowder, treason and plot

 

Last year the main celebrations at this time of year were for Halloween.  This year, worried that the boys might miss out on British culture we decided to go to the only bonfire night in Shanghai at the British International School. 

John and Jo had arrived that week so we took them along with us but warned them not to have high expectations as it is not a Chinese festival!  As we arrived we saw that the bonfire had been lit.  As the weather had been good everything was very dry and burning well! 

John spotted a drinks table and before long we were watching the flames sipping wine.  We bought some sparklers for the boys to have a go with and waited for the fireworks.

 

The fireworks were excellent and very loud!  Having spent two years in China William, Oliver, Henry and Charlie did not bat an eyelid at the noise.

Everyone had a great time and by the end the boys were so tired that they fell asleep as we drove off.