The Clan's China Adventure, Episode 3: No, They're Not Twins

Wow! We've been here for over a month already!

In the past month, we've gone and explored a bit. In this episode, we'll revisit some of our adventures!

Our first group outing in the month of February was a trip to the Shanghai Aquarium. For this trip, we decided to be brave and take the subway. The kids loved it! But it was quite tiring as (for this particular trip) we hadn't realized that there are actually elevators at most of the subway stations. As a result, I decided not to bring the stroller, which in turn resulted in a very tired left arm from having to carry Lukas for most of the day!

Baby Lukas experiencing the fast-paced subway station

The train is pretty crowded

The trusty Moto X did a pretty good job of capturing some close-ups of aquatic life!

The world's largest see-through tunnel system!

Baby Lukas' favorite - stuffed seals!

We stopped to have some delicious and inexpensive steamed dumplings! I'll definitely go back to this place.

 By the next day, we had figured out that it was okay to use the stroller in the subway system because most stations do, in fact, have elevators. So, we went out a little bit further, to the largest park in Shanghai - Century Park.

One of many cover bands I've seen in Shanghai. Mostly Chinese songs from the 90s, which is good for me because I know a lot of them!

Spring is a great time to go to the parks in China - they do a pretty good job with the landscaping!

The kids had a great time running around this maze

Yummy... candied strawberries!

McDonald's is pretty good in China, so I decided to give Subway a try too. It's not as good as it is in the U.S., sadly.

Pushing the stroller around did make my arms less tired, but it definitely came with some of its own challenges. Namely, in places like Century Park, there are just too many people walking around - it was a huge ordeal to just get from the subway station to the park, and even when we got inside the park, there was always a risk of running into someone, or getting run into, as we did by a German kid on a bike!

On the following weekend, we learned about a "Family Fun Fair", a free event that caters to the substantial expat community in Shanghai. It features all kinds of vendors, from food, to education, to healthcare and has a lot of free activities for kids. It also showcased the talents of a lot of students from Shanghai's numerous international schools!

A band of International School students. Mostly English songs this time!

Fifi trying the half pipe!

Mommy and Fifi trying some Zumba!

Fifi was quite good at it

Doing some cardboard construction. Appropriately for my area of expertise, we made a plane!

Some of the other sculptures

Again, the stroller proved to be handy for traveling to and from the event, but at the event it was definitely a challenge to navigate through the seas of people. Fortunately, the event had a complimentary stroller parking service, which helped take our double stroller off our hands.

Speaking of which, our double stroller, especially when populated with the two kids, has proven to be quite a spectacle in China. Every time we go out for a walk with the double stroller, just about every passer-by will either stare or double/triple/quadruple-take at us, and, inevitably, exclaim, "Wah! Shuang Bao Tai!" - "Wow! Twins!" or "Wah! Long Feng Tai!" - "Wow! Dragon Phoenix Twins! (a phrase used to describe a boy-girl pair of twins). I understand that it's very uncommon to see families with two children of different ages here in China due to the infamous "One Child Policy", but come on... Fifi is still quite a big bigger than Lukas! Yet again, TIC...

Not Twins!!!

The Clan's China Adventure, Episode 2: TIC (This Is China)

Our first days in Shanghai were a bit of a whirlwind. Unlike my previous short-term assignments, this time around we had a lot of logistics we had to go through (and are still going through). The first order of business was to get our health checks so that we could apply for residency. I guess they figured we didn't need to sleep because our checkup was scheduled for the first thing in the morning immediately after our arrival!

Fortunately, my expatriate package includes a car and driver (which is pretty sweet, but comes with its own set of challenges - namely trying to keep embezzlement to a somewhat controlled level...), so we did not have to fiddle around with trying to figure out how to get to the medical center. Still, I can't help but think that my overall relocation process could be better managed - it seems that the relocation agency doesn't really attempt to coordinate between the different contractors working my case. In most instances, I have to somehow find a particular individual that I have never met or recognize in a building that processes hundreds of expat cases a day! And often times I am required to present documentation that may or may not be in the hands of some other contractor. Yet, it all seems to work out in the end. The veteran expats have a term for this kind of thing: "TIC", or "This Is China".

Moving on with our story, I spent the next three days in formal wear (or at least, about as formal as I can get), attending an annual Supplier's Conference with many of my colleagues.

Off to work we go!

The air quality was ridiculously good in the first several days. I'd never seen it this good before!

Getting carted around lets me take pictures of Shanghai's many skylines - here is the Shanghai Museum near People's Plaza

Plaza 66, where Cherry used to work when she just graduated from College!

COMAC's facility is quite impressive, albeit smoky, even inside. TIC

Cherry's mother came by to visit as soon as she could, so she got a chance to meet her newest grandson!

Unfortunately, Grandma could not stay long because her daughter-in-law got in a car accident shortly afterwards, so she had to rush back home.

It so happened, however, that other Grandma (my mom) was in China for the week on a field trip with her school (she teaches Chinese at a high school). So when she got to Shanghai, we picked her up to visit.

Mom wanted to get a haircut, so I took her downstairs to the mall next door to get it done. The cost for the cut, wash, and dry was a fairly reasonable 78 RMB (about $13 USD), but immediately after the dry, the stylist recommended that my mom get a perm to keep the style in place. Mom, emotionally ensnared by her new look, agreed to the recommendation, only to find out that the price of the cut had increased to over 660 RMB (over $110 USD)!!! I had actually been warned about this kind of bait-and-switch practice in the past (and even warned my mom about it), but she still got caught. Another case of TIC!

The next day, we went with Mom to do one of my favorite things to see in Shanghai - the Shanghai Acrobatics Show. Ardent readers of Grant's Pad know about these relatively inexpensive shows that exhibit amazing, Cirque du Soleil quality skills, but with less production value. The kids enjoyed it too!

Sending Mom back to America. On a side note, this is what happens when you trust strangers to take pictures for you...

One of the coolest opportunities I have had in the last few weeks, however, was the chance to meet my company's executive leadership up close and personal. The timing of my move was ridiculously fortunate because the leaders of Engineering, HR, VPs, and CEO all made visits to Shanghai within my first two weeks on the job! Of course, no one actually notified me - it was thanks to my contacts in our local Shanghai office that I was even aware of their visits!

Lunch with some top leaders

Getting a lecture from our CEO

I made it a point to formally introduce myself to our CEO this time. Several months back, my colleague and I actually saw him at the local airport on a business trip to HQ, but we chickened out and did not introduce ourselves! I made sure not to make that mistake again, after all, TIC, and anything can happen in this wild world!

Stay tuned for travelogues of our first mini-trips!