This week we were graced with the arrival of our “sea shipment” household goods. It had been so long since we had seen some of our things from Boise, that we forgot what we had actually packed. It was like an early Christmas opening up the packages to see what we had packed. One item we had been waiting for was our spin bike. It will make early morning exercise so much more accessible and we have already got a lot of use out of it in the past couple of days.
When the moving team showed up to give us or stuff, the manager said, “Hey, you should be able to see the boat sinking in the river from your window. It has been all over the news.” At that point he then pointed out, “Oh… you probably didn’t know about it since you are foreigners.” We all went to the window to see that a boat was quickly sinking into the river. It was no little ski boat. It was a large ocean-going cargo ship. I asked one of my coworkers what the story was. He told me the boat was about 95% fixed at the repair yard. They put it back into the water and it dropped to the bottom of the river. It still sits there today with some flashing lights around it so the other boats do run into the massive ship. All you can see is the captains deck sticking out of the river. If we get a real clear day, I will try and take a picture to post on the blog.
What is on my wallet?
A couple weeks ago, Alecia and I went shopping over at the YuYuan Gardens. Alecia was in a store looking at some purses. I was standing outside watching people. I then got the signal that I needed to come in and pass judgement over two different purses. It was between the “Indiana Jones” type satchel, and another fancier bag. I picked the Dr. Jones model and Alecia went up to pay. While I was standing there I noticed they also had wallets. Now, Alecia has been giving me some grief over the fact that I have not had a wallet for a long time. Apparently, a rubber band wrapped around my cash and cards does not count as a quality money holding device. 
Anyway, I wanted something that looked original. One wallet caught my eye. It had a picture of three tough looking Chinese workers and then some Chinese characters under them. I had no idea what it said, but I thought it was cool to have something with Chinese characters on it.
The next day I showed my Mandarin teacher the wallet and asked her what the characters meant. She started to laugh when she read the inscription, and asked me where I bought it. She then told me the wallet says, “Join together to fight the imperial Japanese Army!” Just my luck. I don’t think I will be bringing that wallet on my business trips to Japan.
Custom Made Jackets
Yesterday we took the ferry over to the fabric market to pick up three custom jackets that Alecia had had made. For those of you not familiar with the “Fabric Markets” over here, you basically wander around to each small vendor and find a fabric you like. You then tell them what you want made. After a quick measurement and seven days of waiting, you will have a new custom made outfit. The vendors are always yelling out “Kash-e-mere!” when you walk buy. I think a custom made cashmere suit will cost about $80-$100 U.S.
Liu and the Santana 3000
Well, Alecia and I broke down this last week and decided to lease a car for a year. When you lease a car in Shanghai, it will always come with a driver. Yes, you heard us correctly, starting Monday the 11th, we will have a full-time driver. Alecia and I got tired of crazy cab rides with no seat belts, and waiting long periods of time to catch a cab from work.
Our driver’s name is Liu, and he will be taking us around in a Santana 3000. The Santana is a Volkswagen car. It looks similar to the older Jettas.
Alecia’s two cents
Besides the safety factor of the seat belts and a driver who you can influence their driving style and the convenience of always having a car ready to take you somewhere, Liu was the big selling point because not only does he seem very nice, but he speaks pretty good English. So now going somewhere will (hopefully) seem a lot less daunting. And, shopping will be much easier because you can leave things in the car instead of carrying everything with you. It gets complicated with grocery shopping trips and taxis.
Shanghai has gotten into Christmas surprisingly more than we were expecting. Last Sunday, we went down to the Lotus center (Wal-mart type store) and bought a Christmas tree and ornaments for less than $12. It definitely makes it feel a lot more homey and more like Christmas with a tree. It will still be difficult to be away from home this holiday season, but our other favorite way to spend Christmas is on the beach, which is where we will be. The strangest thing is that we will be there with coworkers. Doesn’t it seem a little bizarre that all of our Chinese colleagues would be willing to give up Christmas with their families to spend it with 100 of their favorite coworkers and their immediate families. It works out great for us, but the only thing I can figure is that Christmas is not the time of the year that families typically get together here. That makes sense, I guess with the lack of religion.
Let’s see, what else to tell. I take my final for a Berkeley Cross Cultural Communication class I am in on Thursday, and will be finished with another class towards my MBA. Only three more to go, Yea!
When I get homesick one of the things I like to do is watch TV shows from the US, even though I seldomly watch them when I am living in the US. This past week I watched the first season of “Desperate Housewives” and both Andy and I like it a lot more than we were expecting to. It has been fun to watch it and when it only costs like $2 to buy the whole season, you can’t beat it.
This week has been one of those weeks where I have found myself not understanding all things Chinese. Tuesday morning when I was walking back from the gym, I almost walked right into a taxi driver peeing on the sidewalk. He was right next to a nice apartment complex… The planning for this Hainan Island Christmas trip has been crazy where we have had to confirm our passport numbers 15 times and then we were going to be staying in a different hotel the last night than we would stay the first three nights. Roman and Angie and Andy and I decided we want to stay in the same hotel the last night as well since that hotel is on the beach and what we had been told was that the hotel of the last night was in kind of a grungy city. Then, after it was all said and done, the rest of the HP folks will be staying in a different hotel on the beach the last night, anyway. It is very confusing and amazing that they are still changing hotels on December 8th for 150 people for a trip over Christmas. This seems kind of representative of the random way in which things happen around here.
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