Shanghai Third Week Pictures

2006-10-15 Shanghai Third Week

We had another good week in Shanghai. Elizabeth had her first week of school as well as her first field trip. Alex also started his school.

Elizabeth's school is Concordia. Her teacher's name is Mrs. Chiu. She is very nice and Elizabeth really likes her. Her class and the other preschool classes took a bus and went on a field trip to the local Carrefour supermarket. It is comparable to Meijers. I went on the field trip as well. The kids had fun but lost interest at the end. The purpose was to see what people did at work and people's roles in the communicty. After the trip, we went back to the school and had pizza. (Papa John's....my favorite!)

Alex has started school also. He and I go 2 days a week, Wednesday and Friday from 3 pm to 4:30 pm at the Shanghai Victoria school. It is a parent/tot class and it is held in Chinese. He has two teachers, Laoshi Micki and Laoshi Christine. They are nice and speak English. There are about 9 other students.....all Chinese.....all girls. Needless to say to all of those parents out there with boys.....Alex is the craziest in the class and doesn't pay attention to instructions most of the time. He just wants to barrel around with the toys. We learned the colors red, white and orange on Wed and we learned a Chinese nursery rhyme on Fri - Xiao Bai Tu. Shou Ju has to work with us on that one. Anyway, Alex is getting the hang of things and really likes going to school.

We have hired some helpers around our house. Shou Ju is our Ayi. She cleans for us, watches the kids a little, and cooks for us. She is very nice and a very welcome addtion to our family here in Shanghai. She speaks a little english and wants to learn more so we are helping each other by teaching each other the languages. She calls Elizabeth, Jie Jie (older sister) and she calls Alex, Dee Dee (younger brother). She has already taught us a lot.

We also hired a car and driver. We just don't feel safe always taking taxi's since the kids aren't buckled in. Our driver's name is Leo and he carts us around in a Buick minivan. It is much more convenient to have the driver when I am grocery shopping! He is very nice and the kids love him as well as he is very good with the kids. He doesn't know much English so he let's me practice my Mandarin on him. He and the door lady said that I am really trying.

Today we went to Century Park (we call it the big park) with the kids for a picnic. This park is absolutely unbelievable. They still have the plant sculptures up so that is cool to look at, but even without them, there is so much to see and explore in the park. This time we hung out on the east side of the park. We sat on the bank of the river and had bread, cheese, salami, fruit and of course a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken! It is a perfect place for a picnic. After our picnic we walked around some more and Elizabeth tripped over her feet on a cobblestone path. She now has a HUGE goose egg on her forehead. Thank goodness school pictures were last week.

Our curtains get installed this week on Monday and our airshipment comes on Tuesday so we will have a busy week. Kirk is in Thailand overnight tonight for a presentation at Ford and will be back tomorrow. Check out the pictures. I'll post some video tomorrow.

bye for now -

Kath