Week 3 Update - 49 weeks to go, :-)  Who's counting?

On Friday, Greg was finally able to move some US dollars over to our RMB account.  Yeah, we have money again.  The first time that he tried to use his debit card on that account it was denied!  You should have seen the look on his face. Not sure what happened but it does work now.  Now to the next challenge.  We aren't able to have a joint banking account in China. I have to go to a bank and setup my own account and we have to figure out how to transfer money between two banks. More fun!

When we arrived, we asked about house insurance. Do we need to cover the contents of our house?  After some digging, we found out that the owner's don't even have liability insurance on the house.  We thought about adding it but it was going to cost a fortune. We decided to cover just our content, our ayi and our bikes.  Greg attempted the complete the form online and pay online.  They would take all Union pay debit cards except for our bank, :-).  So, he had to print it all out and carry cash down to the financial district again to pay.  Good news, I think we might have some insurance now.

The kid's first week of school went great.  They are really settling into their routine of homework again. They really do miss their NC friends!!  I will need to setup lots of playdates for when we are at home for Christmas.  On Friday, Jackson was invited to a birthday party.  I was thinking it was a week or two out.  I took a look at it on Friday night and realized it was the next day.  Oh my, now how do I find a gift to buy in Shanghai and get it wrapped.  Saturday morning was spent out shopping. We managed to find an outdoor Lego kiosk at the Thumb Plaza. Perfect!  Thumb Plaza is a really cool shopping area. They have this strange statue of two thumbs stacked on top of each other.  If the taxi driver doesn't under "Thumb Plaza", you can just stack your two thumbs and they know where to take you.  Luckily, I had brought some gift bags with me and the Lego box fit.  Good to go!  Jackson's friend Jackson took him to the party and brought him home.  Jackson's mom is awesome. The party was at this Laser Tag place and the boys had a great time. Greg and Anna took the metro over to the river and took the ferry across.  Anna enjoyed some 1x1 time with her daddy. Anna has made some friends at school but we haven't setup a playdate yet.  I have a meeting at school tomorrow for New Parents. I hope to meet the parents of Anna's friends.

We have started working out the after school activities for the kids.  They both will be doing Kung Fu on Tuesday nights in our neighborhood.  We also found a competition swim team practice that they will do on Wednesday nights at our pool too.  That will be great since we can keep them swimming and not commit to a swim team.  On Sundays, they both will play soccer.   That's enough for the Fall. 

Last week, we gave over our passports again to the China government so that they can work on our residency permit.   Good news, we got them back today.  Bad news, now we have to give them to customs tomorrow to start clearance of our air crates.  I was hopeful that we might have our crates within another week. We learned today that we won't get them for 3 more weeks. arg.....

Greg has learned to take the bus shuttle from our compound to the metro to get to work. That is working out great.  I also learned that there are 3 shuttles to various places each day.  On Sunday, I decided to venture on my on (no one wanted to go with me) and see where the shuttle would take me.  The first stop was Carrefour, grocery shopping.  I jumped off the shuttle and ran inside. The next shuttle will be back in one hour to pick me up.  I did some quick shopping and was waiting by the curb where I was dropped off.  Waited. Waited.  No shuttle.  I gave up and got a taxi. On Monday, I decided to try it again. There is a Sporting goods store next to Carrefour. I wanted to buy some new work out clothes and shoes. I only have sandals. My shoes are in the air crate.  So, I enjoyed a few hrs of shopping and bought new work out clothes, shoes, bagels, raisin bread and more groceries. A lot to carry home in a taxi.  Today, I thought I would get on the bus and check out the next stop. It was suppose to be some type of food market. All three times, I was the only non-chinese person on the bus. So, as the bus approached the food market, it didn't look like a place that I should get off.  Maybe if I was with someone that spoke Chinese.  I stayed on the bus.  It had one more stop at the metro so I thought I would just ride it back to our compound.  Since I was the only one on the bus and not getting off at the last stop, the driver was really confused. He tried to ask me why I wasn't getting off the bus but he didn't speak any English.  I showed him my compound card and hopefully he understood.  After a 15 minute wait at the metro, the bus brought me back to compound and I walked home.  I enjoyed my 1 1/2 hour bus ride around my area of the city, :-)  I wish I had my camera. There was this man on a moped with a basket on the back. It had 2 chickens and 2 ducks just sitting in the basket on the side of the road.  It wasn't a cage and they were just sitting there on the back of his moped.  He reached over the pet one of them. Very strange. Then, I was sitting at a red light and noticed a guy get in his car with a whole dead chicken, head and feet in a clear bag.  I will never buy a whole chicken here!!

I have been enjoying my rice cooker. Why didn't I have one of these before now.  I have cooked rice a few times and it always come out perfect.  I found on the web that I can make homemade mac and cheese in there too. The kids loved it!  I also made my first Chicken Fried rice.  It turned out ok too. I have been looking up recipes and gathering all the spices and ingredients during my shopping trips.  Ready to try General Tso chicken next!

I have hired an ayi. She is going to work 20 hrs a week.  I don't know the correct spelling of her name but it's pronounced Chow-way.  She speaks some English.  I'm so excited to get some help with this house so I can enjoy myself some during the day.  There are some really cool tours that I want to do in the city.

Oh yeah, we had another typhoon (hurricane) brush by Shanghai last night. Lots of wind.  Makes us feel at home.