Friends and Family,
(sorry for the long post, I will update more often now that things have settled down some)

The Pruett family left Raleigh on Sunday morning, Aug 5th. It was so hard to say goodbye to our friends and family.  For me, the hardest goodbye was Carly, our dog.  She is staying behind with Greg's parents until we get back. We arrived safely in Shanghai on Monday, Aug 6th. All of our flights were on time and the kids did great traveling.  They enjoyed having a TV in each seat on the plane and watch movies the whole way. We stayed in a hotel the first night since we couldn't move into our house that day.  We found Pizza Hut in the Super Brand Mall for dinner.  The next morning, we had to get up early to move to our new house.  The kids loved having McDonald's for breakfast.  Anna said "Everything in China is the same as home". McDonald's didn't have Jackson's favorite (breakfast burrito) or Anna's favorite (pancakes).  They both were happy with Egg McMuffins and hashbrowns.  We got our luggage packed and was picked up by 2 minivans to get us to our house.  We had over 350 lbs of luggage in 11 bags.  When we left the hotel for our house, for me that's when our adventure began ...

Day 2 - Tuesday (move into the house)
The first day in the house was a blur. We had to meet with the landlord, our moving rep and the neighborhood management team. Lots of paperwork to lease a house. In the afternoon, our moving rep took us to a local grocery store.  We got a few things but it was really challenging.  It's hard to know what you are buying when you can't read the labels.  We thought we had enough to get by for a few days.  Unfortunately,  we were in typhoon (hurricane) warnings and Shanghai was shutting down the city.  The typhoon was scheduled to hit that night.  I realized after getting home with the groceries that we didn't have any pots or pans to cook anything.  Since we don't have a car and it was getting late, we thought we could get by until the typhoon passed. We called the management company to bring us our 5 gallons of water.  The guy showed up and put the bottle on our dispenser.  It was cracked and dumped a gallon or more all over the floor.  I had to mop up all the water and start over with a new dispenser.  Since we can't drink or use the water here, getting bottled water was a high priority!  By that evening, I think we all were ready to crash.  By 10pm, we put sheets on the beds and got the kids asleep. Greg and I both were worried about the storm and was hoping we would keep power during the night.  We had no flashlights or candles.  Good news, we kept power! 

Day 3 - Wednesday (typhoon)
We woke up at 4:30am on Wednesday morning.  We realized that we didn't have any hot water. We called the maintenance guys and they fixed that quickly. The storm was really strong in Shanghai. Winds up to 70 mph. They were calling for 10 inches of rain but I don't think we got that much. We spent the day inside.  The kids enjoyed their expensive cereal for breakfast ($10 a box).  We had internet access that kept us all busy on our computers. The kids got new laptops before we left home. Greg figured out how to get a VPN installed so we have access to US sites and Netflix.  The kids were excited to see TV in English again.  Since we couldn't cook anything, I was planning to feed the kids sandwiches for lunch.  I had bought some bread and Nutella ($8 a small jar). Imported food is very expensive here. I opened up the bread and it smelled really bad.  The kids would not eat it.  I didn't blame them. I threw the two loaves in the trash. For dinner, we had bought some frozen pizzas so that was good. Cutting pizza with plastic knives was a challenge. That night, I had meetings at 2:30am and 4:00am. So, I stayed up and worked all night.

Day 4 - Thursday (Walmart)
By morning, the storm had passed and we saw blue skies!!  Greg had already decided that our adventure for the day would be to take a trip to Walmart to buy some essentials.  First, he had to write out the Chinese characters on paper to show the taxi driver where we wanted to go.  They don't read or speak English here. Since we don't have a printer yet, we have to write it out. Very challenging.   Amazingly, we made it to Walmart. Walmart was 2 floors. The top floor didn't have AC. It was really hot in there.  After an hour or two, we got some critical items like a pot and  frying pan. We got a little more food too.  Now, for the journey back home.  There weren't taxis sitting there waiting for us.  Greg had to walk up and down the street to find one.  The kids and I were there with our FULL shopping cart waiting.  Finally, we got a cab and attempted to communicate where we lived.  He got us back to our "compound".  Neighborhoods here are called compounds.  They have big walls with electrical wire around it and security guards at both gates.  The security guards wouldn't let us in. We had our neighborhood card but they kept yelling at our taxi driver in Chinese.  No way was I going to attempt to carry all that by hand to our house.  Eventually, the guard let us in. I was happy to be back home again. This was our first trip by ourselves.  Greg took the kids to the pool while I napped on the sofa, :-).  They loved their new pool.  It has a water slide and the other kids had tubes going down it. Our kids wanted us to find them tubes too. Finding pool toys will be an adventure for another day.  We were so tired from the day that we ordered out and had food delivered for dinner! They have a cool service here call Sherpa. They pick up and delivery from over 20 restaurants (Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Pizza, burgers, ...) close by for only $3.  We can't take a taxi there and back for that.

Day 5 - Friday (Walking excursion)
The time zone in China is way off. It gets daylight here at 4:30 am and gets dark by 6pm. They only have one time zone for all of China.  So, we keep getting up really early.  Greg had decided that we were going for a walk to find the kids school.  It was only 3 long blocks away.  After an hour, we finally found it.  It was so hot outside and we didn't take water.  We thought we would swing by the Import grocery store too.  Luckily, we came across a Sporting Goods store. We found the water tubes for the kids. They were so excited.  We got some more expensive groceries and found a taxi to get back home!  This time, the guard let us in since we complained to the management company the day before. Since we have a very, very tiny washer and dryer, I thought I had better get some laundry done before it piles up too much.  Our washer and dryer is in the garage.  No access from the inside.  Since all the instructions on the washer and dryer are in Chinese, it was really tough to find an option to just make them run, :-).  For the dryer, there is this huge gallon jug in it that was full of water.  I was thinking this was the "steam" to prevent my clothes from not wrinkling.  Boy was I wrong.  That was the jug to catch the water from the clothes in the dryer. The humidity here is unbelievable. Weather.com was showing 89% humidity.  I have to empty that gallon jug after 2 runs of the dryer and the dryer will not completely dry the clothes. I have to hang them up to get them completely dry.  Wrinkles are horrible.  I guess my next outing will be to get an iron and ironing board. We cooked our first real meal at our house with our one pot and pan.  We made baked pasta with meat sauce and cheese bread.  Anna finally said that not everything was the same in China.

Day 6 - Saturday (Cell phones)
Greg's friend at work offered to help us get Cell phones. We thought this shouldn't be that hard.  We sat down and studied all the carriers and plans before we left the house.  We decided on a carrier and the plan. As we left the house (his friend has a car), we realized that we may need passports. Immigrations has our passports working on our Work VISAs. We had a copy of our passports so we took that with us.  Once we arrived at the cell phone store, we were told that we needed our passport and not a copy.  We also learned that we didn't have a way to pay for them either since they wouldn't take American Express or VISA.  Our China account doesn't have money since we need the passport to transfer money there.  Our US ATM card was having an issue and wouldn't work. Very different feeling to be in a big city and have no money! We finally accepted that we won't be getting cell phones for at least another week.  While we were out, we decided to take the kids to their first real Chinese meal.  Anna loved the soup that we ordered and Jackson liked the Chinese dumplings.  I don't think they liked anything else that was ordered but at least they did try it.  After arriving back home, Greg took the kids to the pool again and Jackson met a new friend whose name was also Jackson. The new Jackson will be going to the same school as our kids.  I can't wait for them to meet some new friends. We were really limited to what we could bring in our suitcases so the kids only have their laptops.  I'm ready for our air shipments to arrive so that they have some toys too.

Day 7 - Sunday (Play date)
One of Greg's co-workers has a boy, Ethan, that is Anna's age and will be going to Concordia too.  They invited us over to their house on Sunday for the day. They sent their driver to pick us up.  They have a really cool apartment downtown overlooking the river and financial district. Ethan has tons of Legos so my kids were in heaven. They are also from the US and his mom works with Greg. After ordering California Pizza Kitchen for lunch, we spent the afternoon at the pool. Later in the day, they took us to another Import Grocery store where we found more missing items that I have been looking for, especially dishwasher detergent and caffee-free diet coke. Another long day but the kids had lots of fun!!!

Day 8 - Monday (Greg's 1st day in office)
Greg got up really early for his first day at work.  He was able to write out some directions for the taxi driver.  Unfortunately,  he wrote down a number wrong and ended up at the wrong place.  The taxi driver understood enough to get him to IBM.  Greg had good first day at work and came home by 4:20pm. That was amazing!!!  The kids and I just hung out at home all day. We were going to the pool but it started to storm.  I have been working some during the day and every night until 11pm. We now have 4 cats.  Greg is highly allergic to cats so they are outside.  During the first day, a cat showed up on the front porch. Anna wanted to feed him so we gave him some expensive sliced ham.  The next day, we had two cats, :-).  They enjoy sitting at our back door looking into the kitchen. By Monday night, we had four cats.  Anna wants to go to the store and buy them some cat food.  I'm afraid to do that since they may go tell more of their friends!!  As of Monday night, we survived our first week in Shanghai!!  Only 51 more weeks to go, :-).  We had some challenges this past week but we had fun and laughed a lot.

I will post some pictures as soon as I figure out how on blogspot.

Email us when you get time:
Cindy: nccindypruett@gmail.com
Greg: ncgregpruett@gmail.com
Anna: ncannapruett@gmail.com
Jackson: ncjacksonpruett@gmail.com