What else is going on in China...

So we have recapped the week of activities with my in-laws visiting, but having someone else here from the U.S. opens your eyes up to some things you might think are normal now but really aren't.

Things that my in-laws pointed out...
1.  We don't have a dryer, we wash and hang all our clothes, towels and sheets ( well the Ayi does)
2.  We don't have a dish washer, we wash everything by hand
3.  It is more difficult to find Coke Light or Pepsi Light when you are out and about
4.  Most restaurants assume you will use chop sticks, you must ask for forks
5.  Taxi drivers are crazy, worse in Shanghai ( i knew this one but threw it in anyway)
6.  Chinese people don't understand when you say "I don't speak Chinese" in English.
7.  Associates at stores and restaurants have name tags with a number instead of their name, sometimes they have both.
8.  The Chinese prefer drinks room temp or warm, you have to be specific in ordering cold beverages and hope they have them, not so much at the amusement parks.

Things i am reminded of that i don't think i have mentioned...
1.  The grocery stores in China have weekly ads but no coupons in China!
2.  I haven't found ground turkey here or bison for burgers (TSFL style)
3.  You don't get mail delivered to a box daily, i seem to only get packages when they arrive by courier to my doorstep or a call to pick up at a local facility
4.  Most stores, malls, restaurants are open very late at night, until 10pm in some cases!
5.  Menus at the restaurants are usually in Chinese, sometimes they have pictures, sometimes they have English
6.  Most days it is cloudy/foggy/hard to see but the sun can still get you, wear sunscreen!
7.  Everything is built up so you might see a sign and little place on the bottom floor but most of the time there is an upstairs!


I had a fun trip to Grandma's Home this past week, a Chinese restaurant in Injoy mall which has really yummy Chinese Food.  When we sat down they had a menu that was entirely in Chinese and no pictures, ahhhh!  I was supposed to be showing my in laws around and this is where i take them ( mind you Brian recommended it and promised me they had an English menu).  Luckily our driver, Dan was having lunch with us too, however his English isn't so good, needless to say this was going to be fun!  The drinks were in English for some reason so we ordered those to start, they were out of half the drinks we tried to order but we finally received some cold beverages. Then we find a magazine that looks like Home and Garden from home, apparently this is the English menu, looks nothing like a menu.  So Dan proceeds to tell me only three pages of photos in the magazine are the menu and that's all i can choose from, otherwise i am entrusting him to make good choices.  Have i mentioned my in-laws are not adventurous eaters AT ALL :)  So we end up managing to order s few things and the waitress comes over and points out that there are many more pages i can choose from.  Who puts their menu in a magazine????  In the end we ended up with a whole chicken cooked in tea, sweet and sour pork, some sort of spicy beef, white rice, noddles in soup, rice cakes, peas, fruit platter and shrimp over fried rice.  In China you want to order lots of food as it is shared among the table, your rice and noodles usually comes after the entrees and then the fruit is your final course.  So we proceeded to eat the food, which was very good, however Dan kept asking me if they liked the food because they were eating one piece of everything :)  Oh what an adventure, at least they tried the food!

Our Ayi met my in-laws and insisted on cooking a homemade Chinese meal for us.  Typically you can have an Ayi that cooks, cleans, cares for the children, etc.  Usually ours just cleans as i cook dinner.  It was so nice of her to offer to cook and i couldn't say no.  I figured worse case i could order pizza afterwards.  So i spoke with her in my latest Chinese words i learned saying no fish and understanding from her she was going to cook chicken or beef with apples and carrots.  Well, there were no apples or carrots but she was in my kitchen cooking the next day for an hour or so!  She prepared a tofu and mushroom dish, What i would call egg flower soup (in China it has more of a tomato broth), fried rice, chicken with peanuts, and bell pepper with potato in string slices.  I was very impressed with her cooking, she did all this in one wok type pan and a rice maker!  The food was really tasty and it was nice for my in-laws to really have a home cooked Chinese meal, they tried it all!

In Shanghai we had a fun taxi ride with a driver that was continuing to fall asleep according to my Father-in-law who sat in front.  The driving here is crazy, they change lanes constantly and the only person that has the right-away is the bus!  We survived getting around in taxi's in Shanghai by having the Chinese addresses in our phones so we could show the driver, this worked for us in all cases this time so 100% success! 

Non-China specific note:
Blake has been learning new words and finally talking!  I will try to capture on video for everyone.  He can say Bus, Bath, Ball, I don't know, mama, dada, pizza, I swear he said sticker and come here the other day too!  It is so fun watching him grow and change daily, so lucky to be staying home with him!  Proud Mom :)