Bummin' around the neighborhood...

OK, so from our trip back to the US (or at least my trip as Jessica and the boys are still there), I think that there were two common themes that came up every day no matter who we got to see that day or which city and state we were in. They were: (1) the price of gasoline and (2) the infrequent nature that we actually posted something on our blog. Obviously I can’t help you all that much with the first item, but I can try and help out with the second. In reality though, I started writing this almost four weeks ago so I am not entirely sure how much help I will be on getting new information flowing into the Blog site anyway.

Right, so about our neighborhood…the first Saturday that I was back in China I woke up around 7:00 or so, cleaned up a little bit of stuff around the apartment, checked my mail, did some other random stuff and by 9:00 was pretty much bouncing off the walls going stir crazy. I talked to Jessica for a little while and then decided to pack up some stuff and go out for a bike ride. At first, I was just going to stay around the neighborhood but ended up just going and going until the major street that we lived on ended. Then I hung a right and went until that street ended. That lead me to a pretty much major industrial district, so I just decided to come back home. I did see a couple of interesting things though of interest. Before I get into that though, let me take a step back and familiarize you all with a brief introduction to the city of Shanghai…since there were so many of you that forgot to visit last year.

Don’t fear though as my company has decided that “current business needs” have led to us staying here “for a period of an additional 9 to 12 months”. I have no idea how they arrived at that window of time, but regardless it gives everyone more time to visit.

OK, so anyway when you all make your travel arrangements to fly in you will land at Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG).



PVG currently has two terminals, as shown in that picture. All of that stuff in the middle is basically parking, as well as the Maglev station. The Maglev is a pretty cool experience. It is a train that basically connects the airport to an area of the city that has more options when it comes to public transportation. Normally, it takes 45 minutes by car to get from the airport to the other Maglev station, but the Maglev train makes the trip in about seven minutes. You travel at a max speed of 431 km/h (268 mph).

There is another airport in Shanghai that is primarily a domestic airport. It is on the west side of the city in an area called Hongqiao (Hong-Chow). It is an older airport that is getting ready to have a fairly substantial renovation done to it. When it gets completed, it will look like the pictures shown below.




OK, so here is a model of the city of Shanghai. All of the stuff on the left of the picture is called Puxi (Poo-Shee) which literally means ‘west of the river; and all of the stuff of the right side of the picture is called Pudong (Poo-Dong) which means, you guessed it, ‘east of the river.’



Here is a view of the city if you were looking at it from the west side looking towards the downtown area.



Here is a picture looking into the city center from the south side of the city.


And here are some pictures of the waterfront area of the city.

For me, the waterfront area is my favorite part of the city. The Puxi side has a historic area known as the Bund and the Pudong side has an area known as Lujiazui. You can see the Pearl Tower in the pictures which is close to the water front. Then, two blocks back you can see a group of tall buildings. The one closest to the Pearl Tower is called the Jim Mao tower which I believe is currently the third tallest building in the world. In the block right next to it, literally right across the street, the Shanghai World Financial Center is being built. When completed, it will be the first or second tallest building in the world. There is a museum in Shanghai called the urban planning museum, which is where I got all of these pictures. It is actually a pretty neat museum.

So anyway, if you were to go to the general area that is pointed out in the picture below, you would come to a part of the city known as Jinqiao (Jean-Chow), which is where our apartment is.

This is the entrance to our apartment complex. The first floor of each one of the buildings that face the street are all actually commercial buildings. That store there on the right is actually an iStore that opened up with we were back in the States.


Right next to our apartment complex is one of the international schools that are in our area. This is Dulwich College, which is actually a British school. This building is the elementary and middle school.



The large yard area in front is a sports field. They play soccer/football, cricket, softball, rugby and all other kinds of sports in this area. They have adult and kid leagues that play all year round. Right across the street is another large sports field where they have the same and then lined along it is a Starbucks and various other international restaurants.

If you go down a couple of blocks and hang a left, then you can get to our doctors office (Parkway Health)…

…or if you hang a right you can get to the church that we go to (Abundant Grace International Fellowship).

If you go around the corner from the church, then you can get to the school that Gabe will start going to this fall. Here is a picture of the elementary wing (I think).


Actually, it was hard to get a good picture of the front of the school because it is along a tree lined street that blocks out most of the views, plus it is a pretty large campus which means you have to be kind of far away to get a decent shot of it. If you are really interested in it, then you can just check out their website. They have a whole portion of their website where you can download videos and pictures (http://www.ciss.com.cn/Media_Gallery).

Alright, so if you get back on the main street that we live off of and keep going, then you will eventually run into a few manufacturing sites. One of the ones that I came across was an SC Johnson facility. It is a family company. I have no idea what they make there…maybe bug spray or something.

So a couple of blocks later, it just pretty much dead ends. You can hang a right now and it pretty much just takes you into an industrial area. However, at the end of that road, there is a pretty neat little site. If you could say that China is pretty much the North Pole when it comes to Christmas, then I found the area where they keep Santa’s sleigh. At the end of the second street was a huge sea container manufacturing and holding area. It was another one of those sites where it was so large that you just couldn’t get a good picture to contain it all.


I can’t even begin to tell you how much larger that area was as compared to what you see in the pictures. I took both of them about a half block away. From the gate looking into the holding yard, all that you could see were rows and rows and rows of these containers stacked this high.

This brings me to another interesting part of Shanghai…the Shanghai Seaport. The port is actually not in Shanghai, but rather on an island quite a bit away from the city. The lighting was bad at the museum so it was hard to get a good picture, but this gives you an idea of what it looks like at least.

That road that you see running into the island is basically how all of the freight is transported into the shipyard. It is a bridge that is over 32 km long (just over 20 miles). I got to go there a little over a year ago when we were bringing some inspection equipment over to our plant here from America. It was impressive to say the least. Almost all of the product that is produced at the facility that I work at in China is shipped out of this port. The products that I work on here get shipped to India, Germany, Brazil, America, Mexico, Korea and Italy. The rest of it, though a small portion stays here in China.

So anyway, that is probably more than you wanted to know about Shanghai and where we live. It gives you an idea about the city though. It truly is an amazing place.

Coming to America

It's been a long time. Actually, a long, long time! Sorry for the lack of posts. I do not have a good excuse. So I won't even try.

Michael, the boys and I arrived back in the States after only 19 hours of travel on May 8th. I say only 19 because of the new and wonderful direct flight from Shanghai to Atlanta. Then it was just a quick hop from Atlanta to Montgomery. It used to be that we would fly from Shanghai to Tokyo, Tokyo to Detroit, Detroit to Memphis, Memphis to Montgomery. And that route took no less than 24 hours. So 19 was A LOT better than 24! The flight was almost half empty and that was such a blessing. We had two whole rows to ourselves. Both of the boys slept very little of the long flight. Maddox for 4 hours and Gabe for only 2. Michael dozed off and on for about 2 and I slept none. But everyone, the boys especially, did great on the flight!

We arrived in Montgomery on Thursday and spent the next three days trying to get the boys sleep schedules adjusted to a new time zone. They did surprisingly well with that as well. A few bouts of sleepy crying for the first 2 nights was about the worst it got. Michael and I on the other hand did not adjust so well.

On the following Monday at 5 am, Michael and I left for Kalamazoo, MI. It is a 14 hour drive and we wanted to get there as early as possible. We made good time and arrived after a LONG day of driving just in time to have dinner with some of Michael's co-workers. Then it was off to some of our good friends Jason & Sarah Stiger's to crash for the night. It was so good to see them. We settled right in and watched the season finale of The Bachelor. About that...we decided that we are not missing much by being in China. That show is crazy! Proposing to someone and calling them Monkey!!!?? Anyway, back to the important stuff. On Tuesday Michael went into the Dana office (Working on vacation? Yup, Michael does) and spent some of the day there.

Basically, we spent the next 4 days packing, cleaning, sorting, and getting our house hold goods into storage. (We have put the house on the market "For Sale or Lease") Michael still had conference calls every morning at 7am that lasted a minimum of 2 hours. So that made getting some stuff done at the house challenging. But, thanks to the help of many amazing friends, we managed to get everything done (and done well I might add) on time.

Jason & Sarah Stiger were a huge help. Not just for letting us stay with them, though that was great. But they also helped pack boxes, paintings, and furniture. They brought lots of yummy food, ran errands for us, and made us laugh!

Another friend, Christy Bollier was amazing! She, and her 2 1/2 children came over and helped pack up the kitchen. (2 1/2 because she is expecting their 3rd.) Luke and Hailey, her kids, were so well behaved! I was impressed. They entertained themselves for hours while she helped us. And the only favor we could do for them was share with Luke some of the Fish and Onion chips from China. He really loved them!

My neighbors, Ted & Carrie Green have been an indescribable amount of help. Not only were they a huge help over this past year, they really helped us out again over the past few weeks. They held a garage sale and allowed me to dump my junk in their yard and then took care of donating the rest for me. Ted has taken over the maintenance of or yard. Carrie has taken out our trash, cleaned my floors, and so much more! I cannot even begin to list everything they have done for us!

And our friend Jen Gilbert, well, she is simply awesome. When I got to our house for the first time on Tuesday, I walked in to see brownies, our favorite good ole' American potato chips, the coolest water bottles, Coke, Dr. Pepper, and a special beverage that we thought we could only get in China. She did some good researching to find some for us! She came over each day after she got off work to help us box, clean and pack stuff up. She is awesome!!! I also owe a big thank you to Jen's parents who let us crash at their beautiful home on Saturday night.

So, on Friday we finished packing and getting everything into storage. Late Friday night we went over to stay with some more of our friends Michael and Mandy Fernihough. It was so good to get to spend time with them! ***I also want to mention that one of Michael's younger sisters was killed in a car accident last week. Katie was only 22 years old. Please keep Michael, Mandy and his entire family in your prayers. It is such an awful thing.***

On Saturday, we returned to the house to do some final organizing and cleaning. We left the house for the final time at noon. It had been a LONG 4 1/2 days, but we had gotten everything done that we needed to. Again, we could not have done it without the help of all our amazing friends! Thank you all SO VERY MUCH!!!! Hopefully we will get the chance to repay you all sometime in the future.

Here I want to thank my parents. They willingly kept the boys with them in Alabama for the entire week we were gone. There is no way we could have been productive with the boys running around under our feet. We owe them big time!!! Thanks!

On Saturday afternoon, we headed over to our friends John & Melanie DeKruyter's house. We spent a great afternoon and evening with them. They have spent the last 1 1/2 years or so in Israel. It's always nice to share stories with people who know what it's like to live in a foreign country. To talk about all of the oddities it involves.

Sunday morning we went to church. It was strange, yet good to be there. I didn't realize how much I missed the feeling of family and fellowship! After a quick lunch we hit the road and made it to Louisville. We spent the night there and on Monday morning I took Michael to the airport. He was on his way back to Shanghai. :-( We both knew it was coming and we were dreading it... his going back to China. Even though Michael works crazy hours and travels some in China, we see each other much more than we did for the year prior to moving there. We have gotten used to being together more. And now, he will not be back in the States until the end of June.

While the boys and I are sad to be apart from Michael, they are having a great time in Alabama. Getting spoiled by their Poppie and Nonnie. Poppie takes them on tractor and 4 wheeler rides almost daily. Nonnie has an endless supply of ice cream, pudding, cookies and other treats Mom and Dad don't usually let them have. They are loving it! All of it!

Overall, it has been great Coming to America. I speak for Michael and I when I say we were surprised when driving into Kalamazoo we looked at each other and said, "This does not feel like home anymore." We did not expect to feel that way. We had no sense of loss or sadness driving away from our house in MI on Saturday. But the loss we didn't feel about the house went to leaving our friends. We have been blessed beyond words by our friendships in Michigan. It was SOOO hard leaving those friends this time. Even though I want to be in China, I want my friends too. I remind myself that while I may not see my friends, our friendships will remain! All of you MI friends take note....We will be back! At least to the States. And we are looking forward to spending time with you all once again!

I should go for now. It has been an eventful few days here. Maddox and Gabe have been "trading" sickness all week. Madd-Dog vomited all over me and Mimi's (Emily) recliner yesterday. That made for an exciting 10 minutes! Haha. Gabe has been running a fever all day today. No recliner vomiting so far from Gabe thank goodness! It's hard when the kiddos are sick. I feel so helpless as a mother. Hopefully everyone will recover soon.

Have a good rest of the week family and friends!

Maddox and Poppie riding the tractor/mower.


Poppie (my dad), my nephew Jordan, Maddox & Gabe. Playing some golf.


Great Nonnie (my mom's mom), Gabe & Maddox.


Nonnie (my mom) and Gabe doing some painting.