Choo Choo!

What an adventure! We just got back from the overnight train from Beijing to Shanghai. How exciting for Scottie to not only ride on his favorite "choo choo" but to sleep on one too! What fun.

Confucious Temple

In our minds, there is a significant difference between the theology of Buddhism and the philosophy of Confucianism, although we don't pretend to know very much about either. When we visited a Confucius temple, there were a striking number of external similarities to what we saw at the Buddhist temple. The temple architecture stressed different things (more dragons than people), but the layout was pretty much the same. Instead of a giant golden Buddha inside the temple, there was a giant golden Confucius. We were surprised to see so much incense burning and ritualistic chanting/singing...something else we saw at the Buddhist temple. Interesting...we weren't expecting to see so many quasi-religious aspects of Eastern religions here.

Part of the admission price (5 yuan...70 cents) was a bundle of incense to burn. So we did. A first for us.

The low-quality video below is sideways...sorry...you'll have to turn your head, but more important than the picture is the sound.

Farewell Dinner

It's hard to believe that our time in Shanghai has passed so quickly. Hyrum finished grading final exams on Friday, and as a precursor to our departure, the College of Engineering hosted a farewell dinner for us the Tuesday prior.
Pictured here are the dean, vice dean, some of our co-teachers, and our friend Yiming (standing far left) who has organized our trip and taken such good care of us.

And now for some shots of some more wild Chinese cuisine. Pictured are (1) drunken shrimp...raw shrimp swimming in some kind of sauce that we're pretty sure had alcohol in it (not something we ate), (2) crusted pork...most like Russian "sala"...the upper fatty layers of pig skin, (3) very delicious rice cones that you fill with sweet mandarin sauce, dragonfruit, and corn, and (4) the everything seafood bisque: clams, muscles, oysters, crabs, jellyfish, ... truly excellent, but jellyfish is hard to swallow, literally.

Sick Scottie

We had a scary couple of days this past week. On our trip to the canal town Scottie was tired, clingy, and hot; so hot in fact that at the restaurant we asked them to bring a fan and stripped off his shirt. Our Chinese friend was impressed with his belly. It was a hot day though so we assumed he was just a little overheated. However when we got home turns out the poor little tyke had a temperature of nearly 104 degrees. Thank heavens for baby Tylenol. After four days of high fevers, we were going to risk it and take him to a Chinese hospital. Luckily the fever broke over night and he is good as new. He didn't eat for about four days but luckily his cute belly is still intact.

Cute pics of Scottie & Mommie

At The Martyr's Memorial. A peaceful tomb surrounded by flowers, sculptures, reflecting pools. Many locals practice relax, jog, or exercise here. Scottie loved the long ramps to run up and down.

Longhua Temple

Shanghai's oldest Buddhist monastery, not too far from campus. We came at a good time--the monks were busy burning incense as offerings for the dead. One of the monks spoke broken English, so we were able to learn a little more about this fascinating religion and the monk way of life.

Most temples had one or three very large golden Buddhas. Below are some shots of a temple with hundreds of Buddhas...each one slightly different. Notice the little blue man in the second inner temple shot.

Sunday on the Bund

We took a Sunday stroll to a very crowded "the Bund". (Note to Shanghai travelers: Shanghai is crowded; the Bund on Sunday is purgatory.) A few shots of us, the Huangpu river, and the Pearl Tower. This area was part of the British concession, so that many of the buildings have a very Western look.



The real highlight of the trip were the crowds and crowds of paparazzi (aka, Chinese tourists visiting Shanghai). We literally couldn't stop walking without forming a crowd of onlookers...poking and prodding little Scottie, his blonde hair and big American blue eyes.

In the last picture, only about 1/2 of the crowd is pictured; there were probably 30-40 people taking glamour photos of Scottie and his entourage/dad. This sort of thing happened at least 5 times during our stroll. Ahhh, the adoring public!

Where's the beef?

This is what I thought I was be getting. As I understood it, the 4.50 yuan version included cheese.

And this is what I actually got. Really, it was quite tasty. But it caught me by surprise. In case you can't tell, the fixins inside include:
(1) Lettuce
(2) Tomato
(3) Bacon
(4) Cheese
(5) Egg

What? No beef? When we asked the lady at the window about it, we couldn't make out if she was trying to tell us they were out of hamburger that night, or that this "hamburger" didn't actually include any hamburger. Either way, it was yummy with an egg.

City tour #1: something old & something new

The College of Engineering at Shanghai Normal takes foreign lecturers on a couple of sight-seeing excursions during the term. Yesterday, we went to Yuyuan Garden and Xintianii. We've been outside Yuyuan (or just "Yu") garden before, but today we went inside to see one of the oldest parts of Shanghai. Xintiandi is a super-stylish part of Shanghai in the French concession...we may have seen more Westerners than locals when we walked around. To us, Xintiandi felt like a stylish Newbury Street in Boston with a 1900's Chinese flare.

Scottie's best and worst moments...Best: feeding the large "goldfish" (carp) up close in Yu garden. Worst: running full speed into an invisible glass wall in a Xintiandi shopping center.

Some Shanghai opera being performed on the street near Yu Garden.


Some beautiful structures in Yu Garden, including a 400 year old Gingko tree.


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Scottie's encounters with goldfish. We all had fun until the gray monster carp showed up. I managed to get a snapshot (doesn't do him justice) of the Chinese Loc Ness before he took off my hand....in the last picture, you can see one eye and his mouth, which probably opened to be 2.5 inches in diameter. He splashed Scottie, reared his ugly head, scared us all, and thus ended the goldfish feeding frenzy.

Welcome dinner

Last night, the College of Engineering threw a welcome dinner for Scottie, Nicole & me. The vice dean, co-teachers, and the incredibly friendly Yiming--our administrative assistant (more about her later)--took us to the Taoli restaurant, we we had several courses of Chinese food, including a few Shanghai specialties. We tried everything, and likes most of it.

The Shanghai specialties were:
(1) Cold pumpkin with pickled figs (Pumpkin was good, figs were...ummm...pickled)
(2) Rice balls (the texture and shape of soggy gumballs) in a slightly sweet sauce (Hyrum liked it, Scottie was suspicious)
(3) Marinated pork (Hyrum ate the lard and all, Nicole and Scott were more civilized)

The dinner highlights included:
(1) Ying-yang soup...in the Taoist tradition (yummy)
(2) Jellyfish salad with peanuts (Hyrum liked it, Nicole was indifferent)
(3) Tofu sprinkled with fermented duck eggs and coriander (sounds yucky, but pretty good)
(4) Lotus roots (bulbs) stuffed with sticky rice (yummy)
(5) A whole mandarin fish (head included) with relish in sweet-n-sour sauce (delicious!)
(6) Sauteed Chinese mushrooms & peppers (Nicole's favorite)
(7) Chinese "cakes" that you stuff with veggies before devouring

...and others: cucumbers & vinegar, shrimp & vinegar, and a boiling pot o' tofu...still on fire at the table. We topped it off with drinks of herbal tea, pecan juice, and coconut milk....which Scottie devoured...and dessert: fried sesame cakes and watermelon. Yum! Truly a feast.

Here are a few pics of the meal. We'll show pics of our gracious hosts in a coming post.




Blurb: (L to R, top to bottom): (a) the feast the Chinese-style lazy Susan turntable (why don't we have these?), (b) notice the ying-yang shape in the soup, (c) jellyfish salad, (d) bean curd with duck egg, (e) lotus roots, (f) the fish smiling at the camera next to a plate of shrimp, (g) Scottie opted for a pineapple Popsicle.

One full week of Shanghai

Today marks one full week in Shanghai. A few pictures to document our adventure...

Nicole has been collecting pictures of interesting bikes & motorcycles (we'll post later). But, we decided to give you a sneak preview with this fun shot of the bicycle parking lot at McDonald's near our room on campus.

Earlier this week, Nicole and Scottie went to the Shanghai Botanical Garden. Among the many attractions were dozens of sculptured shrubs and trees. Perhaps the most interesting was the little group of trees shown below. Also inside the garden was a place for Scottie to ride with Mommy on a "lu-lu-lu". That's not Chinese...at least we don't think. It's actually the word that Scottie has assigned to motorcycles. Since we've arrived, he's really become very verbal in his own little language. Then again, maybe he's just learning Mandarin faster than we are.

Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we found out that our favorite apartment monkey has a windshield attachment device. We had a good laugh trying to imagine this 3 foot stuffed animal hanging in the back seat of our little green Honda at home.

Scottie has become such a little boy recently. Sadly, with that comes more scrapes and bruises. He took a nasty spill on some cement steps that required some special care from Mommy, and a heavy application of Neosporin. It broke my heart to come home from work and see his scraped little face! If you take a close look at the last picture (click to enlarge), you can see the remnants of the wound. That pic was taken in the "underground children's market" that also includes an underground playground. Scottie is playing on a sort-of trampoline.

We can't begin to describe how fun it has been to have Scottie be a part of this adventure in Shanghai.