Single in Shanghai

This week, both of the boys went to camp for school. I know, I know, what a tough gig for the kids. Go to school for a month and then head out to camp. Three days away from school, books, homework to work on their “soft skills” (touchy-feely stuff to the lay person) and their teamwork skills. It is not your typical school activity for NA schools but it is something that happens here every year from Grade 6 - 12. It is a good chance for them to build relationships and Warren enjoyed his trip to Anjie last year (you might recall his blog post) so we knew this was coming but this year included both boys. In case you were wondering, the school doesn’t foot the bill for camp. If you want the kids to go, you pay. How much? Does it really matter!?!? Gear for camp….___ RMB, Cost for camp ___ RMB, 3 days without the kids….PRICELESS!!! Tammy and I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to get away by ourselves without the kids (without the kids!!!!). What would we do, where would we go, how could we do anything without the kids? All good questions but we knew this was coming so we had time to plan and be ready for the trip. I took some time off from work and we made plans for a couple of days in Shanghai.

It has been a L-O-N-G time since we’ve done anything without the kids. Seriously!! I don’t know that I remember the last time that both of them were gone somewhere at the same time. In fact, we believe it is the first time since the addition of child #2 that we’ve been able to get away for more than just one night (and even those times were few and far between). We’re not complaining, I mean that is what happens when you decide to have kids. Being a parent means that you chose to have kids and therefore you are responsible for the kids and you have to be the one to make the sacrifice (it doesn’t take a village, it takes parents!). So when the opportunity comes around that the kids get away….”Run Forrest!!!”. The challenge is that now we have to talk to each other (Holy Dr. Phil Batman!).

Tammy’s connections got us a great place to stay (more on that in another blog) which was Phase I of the journey. Phase II was to decide what were we going to do. After all, there was no one there to say “I don’t want to do that!”, “How much longer?”, “My legs are tired!”, “I’m hungry!”, and so on (and so on and so on). I mean, no kids! Hmmmm. What to do, what to do? We had the chance to do things that we can’t do with the kids around. So, we made a mental list. Top on the list as you might imagine…sleep (c’mon people, we’re married for crying out loud, get your mind out of the gutter). So we would try Taikang Lu, Yu Garden, Copy Market, and whatever else we would feel like doing. Phase III, we already had a good idea of where we would eat. Din Tai Fung is an absolute MUST every time we go to Shanghai. The xiaolongbao (Shanghai Steamed Dumplings) are delicious and if you every have the opportunity, you have to try this dish. If you like dumplings, you’ll love xiaolongbao. What makes xiaolongbao special? It is the very thin skin of the dumpling and the way that the juices from the meat inside the dumpling are trapped creating essentially a small soup broth inside each dumpling. There is a special way to eat them to get the most from the experience and just trust me, they are delicious. New York City Pizza is also one of the places we love to go because we get a good thin crust pizza with jalapenos that we have a hard time finding in Suzhou. Back home, we would order pepperoni pizza with peperoncini peppers (add a little spice without being over the top burners) but here we can’t find pizza in Suzhou with either the peperoncini or jalapenos. So, when we found a place that we could get the jalapenos on the pizza (and it is very good pizza), we try and stop by each time we can. After that, we really didn’t have much for plans for eating except to say, eat what we want, when we want and where we want (I don’t like that, I don’t want that, I want a burger, blah, blah blah). Usually we have to find places where the kids can eat, this time it was all about us (what a concept).

We even decided to take a walk along the river and get photos from both sides of the river, photos towards the Bund and photos towards the Pudong side of the river. Shanghai is an interesting city due to the history and nothing shows it more clearly than looking at the skylines for both sides of the river. The Bund side has more old style European style architecture and the Pudong side is very modern architecture. We had never taken a walk along the river, especially at night and we wanted to have that experience. Not to say that we couldn’t do this with the kids but it was much easier without the extra comments thrown in. [Editors note: It may seem that we’re slamming our kids and throwing them under the bus with this post. I think all parents understand what we are saying. You can love your kids but there are times where they push your buttons and they make you want to auction them off at the corner for whatever pocket change you can get. Does that sound wrong? To paraphrase “Take my kids….please”.]

So Wednesday, we hopped on the train and headed to Shanghai to see if we can still survive by ourselves without the kids or anyone else around. Well, that is without anyone else we know since Shanghai has over 18 million people. We left from the new Suzhou SIP railway station which was about 10 minutes away from the house. Clean, empty and modern would be words to describe the station. After all, it is new so there isn’t much else to say about it. It wasn’t full of people so we got to sit back and relax as we waited to board the train. When the train was called, it wasn’t the typical mad rush to get through the check-in, it was orderly and without any rush at all (kind of anti-Chinese if you will). When we got on the train, we found people in our seats but they got up and stood up. There are standing room tickets (really, standing room on a train that travels at very high speeds, not what you would call a safe place to be but then again, it might be better to end it quickly, as Stephen King would say "I want to sit at the front of the plane so I can be the first to the crash site.") they sell for the trains now so these people had gotten on the train somewhere before our stop and sat in the seats until we got there. It was awkward since one of the people was an elderly lady. We tried to get them to take the seats and we would stand but they would have nothing to do with it. We felt badly but they weren’t going to accept the seats so we sat down and tried to ignore them as the old lady was hacking up a lung during the ride. This was one of the new “G” trains which go faster than the old “D” trains. The G train gets to speeds in excess of 300 kph (we saw the maximum speed of 315 kph on the readout) so it’s very fast to get around. We made it to Shanghai in less than 25 minutes which is super. It makes you wonder why trains don’t make it in the US, but that’s another story. So upon arrival, we transfer to the Shanghai Metro (subway) system to get around. We packed light and had everything in two backpacks just to be sure we could get around easy. We learned early on that rolling luggage is a huge pain in the butt when traveling so now we have learned how to use backpacks to get around. This is one of those changes we have incorporated into Chinese life for us. Before, just to go to my parents house 3 hours away meant 2 large suitcases and a whole bunch of other stuff. Now, the motto is pack light or don’t go at all. So, we got on the metro and headed to Din Tai Fung for lunch. We had the Xiaolongbao, Pork Steamed Buns, Chicken & Shrimp Spring Rolls and Fried Rice for lunch. It was good and not too filling (with the exception of the steamed bun, that spends some time in your belly while you try to digest it) so we still had plenty of energy to burn to head on to the hotel where we were staying. To find out where we stayed, you’ll have to check back and find out, this is too big a tale to add to the lengthy first day posting.