Pre Visit Day 3-4 House Hunting

Well, after 3 schools and about 20 properties we found a school and an apartment we like!! The school is called Yew Chung International School. Rilynn would be starting after we get settled in December. Each room has an English and Chinese speaking teacher. They also have an hour a day Mandarin lessons as well as violin lessons! They said that within 6 months children usually are at a conversation level and by 2 years they are fluent in Mandarin, including reading and writing!! That was absolutely crazy to us.

Today is negotiation day so hopefully our apartment we like stays available. They tend to go really fast around here. Our apartment is on the 16th floor in the compound Shi Mao Riviera Gardens in Pudong Shanghai. The views are incredible!! It has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, living room, kitchen, maid quarters, and a private elevator and entrance. It has a huge open area right out the door which is hard to come by in Shanghai. Also, it has 2 clubhouses. One of which is right outside our apartment.

Super Brand Mall- within walking distance to our apartment. Has a Toys R Us and Best Buy in it :)

Here are some pictures of the apartment

View of the outdoor wave pool and beach

One of 2 indoor pools at the clubhouse in our compound

The 1st clubhouse is huge! Has plenty of things to do :)

Another shot of the outdoor pool

Indoor gym. Also has a climbing wall on the side

Bowling alley. (Nilla better watch out Trevor, Rilynn may become a pro bowler!) LOL

AWESOME view from the 16th floor apartment. This is on the Pudong side on the river in Shanghai. The other side on the river is Puxi which is the older part of China. Pudong is only 15 years old and is much cleaner, has more grass with lots of greenery, and wider roads.

View from our apartment of the great grass area for the kids to play in.

Bathroom

One of the kids' rooms

Living Room- We can't wait to see the view at night!!

Pre Visit Day 2

Today was a loooooong day so this will be short. We spent the day with a guide touring the city of Shanghai. It was very informative and interesting, but a little overwhelming with the amount of info we were given. Overall though, it was a fun day. Went to a couple grocery stores, 'wet market', the Bund, People's Square, Super Brand Mall, and many other places that I can't remember the names. My favorite place aside from the mall (LOL) was the Fabric Market. At this market you are able to have custom made clothing done for you for a cheap price. You can either bring in a picture and they can replicate it or else they have examples and you can pick the fabric. This included anything from leather jackets, dresses, dress shirts, whatever... Very cool!!!

For dinner we went out with Sarah, Andy, and their 2 girls who are 4 and 2 to an Italian restaurant. Andy also works for 3M and they moved here 2 months ago. We had a lot of fun with them and will be looking forward to spending more time with them when we move here!

Tomorrow is house shopping!! We are looking at 8 properties, so it will be another long day but the day we've been waiting for! More to come...


This is actually in a chain grocery store.. It actually was really nice, but I think I'll be avoiding the turtles for dinner..

Shanghai is hosting the 2010 World Expo right now, which is a huge deal to them. This is a picture of their mascot who is all over the city.

View from the Bund overlooking the river at the Pudong area of Shanghai.

Kids store they are going to love!!!! They also even have a Toys R Us.

People's Square

Movie theater

Pictures from a 'wet market'... Pretty sure we won't be buying much except maybe some fruit and vegetables from these!

Chickens awaiting their end of life...

Hard to see, but there are fish in those tanks.

And this is the way the Chinese buy their meat. Our guide said most do not own fridges so they come to the markets daily for their food. Pretty sure we'll be staying away from this meat!! I'll be sticking to the frozen beef in the stores :)

Walking into the market

Pre visit Day 1

Well, I made it! For the first time flying by myself, I think I did pretty good with the 18 hour flight. It also helped knowing that Chad would be waiting for me!!

Day 1

We both had to get medical screenings to live in the country. It was an interesting process to say the least. It involved robes, EKG (with suction cups!), chest xray, ultrasound, bloodwork, general exam, and ENT exam with about 8 other strangers all waiting in line. Thankfully, it only lasted an hour and we were done.

We are staying at the Sheraton Hotel, which is right across the street from Chad's office at 3M.

We spent the afternoon at his office going over some paperwork and then went to the bank to get our accounts set up. The exchange rate is about 7 RMB to 1 Us dollar. Interesting fact- the largest bill here is 100RMB which is only about $13.. Makes for having to carry a big wad of cash!

The weather here is HOT and HUMID. It was about 95 degrees today, with earlier this week over 100! The temperature readings are in Celcius, so need to work on learning those :)Observation- there are a lot of umbrellas around. No sunglasses, just a lot people using umbrellas. We didn't explore too much until the evening when it was a little cooler out.

Traffic- EEK! I'm so glad we are not driving.. It's pretty much a free for all, not really paying too much attention to the pedestrians. Definitely need to be observant at all times :)

We went out for a walk and found a great little restaurant, McDonald's! LOL.. It was cheap and tasted the same, woohoo for us! We took a gamble eating the lettuce on the Big Mac, but didn't drink the Coke because of the water. Probably would've been ok, but didn't want to risk it. . Thankfully, I had a can of diet coke earlier in the lounge.. (Raina, this is for you!)

Duck anyone?

Went to a mall and looked around, saw a DQ and Subway... YAY! Also, went into a supermarket and feel A LOT better about the food and prices.. I really think we'll be able to do this!

On the way back, we walked past a park playing music and a ton of people all dancing.. It was pretty cool and different.

Aside from being a little tired still, it was a good day.. I'm feeling better about going to live here for the next couple of years :) Tomorrow is a city tour which should be fun. More to come after that...