Christmastime is in full swing in Shanghai. One of the many great things about living in a city with such a diverse expatriate population is the Christmas market scene. I have never been to an authentic Christmas market, but I am guessing that Shanghai does a pretty bang-up job. As Angela mentioned in a previous post, we had purchased our first adult Christmas tree a few weeks ago, and desperately needed some decorations for it. We decided to explore a few of the local German and French Christmas markets in Shanghai. The best one we went to with a good group of friends, right down the street from our house. There are all kinds of Christmasy things to buy, and lots of mulled wine to drink (my favorite part). We had a great time, and picked up some nice hand painted ornaments for our little tree. On the way home from one of these markets, Angela and I also completed a major Shanghai goal: we got a golden taxi. I don’t know the story with the golden taxis, so I won’t pretend to make up any explanations, but what I do know is that Shanghai has made a limited number of British looking golden taxis under the name of the ‘London Taxi Company’. There are probably thousands of these taxis in the city, but we have only seen about eight, so I am imagining that there are only 100 in the entire city, and that merely spotting one is a miracle. Well, we did even better. We rode in one! On the way home from a little Christmas shopping, we spotted one sitting a few blocks away. Letting several perfectly good cabs drive by, we sprinted to this one and got it. Here is a shot of Angela emerging from the glorious golden taxi as proof.

It was more expensive than a regular taxi, but worth it due to the novelty factor.

The other events in our lives were our winter concerts. We both had two concerts that we had to put on with a lot of different students. I had a concert with my guitar class, and another concert with all of the band students. Angela had a 2nd and 3rd grade music concert, and a 4th and 5th grade concert. They all went very well!

Angela and her coworker Sean are masters of the cute factor when it comes to music concerts. For the 2nd and 3rd grade concert, they put on a mini musical called ‘Flakes’. Flakes involved a bunch of cute children wearing snowflake t-shirts and singing songs about the littlest snowflake, snirt (which is dirty snow), and other precious songs. When the curtains opened, revealing a stage full of children with the giant word ‘Flakes’ above them, the entire audience gasped with adoration. It was simply nauseatingly cute. They did great!

Angela’s 4th and 5th grade concert also went very well. They sang a few of the major hits, including ‘Zombie Style’ and the ‘Rainbow Connection’.

We have one more week ahead of us before we are off to Vietnam for three weeks. I am looking forward to that, of course!

All for now.