Concerts and Christmastime

December 12, 2014January 23, 2016Leave a comment

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.

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Cooking in Shanghai

November 11, 2014January 23, 2016Leave a comment

Cooking in Shanghai can be difficult. You are surrounded by restaurants, dinner dates, and then there is Sherpas, the website the delivers food right to you door! But why is cooking in Shanghai difficult? I mean even the groceries get delivered to your door.

The past few weeks I was selected to participate in a trial group for the app Sidechef. Sidechef is a step by step cooking app with loads of recipes and drinks. The app is great and easy to use, even my boyfriend was able to create some salmon burgers with it! I loved the app because it got me out of my cooking rut and gave me new recipes to pick from! So what did I make? I started with yellow curry! First of all, why have I never made curry before? This curry was so easy to make and tasted amazing! I used a pre-made curry paste to save on time and ingredients, the rest was chop and simmer! The big mistake I made was using purple potatoes! Note: Purple and Yellow do not mix well together, add shrimp and you get all kinds of strange colors! Thankfully it tasted good! I then tried and failed to make a “healthy” broccoli salad. I finely chopped broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower. Added mushrooms and almonds. My mistake was not measuring or following directions on the dressing. I added the juice of 1 lemon, random assortments of spices (mostly garlic pepper) And then thought it would be a good idea to add greek yogurt!

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October Review!

November 2, 2014January 23, 20162 Comments

October was a whirlwind month for Jason and I. Thankfully we came back from October break rested and ready for the busy month ahead. For me, October was the month I started my masters program. The program is offered though SUNY (Southern University of New York). The classes are on campus at SCIS and online. The on campus classes are given over 2 weekends, which means 15 straight days at school. Thankfully, my first class was low stress and and quick to get through!

For Jason, October was the month of the SCIS Music Festival. Jason had been working very hard to prepare for this event. The festival showcases all of the middle school muisc ensembles: guitar, percussion, choir, band, and orchestra. For band, Jason invited retired Iowa band directors Jim Fritz and Leon Kuehner to guest direct the bands. Jim, Leon and Leon’s wife Linda arrived to Shanghai the weekend before the festival. On Saturday we went out to eat at Di Shui Dong for some good “Chinese” food! Afterwords, they wanted to see the city so we took them to Captain’s Bar on the Bund.

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A Trip to Beijing, and Our International Guests

August 23, 2014January 23, 20162 Comments

We arrived back in Shanghai at the end of July, with my dad and brother following shortly after. They had planned a trip to China for three weeks, one of which we had left for summer vacation. My father Dennis and brother Eric arrived on July 31 and stayed with us until August 17.

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Summer in Iowa!

June 30, 2014January 23, 2016Leave a comment

We have started our summer break back in the USA! Our flight from Shanghai was a little rough and we ended departing 1.5 hours late and then at a standstill in Chicago. After some running in the airport we made our flight to Minneapolis and ended up getting in around 11:00…we were supposed to land at 8! A few of my cousins who were staying near by even stayed and waited with my parents! We had a 2hr drive to get to Lake Osakis and didn’t get to bed until 3 am…so needless to say it was a long day!

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June is here!

May 30, 2014January 23, 20161 Comment

We have arrived to our last month of our first year abroad! We have been keeping busy with work and the city! Two weeks ago I danced in the school dance production and it was amazing! The performance was about the environment and the students and teachers did a great job. It was so fun to dance with my fellow teachers and our dance was a hit!

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Yangshuo, China

May 16, 2014January 23, 20162 Comments

There are many benefits of teaching internationally at our school. One of them is without a doubt our annual China trips. Every grade level (except for senior IB students, whom everyone seems to want to make as miserable as possible) takes a trip in May to some part of China. I had the fortune of chaperoning the 7th grade trip to Yangshuo, China. I was supposed to go with the 8th graders to the tropical location of Hainan, but after learning that Yangshuo was the ‘outdoorsy’ trip, I realized that this was my place. We flew out of Shanghai at 7:00 AM on Monday, May 5. The plane was being flown by the father of one of our students. We took over the entire plane. I was surprised at how rowdy the students were during the flight. Flying was so common for them that they could not have been less concerned. I, on the other hand, was concerned enough for everyone. We arrived in Yangshuo and were met by our guides from Insight Adventures. Insight is a company that runs trips like this for schools all over China. Our guide’s name was Kevin, and he was awesome. Kevin was born in Southwestern China, but moved to Yangshuo for this job. After dropping our luggage off at our hotel, we immediately set off to the park for some group building games with Kevin. As you can see, Yangshuo is a beautiful place. Continue reading →

The Bicycle Project

March 19, 2014January 23, 20163 Comments

*Warning: This post is about my bicycle, and some viewers may find it incredibly boring.*

Many months ago, while sitting at the Shanghai Brewery, Angela and I were discussing our life goals. I decided that one of mine, as silly as it sounds, was to build a bicycle from scratch. So I started. Now, many months later, I have actually made some progress.

I had purchased several parts, but I did not realize that building a bicycle would require so many unique tools that most people did not own. I bought a few that I knew I would use later in life, but I needed to do several things to prepare my fork and was not willing to purchase the right tools. So I decided to find a bike shop. I found Factory Five. Factory Five specializes in fixed gear bicycles, but it was soon apparent that these guys were experts for all things bicycle. I brought in my fork and had the crown race installed, the steerer tube cut down to size and the expansion nut installed. I also bought two tires and two inner tubes. All of that cost me 190 RMB, or around $30. I could not believe it. What a steal!

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A Weekend In The Frozen Tundra…Harbin, China.

March 1, 2014January 23, 2016Leave a comment

Alright, tundra might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but Harbin was still pretty cold. Two of our good friends, Bell and Matt, decided that they were going on a weekend getaway to Harbin, China a few weeks ago. I could not have told you very much about Harbin when I agreed to go along, except that I knew that this city was the host of the annual Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival. Well, I can’t tell you all that much more about Harbin after having traveled there, but the trip was still great. On Friday night, we boarded a plane after having sat in the Pudong International Airport for many hours. We had a direct flight to Harbin, which is significantly closer to Russia than Shanghai. I was invigorated by the cold once we stepped off of the plane. Although I frequently find myself complaining about the cold, damp weather in Shanghai, this was a dry, more ‘real’ kind of cold. It made me think of winter in the midwest, and that filled me with glee. We had arranged a cab, and arrived at our hotel with no problems. The hotel had overbooked, so we had to share our room with some of our good friends who were homeless for one night.

We realized on our way to the hotel that the St. Sophia Cathedral was right down the road. On Saturday morning, we decided that this would be a great place to start our tour of Harbin, so we walked there. In the morning sun, it was actually quite pleasant outside.

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Chinese New Year Celebrations

January 30, 2014January 23, 20165 Comments

Eggs Benedict

Chinese New Year Celebrations have started! Which means for us NO SCHOOL! Recently Shanghai has been having some nice weather and pollution, so Jason and I decided to take advantage of it by going to brunch and walking around the French Concession and Bund last weekend. Our brunch at La Cocina was delicious. We weren’t planning on going to La Cocina but it was a good choice! Jason ordered the Eggs Benedict which was very rich and savory! Defiantly a unique take on Benedict but still delicious! I ordered the Croque Madam which came with a fresh salad. The bread was amazing and the taste was rich, toasty and CHEESY! After brunch we decided to stay in the French Concession area and search for some bike products for Jason! After sucessfully finding bike grease, we decided to continue our Sunday stroll down to the bund. We jumped on line 9 and took it all the way to the river! Since the pollution was so low (AQI of 75) the views of the skyline were amazing.