Shanghai Bachelor/Bachelorette Party!

June 5, 2016August 9, 20161 Comment

As of today we have 8 days of school left. 8 days! Now before you continue reading, this post is written by me: Angela. I’m not as poetic as Jason and I tend to use a lot of exclamation points! Read at your own risk.

In April and May our wonderful friends threw us Bachelor and Bachelorette parties. We are so lucky to have amazing friends here in Shanghai! Jason’s party was at the end of April and was pretty low key. Our friend Ross designed awesome shirts for everyone to wear that included all the things Jason loved: Luther, Camp Shalom, Beer and Iowa. They turned out great!

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Great Bicycle Rides in Shanghai

April 24, 2016August 9, 20161 Comment

One of the few challenges that we encounter living in the mega-convenient city of Shanghai is where to go for a nice bicycle ride. Over the past three years, my standards for great bike rides have dropped dramatically. I used to consider a great bike ride to involve open country and absolutely zero cars. Now, if I have a protected bike lane that I am sharing with a thousand scooters, next to a road with heavy traffic, I call it a good day. However, I can still appreciate a great ride when I find one, and I have found a few in the past couple of months.

The Raleigh is ready.

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Four Iowans Abroad

October 6, 2015January 23, 20161 Comment

Angela and I recently hosted two very special guests. Angela’s mother Cindy and her grandmother Marjorie visited us for two weeks. It was awesome! They are both very laid back people, and were a pleasure to have around. It also gave Angela and I a chance to do a few things that we had not yet accomplished in and around Shanghai.

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August/September 2015: Back in Shanghai

September 6, 2015January 23, 2016Leave a comment

Angela and I are back in Shanghai and getting adjusted to being on a normal working person schedule. Although it would be great to be on vacation all of the time (and some of our relatives think that we indeed are), it is nice to be back into a routine. Angela has all new administrators, and is adjusting to a newly implemented schedule. I no longer teach any guitar classes, and get to teach just band without having to share the band room anymore. It is a tremendous relief for me to stay in the same room all day, every day, and get to teach band for every class. I am finding myself much more comfortable at the start of this year than in previous years. Angela is the lower school specials leader this year, and I am the 6th grade team leader. That means we are both extremely important people. Overall, it has been great getting back to our apartment and our life, and seeing all of our wonderful friends.

We recently did something that I have wanted to do for a very long time. It was our friend Juliet’s birthday, and for her birthday she wanted to go to a classy afternoon tea. Being an American, I have never been to afternoon tea as a meal or activity, so I was excited to try it. I was also excited that afternoon tea was going to take place at the Fairmont Peace Hotel. This is a really old, classy hotel on the Bund, and also home to the ‘Old Jazz Band’, which is Shanghai’s oldest jazz band. All of the members were in their 80’s, and had been playing together for many years. I have wanted to hear them play since we arrived in Shanghai.

Angela and I enjoying our very first afternoon tea.

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Visitors in Shanghai!

July 8, 2015January 23, 2016Leave a comment

At the end of June, Jason and I had the pleasure of hosting my brother Jon and sister in-law Rachel in Shanghai. After spending a week in Beijing, Jon and Rachel flew in to Shanghai the day after our school let out. Before heading to Chengdu we fit as much in as we could as the weather was pleasant and the air quality was good.

On the day that they arrived, we took Jon and Rachel to our go-to tailor Tony and Helen at the local fake market that we frequent as they were interested in making some cheap tailored clothes. On our way home, we stopped for lunch at a delicious Muslim pulled noodles restaurant near our metro stop (S. Shaanxi) on line 10. For less than 40RMB we ate some tasty hand pulled noodles.

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Shanghai Weekend!

June 14, 2015January 23, 2016Leave a comment

Wow what a crazy week of highs and lows! First off, we have to give a huge THANK YOU to the Shanghai Bloggers and all the companies for the amazing goodie bag! Fields (an online grocery store) was very creative and gave us product that related to our blog! Can you guess what it was? Corn! So if you’re looking for a way to keep up with all the Shanghai bloggers, download the app! Besides the amazing party, I had my week of concerts. It was stressful and exhausting but well worth it! This year Sean and I did 2 mini-musicals for grade 4/5 and 2/3. Both concerts went extremely well and the kids had a blast! The past 2 years have flown by, but I have to say Sean and I have done a pretty good job! Continue reading →

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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Thanksgiving year 2

November 30, 2014January 23, 20161 Comment

I can’t believe that tomorrow is the 1st day of December! Holy cow, this year has gone fast! Thanksgiving in Shanghai is always a fun time. There is never a shortage of things to do. This year we had 3, yes 3, Thanksgivings to attend! Thanksgiving 1, was actually on Thursday, at a restaurant called Captain Rooster. Boramy, Austin (friend from UNI) and the GKs all joined for an all you can eat and drink extravaganza. We love Captain Rooster, because they have amazing fried chicken and mac&cheese! There turkey wasn’t bad either! The place is pretty small and it was very busy. Since it was still in the 60s we opted to sit outside! However, by sitting outside, we got a little shorted on all the food! They menu included: Turkey, green bean casserole, turkey pot pie, sweet potato casserole, mashed potato, stuffing mac and cheese, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and egg nog. It was a lot of food and all tasted great!

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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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