Well, we’ve arrived in China, after a long but not-too-bad flight. The girls were exemplary travellers, except for a small meltdown for Maddie landing in Shanghai. It had been a long journey for a 3 year old.

We were happy to find, at 3am, that our Ramada hotel room was, in fact a suite, and that we have two rooms; which means one for us and the girls sleep in the ‘living room’. This is the nicest hotel either of us have stayed in together, at about the same rate as a motel in Canada. This hotel is also great because it is our only enclave of (partial) English speaking people. We would have been hard pressed to buy a train ticket for our next journey otherwise.

Shanghai is a huge city, full of lights. It mixes the old and the new, where hip, young people talk on their iphones next to someone driving a moped carrying 12 water cooler bottles and a passenger. Crossing the street is an exercise in caution, as pedestrians are the low man on the totem pole. Each street has a lane of two way moped/bike traffic then two or more lanes of vehicles then another lane of two way, two-wheeled traffic. It seems that anyone turning left doesn’t care who is crossing the street and the two wheeled vehicles just keep on going anytime. Together these make for a lot of possibilities of being run over. We just try to stick close to the Chinese while crossing the street, as they don’t seem bothered by this at all.

Things as we know them can be very different here. Simon was happy to learn that there is a Starbucks beside our hotel, he wanted to ease into his non-Canadian coffee experience. I also am fond of my chai tea lattes, but there was no chai tea listed. Instead they have a green or black tea latte. This is what I got, it’s actually quite delicious and I think I’m going to miss them. Going to Starbucks is definitely a luxury for the Shanganese, as it costs about 5 times more than a coffee at a bakery or anywhere else, about $5 Cdn.

Emily is a picky eater so we tried ordering cheese pizza for her a few times. The first time we got a flat bread with spring onions inside it. Needless to say that was nixed. The second time it took 3 waiters to explain that we wanted only cheese on the pizza. Apparently that means no tomato sauce too. Tonight it was late so we tried Pizza Hut. Altogether pretty good, but still not up to Emily’s standards. She is going to end up eating a lot of rice on this trip. Madeline is much more adventurous with food, she liked the dumplings and spring rolls I had at lunch-time. I’ve been sticking mostly to dim sum dishes, as they are a little simpler and I figure contain less of the unknown. They also often have photos on the menu, which is really the only way we can order anything. Our attempts in using our phrasebook are usually met with blank stares, it’s all about the pronounciation, and we definitely are lacking in that department.

At Expo I had to get used to the lack of personal space. There are numerous lineups, and the person behind you is literally right behind you. It’s ok and I only had to give one guy who inadvertently stuck his tripod in my ribcage the ‘big elbow’ as I like to call it. The concept of not passing someone in a lineup seems to be lost on the Chinese as well.

This may sound like a negative rant but I like to see the differences in things. The Chinese we’ve met are very generous and eager to be friendly. They seem to be very interested in us and are always giving us a smile and a hello or ni hao; especially if they also have children. The photo-taking is another story…