Weekend Update

We almost made it through our trip without any illnesses. Almost. Whatever it was, it was awful, but mercifully, short- lived. Once again, hearty Elle was entirely unscathed. I think carrying around her fetid blanket has inoculated her against most disease. Luckily Liam stayed healthy, too. But, with both Justin and I out of commission for two days, we've seen an awful lot of the inside of our apartment. As it's been rainy and pretty miserable outside, that's probably not such a bad thing.

The day Justin was sick, Liam and I went out for a bit to an area called Taiking Lu. Taiking Lu is a really quaint arts district tucked away amongst new Shanghai development. The shops, restaurants and art galleries are housed in one of the few older areas that has not been razed. I had a fabulous time wandering the small alleyways, discovering gallery after gallery, and shop after shop. It seemed to go on forever, twisting and turning, with more fun discoveries at each turn. This was definitely a highlight of Shanghai for me.

Later that day, Elle, Liam and I went to Lovisa's house for a playdate. Lovisa lives in Pudong, across the river, about 30 minutes from our apartment. As I've mentioned, riding in a taxi here is a seriously perilous adventure and riding in one without carseats is outright terrifying. Every single time we are in a taxi we are involved in a near collision, and that is not surprising to anyone who lives in Shanghai. Knowing this, Lovisa kindly offered to have her driver come and pick us up. And since she has carseats already installed and her driver is much less reckless that mosttaxi drivers, I felt much more at ease making the trip with the kids. Yeah, her driver. Nearly all expats here have a car and driver at their service. Getting a drivers license is impossible for a foreigner and you really wouldn't want to drive here anyway. Hiring a full time car and driver is very cheap (relatively speaking) and is by far the best way to get around, especially if you live in Pudong.

Lovisa lives in a gorgeous home, one I wouldn't have expected to see in China. The houses look like any mini mansion you would see in Lake Forest or Beverly Hills. Along with her car/driver, they also have 2 ayi's (literally "aunties"), who care for the entire family morning to night. Cooking, cleaning, nannying, errands, whatever, whenever. Her husband was recently given a promotion that required moving back to the US. They said, thanks, but no thanks. Life is too nice for them here in Shanghai, especially with young kids. In fact, that's the consensus we've gotten from many of the expats we've met here. It's so cheap and so easy and so nice living here, if you don't mind the pollution, toxic water, and killer traffic, that is...

We had a great time playing with Max and Emmy, it's obvious that Elle really misses playing with other kids, and I was so happy she was able to spend the afternoon just being a kid. She loved dressing as a princess with Emmy and playing Star Wars with Max. When she discovered their trampoline in the backyard she screeched in delight. Lovisa and her ayi made us a delicious dinner and then the driver took us home later than night. For hours I had forgotten we were in China!

The next morning Justin was feeling better and I had not quite succumbed yet. It's a good thing, too, because it was the day of our modeling gig. Elle and I were squired away for hair and make-up, and then it was Justin's turn. When he came out with his pancake makeup and darkened eyebrows, I couldn't help but burst out laughing. Luckily, he kept his sense of humor. I looked at the shot sheet and was surprised to see they had us in 5 shots, I was just told one. So, instead of this taking an hour or two of our day, it was certainly was going to take 4-5 hours. And it did. Elle has decided that she most definitely does not want to be a model because it's "stupid and boring". And she's right, most of the time it is exceedingly boring. Waiting, waiting, waiting. She had no patience for the waiting and then when it was time for the shot she just wouldn't cooperate. They wanted her to be excited and pretend to play Wii. She sulked and slouched. Finally, daddy tickled her and I think they got the shot, but not without a lot of prodding on all our parts. The very last shot involving Elle was a dinner table shot. She was supposed to pretend to be excitedly about to eat pasta. But, she REALLY wanted to eat the pasta and threw a fit because she really wanted to eat and no she wasn't going to pretend. She again sulked and pouted and made angry faces and even left the table at one point. All this with the lights and camera's focused on us ready to go. I'm not sure they ever got the shot, they just moved on to Justin and I. It was a little embarrassing. One scene had Justin feeding me strawberries in the kitchen and another had us in bed making googly eyes at each other. We burst out laughing at one point and Justin said- "uh, sorry, we've been together over 15 years." We all laughed, and I think they ended up like our laughing shots better than our googly eyed ones. All in all, our day made for another story to tell. We discovered that this shoot is to be aired on a jumbo screen on Nanjing Rd. Basically, the equivalent of Michigan Ave!

That night, we went out to a famed Shanghai restaurant serving Yunnan cuisine. It was a really cool restaurant with fabulous food. We feasted like kings. And the next day, I was sick as a dog. Ok, I don't really know if I was sick from the food or if I had what Justin had, or a combo of both, but it sure felt like food poisoning to me. It was all I could do to drag myself from couch to bed to couch. Justin ran a few errands throughout the day, but otherwise we all stayed in all day.

Today was another grey, rainy day and although everyone is feeling better, we weren't very motivated to brave the weather. We sought out a Mexican restaurant for a taste of home. It's the first Mexican food we've had in nearly 4 months. In Shanghai, you could nearly forget you are in China as absolutely everything is available here. Tonight, as I put Elle to bed, I asked her what she liked best about our trip, and wasn't she happy we had taken this trip now? She said "no, I wish we would've stayed home" (but I could tell she didn't mean it). I said, you can't think of one thing? She replied "well, I really liked that big burrito today!"