Update 4: Christmas in Shanghai
Read More
Life in Shanghai has reached some sort of sense of normality. I have a bit of a routine - including frequent visits to my local grocery store which has an incredible selection of very fresh food! If I'm too lazy to walk down, they will deliver anything in 30 minutes directly to my door for under a dollar extra!
Since I would be spending Christmas in Shanghai, I wengt ahead and got a Christmas Tree! It's pretty awesome. Fake - sadly...but prelit and quite tall. I bought some ornaments to add to the ones I already had. The festive fireplace video from YouTube completes the scene!
With the encouragement of the school nurse, I helped out at a school swim meet held at our school. I was the starter for the event. It mostly went fine!
Meet Anna! She's the Head Nurse at our school. We met during my second week in China and hit it off. She's a pretty great gal! We took some photos around our school to get a nice picture to send to the parents for a Christmas gift (a fun surprise to introduce her!). She pretty much makes everything better!
Another shot of Anna and myself at the entrance to our school.
Very cute!
Random photo at a nice restaurant of the urinals. Not sure why they are filled with ice exactly, but whatever!
After a nice Birthday lunch, Anna and I took a nice walk down the Bund.
My church small group got several delicious treats after our Sunday lunch! It was great to celebrate with a good group of friends!
Nice view of one of the main shopping streets in Shanghai at night.
The iconic skyline of Shanghai.
Our first day of Christmas Break featured two hours of badminton with Anna and two students she knows very well. It was pretty fun! They have a big facility just for badminton. I will admit that I might have broken into a chant of "USA...USA...USA..." after particularly good winning shots!
Chilly morning walk around Shanghai.
Same shot as before, but now in the morning.
View of a Chinese mall around Christmas. Many people are surprised that Christmas decorations are pretty common around town. Sure, you don't see Jesus in a manger or anything like that, but the stores sure celebrate Christmas. The Chinese people don't treat it as a big holiday...their big holiday where everything shuts down and everyone travels is in six weeks - Chinese New Years.
Anna and I decided to visit Shanghai Disney! It was an incredibly full and fun day. It's nice having a Disney a 30 minute cab ride from your house. It's very Disney - down to the social distancing markings on the ground (which people generally ignore because we aren't in the States!)
Anna is quite a looker if you ask me!
Anna and I
Had an accident with one of the rides and lost a leg. Other than that - fun day!
Anna and I on a dragon boat rowing ride arounda. lagoon of some sort.
Went to a Frozen sing-a-long. One issue...the typical Frozen songs were all in Chinese. Undetered, I sang "Let it Go" in English!
Anna and Olaf (I love this picture!)
Disney was fully decorated for Christmas (we went on the 23rd)
Mickey!
Really long parade with every character you could think of!
The end of night fireworks / light show was pretty incredible!
On Christmas Eve we had a get together with 14 people for dinner and worship. We didn't go hungry - turkey, beef wellington, pasta, soup, and all the sides you could want! It was a great meal!
Any meal with assigned seating is a fancy meal in book!
Anna and I were sat at the kids table with little Ethan and Gabby!
Christmas Day presents. We had a nice day together featuring four different video chats - including two surprising my parents with the random Chinese girl next to me. It was a very special and relaxing Christmas Day!
Christmas Night featured a simple meal (we had a big lunch at a Thai restaurant) and a viewing of my holiday tradition of the Behold the Lamb of God concert held annually at the Ryman.
Anna headed off to spend a week with her family a few hours away so I had a little explore in the two days with nice weather. This is a park in the middle of Shanghai. It's quite nice, with a lot of cool stuff. The tough part was getting in. You've got to pay 10RMB (~$1.5) but it's really tough to figure out how to pay. I had to make up a Chinese name to go with my passport number and phone number - all to go to a park. There must be an easier way I wasn't noticing - it was very odd!
Trees! The park was nice, but I bet it's stunning in Spring (midwinter isn't its best season)
The next day I took a 2 hour metro ride (cost a lot - $1.40!) to Zhujiajiao - a river town on the outskirts of Shanghai. It's a basic tourist trap kind of place, but it was pretty!
Ancient Chinese restaurant. I sampled one of the local delacacies - the Egg McMuffin! I do try to stay out of American places like this - but for breakfast, sometimes you just need to grab something you know.
They had nice canals through the town where you could take a gondala ride.
Found a cool garden area with some nice stuff and cool fish.
Zhujiajiao
It's important to keep your pet chicken tied up when you let it eat outside.
Bridge
Not sure what all those things are...and I'm not sure I want to know. For those judging me for eating an Egg McMuffin, grab some of this for breakfast before thinking too harshly of me!