Navigating lunch

You may be thinking that it doesn't really feel like we are living the life you mentally expected that we would live, given the fact that we've moved all the way to China. Birthday parties, car and driver, nice apartment, California-style shopping centres, Starbucks etc. It is true, we have a good lifestyle here although we aren't a nice 4 minute walk to the beach like we were in Half Moon Bay.

There are some things (well many actually) that are quite different from the US. Carl and I just went for a nice Chinese lunch in a restaurant opposite the office. I wouldn't exactly call it a Western restaurant, but there are plenty of westerners in there and it isn't a $2 meal like many other places we could walk to for lunch. The food is good quality and is well presented. They have a menu in English with photos, which should help but doesn't really. This is what was on the menu today:
Chives-hump
Fishing juice lo film
The goose-crispy lotus root
Wines drunk-yan Pa
Timely help
Opera hydrangeas
Shrimp drama eels
Volume dishes furong

Anyone feeling hungry?

Ordering tends to be hit and miss. We have to think of it as an 'opportunity' to try new things, as clearly we have no idea what we are about to get. I don't think that we've eaten dog (not knowingly anyway). There is none of the 'can I have this on the side?' or 'do you have a low-fat version?' or 'I'm allergic to nuts/seafood/shark fin.' Our strategy is often to point at a nearby table and ask for one of their safe-looking dishes, and Carl escorted the waiter to the rice cooker today to point and say 'some of that' so at least we knew we could have something familiar. As it turns out we had a delicious Sichuan chicken, prawn and peanut, rice, and jasmine tea. Mmmmmm. Now I'm in my post-lunch food coma.

Happy Monday

Sunday brunch

Carl and I have had a tough week at work; early mornings and late nights, combined with a couple of evenings out made for a tired mummy and daddy. Olivia has been on angelic form recently. Since recovering from her cough and cold early last week, she is now showing her true personality again. Chatting away in both English and Chinese; entertaining herself and others, and just being an absolute cherub. We are so lucky.
Today was a day to recharge. We ate a late brunch at Chef Too. We walked there from our apartment but Olivia showed no sign of being tired when we got there so we went across the road to a large 'california-style' brand-new shopping centre. Olivia ran around, played with the fountains, drank some of Daddy's coffee, and then passed out in the stroller so we could go and have a nice peaceful meal. Good parenting, other than Carl dressed her in an outfit that we inherited from Joni and, even though it was the first time she has worn it, it was a little short. When she browses these photos when she's older, she will ask what we were thinking when we dressed her this morning. Enjoy!

Lion dancers

On Saturday we were invited to a birthday party for a 1 year old, which of course is just an excuse for adults to get together, drink and socialize. It was held in a residential complex about 2 miles from our house, we'd heard much about the complex but never considered it to live as, unfortunately, it was over Apple's budget. I am glad that we didn't see it previously, as I would have lobbied hard to live there. It had a fabulous outdoor space with loungers, huge kiddie playground, and large lawn area. Inside was equally as nice with a cafe, bar, large library and kids entertaining room. Our place is perfectly nice, but not in the same league.
There was a great mix of expats at the party, and a healthy dose of small children. Luckily there was enough ayi's to keep an eye on all the children. They hired Dragon dancers for some entertaining, which wasn't ideal for the small kids but the older ones liked it. Olivia was interested, but absolutely petrified at one point when she was at the top of the slide, and the dragon was coming up the steps. Poor thing, she may never like dragons again after that!
A good time was had by all, and we will try and get more invites over to their pad!

Downtown Singapore

Once Carl's official work trip was over, Apple was no longer paying for the hotel : ( but an old friend of mine has a very nice pad right in the middle of Singapore. He was out of town for the week and kindly volunteered to let us stay there. It was perfect. Great location. Two bedrooms, so Olivia could have her own room. Floor to ceiling windows of the park and walking distance to everything (Singapore isn't very big!). And no need to worry about entertaining/being entertained as we had the place to ourselves.
Olivia made the most of exploring his place and was straight into the medicine cabinet and every cupboard and drawer. Poor guy will be blaming anything he can't find in his apartment on her for years!
Here is the view of the park. Very nice.

Exploring in Singapore

I think that I was in culture shock for the first few hours. I couldn't believe that I was still in Asia. Singapore is so clean, and western, and the traffic—cars actually stop at red lights, and don't directly drive at pedestrians! We walked around Raffles and had Singapore Slings in the Long Bar. I could just imagine being there 100 years ago when it was still mostly jungle and there were tigers roaming the streets. It is very tropical and verdant.
Saturday we spent browsing the shops and ended up buying an afghan rug. I've been promising Carl one ever since we got married. We're going to try and carry it home on the plane with us (what with stroller, baby, pack-n-play, luggage, computer etc I am not quite sure how it is going to work). Anyway, our bartering skills quite honed, we settled down into mellow holiday mode and shopped, walked and ate for the remaining two days.

Pictures are Olivia feeding the fish at the Fountain of Wealth.

Olivia sleeping during our rug negotiations.


Olivia checking out the fountain on Orchard Road.
















A curry in little India. Plate = Banana leaf!

Flying to Singapore

Carl and I had back-to-back work trips to Singapore. Oh so jet-set. Carl left on a Sunday and Olivia and I stayed in Beijing until Friday morning when we hopped on a plane together to meet up with Daddy. I had been dreading it, because of the length of flight and because I was on my own. Luckily we flew Singapore Airlines and, as it turned out, there were more air stewardesses than passengers. Olivia had about 50 seats to herself and spent about 5 hours running up and down the aisles, plus hiding in business class behind the curtain that they put up to separate the VIPs from the rest of us riff raff. After 5 hours of running she finally decided to take a nap, unfortunately I had to wake her up to get her off the plane! The trip really wasn't too bad other than a very early morning departure. Here we are in the airport having a pic-nic on the floor.
And here she is looking completely angelic taking her nap on the plane.
Too cute.
One of the best feelings was that I knew I didn't have to manage her on the way home; Carl had to do that!