Outings in Shanghai

I know, I know, it's been too long between posts, but really, with the response Mike got about how funny the Poo Poo Pants are, it's a tough act to follow. Don't expect too much humor here, I just want to give you a peek into what we've been up to here.

While Rachel was here last week, we went a lot of places around Shanghai, and because we had our own personal photographer, we got a lot of pics. Here, Kate and AJ are at the little play area at our apartment. These are some pics from our day at Century Park. Century Park is probably the only green space in Shanghai that I've seen so far that allows you to walk on the grass. It is a huge park, and we actually got lost. I guess it is probably equivalent to Central Park in New York. Me and AJ on the Bee ride, which they loved. See, very Sandy Lake Park! Kate and AJ playing in the water fountain thing. This was a great way to cool off, since our AJ thermometer was reading bright red. It was on our way to this that we took the picture of the poo poo pants. Oops, should have cropped that picture before putting it in. Sorry, didn't mean to show the guy grabbing his crotch in the background!

After the water fountain play, on a bridge in the park.

We found a little path to take in the park, and this is what led us to getting lost.

On our way to dinner one night. I told you everyone stares at us. Is there a single Chinese person in this picture that is NOT gawking?? Even the kid in the dad's arms is staring at us. Apparently, the parents in China don't teach their children that it is rude to stare. Really, we get looks because people are curious. For the most part, people are smiling and kind, only a few times have we gotten scowls.

After dinner, behind us is the other side of Shanghai, Puxi. Along the river behind us is a historic part of town, called the Bund. The Chinese don't have a knack for naming things well, in my opinion.
We went to the Shanghai Aquarium, and as you can see, they had an exhibit on deadly aquatic animals. Don't worry about scaring the kids, geesh!

This was a cool place to visit for the adults, not the kids. It was the Urban Planning Museum. What you see is a model of the whole city of Shanghai. We couldn't even get the whole thing in the picture. We found our building and some other major landmarks, but it gave us a perspective on just how spread out and large this city is.

Rachel and I went out one day, while Mike stayed home with the kids, and we visited one of the only ancient sites that survived the Cultural Revolution. It is the Yuyuan Garden, and all I know is that it is old, unfortunately I don't know much more than that since all the signs were in Chinese. But, you can see for yourself some of the traditional Chinese architecture. In an extremely modern city like Shanghai, you don't see much of this around. This is called the Dragon Wall, for good reason. The amount of detail was incredible. On Tuesday, Kate, AJ and I met some other moms of little ones at a wave pool to play for the morning. It was a great place, the entrance to the pool was a slope and not steps, so they could actually go out quite a way before it got too deep. They also had a sandy beach area and kiddie pool close, so we played there all morning. It was a relief in the hot, muggy weather here. Of course, now I'm paying for it, since I remembered to put sunscreen on Kate and AJ but in the chaos forgot to put some on myself. I'm burned worse than I ever have been in my life!

I'll try to be better about posting more often. Thanks for reading, Miss you all!