Journey of a Kumquat: Week 141 and Week 54.5

Again - so sorry for this late post. This afternoon I dropped the Levines off at the airport and am now at Matt's office (I like to blog here as his computer is faster than mine). So much to catch up on!

We flew last Wednesday night to Shanghai. You heard me - we took a red eye flight with 2 young kids. Why did we do this? Because I wanted to save some money on traveling (as we had to spend some money on Chinese visas, I thought this was wise). Was it wise? Overall, I say YES! Though Sophia entered the realm of overtired she and Charlotte basically slept on the long haul flight (and bonus - Charlotte slept on our puddlejumper to Kuala Lumpur).

We stayed at our friends the Levines. They have a stunningly beautiful four story house (a bungalow) in Pudong. The last time we saw the Levines we were in Hong Kong and their son Jared was a newborn (he is now almost six). They have a daughter Juliet who is 2 weeks younger than Charlotte. They also have four stories which made me nervous as Sophia always perched at the top of any given landing. Luckily she didn't fall down but there was a lot of lunging for her). On a positive note she is walking really well!

We had a pizza dinner with the Levines and the Bolsteins last Friday night and bid adieu to the Levines arrived at our house in Singapore on Saturday. Andrew is an old friend - between he and I we have had 4 daughters and no one had met each other prior to this trip.

We were typical Asian tourists with young kids - eating and napping and more eating and napping. , went to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, ate dim sum at Superbrand Mall, ate dinner at a boisterous brew house along the River and had Haagen Dazs ice cream (did I mention it was freezing?), attempted to walk down from People's Park to the Bund on Nanjing Road (we made it a block - it was blisteringly cold!), and walked through Yue Garden and Tainzifang. We also ate hot pot at Andrew's house on Xmas eve which was the most fun of all - with all four kids spending quality holiday time in Asia! Never would I have thought 17 years ago that we would be spending Christmas in Shanghai together... From Magic Kingdom to the Middle Kingdom!

OK - on with the pictures!

Lovely Juliet!

Jared and Monica make cake!

Walking!

Charlotte and her cupcake before I polished it off:

Sophia is not impressed in her lamb hat (this elicited a lot of gushing from the locals!):

Andrew and Amanda at Haagen Dazs:

Haagen Dazs alarm:

Bolsteins!
At Haagen-Dazs:

Nanjing Road:

Yue Gardens:

Tainzifang:

Shopping Mall I don't know the name of:

Drakes (cold weather does not make very smiley kid pictures for us)!
Haagen-Dazs

Nanjing Road:

Yue Gardens:

Tianzifang:

Anonymous shopping mall:

Ice cream shenanigans:

Blue steel:

Dinner and IKEA Gingerbread house making at the Bolsteins (the IE house was more stable than the Civil Engineer's house... good thing Matt is not a structural engineer):