Enjoying Shanghai

Yesterday was a great day.  A typical day in Shanghai, and probably not so typical of my life in other cities.  But a really great day - allow me to walk you through it.

The girls and I woke up leisurely, around 8:30 in the morning.  We're weeks into summer now, and have established our new routine.  Its much like daylight savings time - we sleep an hour later, we nap an hour later, and we go to bed an hour later.  Everyone is happy.

I left at 9:30 to teach my music class.  This summer, I am teaching two Music Together classes each week.  A Shanghai Summer offers no other activities for young children, beyond week-long summer camps.  So I offered to teach this music class twice a week - one class for each child.  As this was my first week of teaching, I left the girls behind for both classes.  And could easily do so, because they could stay at home with Wendy, our ayi, all day.

I taught the class, and it went beautifully.  There were a few names that I found quite difficult to pronounce - Thieu (Filipino, I believe) and Ichinosuko (Japanese) are difficult to fit into the Hello Song, but that just adds to the fun of a very multicultural class.

Class went without a hitch, and then I jumped into the car and asked our driver to take me to zou yi fu de di fang - the fabric market.  I'd had a shirt made, and needed to pick it up.  The girls do not enjoy the fabric market, so this was the perfect day to run this errand.  Sitting in the backseat of Driver Zhang's air conditioned van, paying no attention to the ugly traffic or the heat outside, listening to my Ipod, was a very relaxing way to cool off from a good class.

Inside the fabric market, one of the buttons was no good - that pull on the buttons from a large chest was only in style for a few months, so I asked her to fix the button.  In the next ten minutes, I walked the market and found a really beautiful red, linen dress.  No negotiation on price - this dress would cost 200 RMB.  For under $30, I couldn't pass this dress up.  I'm going to a wedding in September, and this would be the perfect dress.  Measured for the dress, made a few tweaks to my taste and body style, and then picked up the shirt.  On the street, a family makes fried rice every day.  They recognized me and asked where the girls are.  I asked for extra pickled peppers and a dollop of chili pasta, and ate the whole thing in the car. YUM!

Without children and ahead of my deadline, I asked Driver Zhang to take me to an art supply store.  This place was amazing - lined with pulled canvas of different sizes, loads of calligraphy brushes, bottles and bottles of different color and style of paints, and plenty of other random items to keep children busy for the summer.  And really, this stuff if not meant for children - these are serious art supplies.  I got a large bag full of supplies and a pile of canvas for under 300 RMB - that's less than $50.  A steal in the US.

Then home to enjoy a clean house, well fed children, and naptime for the afternoon.  We walked to ice-cream after dinner and hung out at the playground, but probably could do that anywhere.  Put the girls to bed and spent the evening talking to my husband on the balcony.

This good day in contrast to the day before, where an exchange about removing mold from our walls left me yelling on the phone and sending heated (but neatly professional) messages to managers.  And wondering why I live in such a place as China, where such simple things as professionalism and customer service are so very different.

I've no real answer to why I live here, but I quickly moved past that frustration to enjoy this amazing city yesterday.